No More Learning

When next he came to me he was drunk--royally drunk on many poets for
the first time revealed to him. His pupils were dilated, his words
tumbled over each other, and he wrapped himself in quotations. Most of
all was he drunk with Longfellow.

"Isn't it splendid? Isn't it superb? " he cried, after hasty greetings.

"Listen to this--

"'Wouldst thou,' so the helmsman answered, 'Know the secret of the sea?
Only those who brave its dangers Comprehend its mystery. '

"By gum!

"'Only those who brave its dangers Comprehend its mystery. '" he repeated
twenty times, walking up and down the room and forgetting me. "But I can
understand it too," he said to himself. "I don't know how to thank you
for that fiver. And this; listen--

"'I remember the black wharves and the ships And the sea-tides tossing
free, And the Spanish sailors with bearded lips, And the beauty and
mystery of the ships, And the magic of the sea. '

"I haven't braved any dangers, but I feel as if I knew all about it.
"

"You certainly seem to have a grip of the sea. Have you ever seen it? "

"When I was a little chap I went to Brighton once; we used to live in
Coventry, though, before we came to London. I never saw it.

"'When descends on the Atlantic The gigantic Storm-wind of the
Equinox. '"

He shook me by the shoulder to make me understand the passion that was
shaking himself.

"When that storm comes," he continued, "I think that all the oars in
the ship that I was talking about get broken, and the rowers have their
chests smashed in by the bucking oar-heads. By the way, have you done
anything with that notion of mine yet? "

"No. I was waiting to hear more of it from you. Tell me how in the world
you're so certain about the fittings of the ship. You know nothing of
ships. "

"I don't know. It's as real as anything to me until I try to write it
down. I was thinking about it only last night in bed, after you had
loaned me 'Treasure Island'; and I made up a whole lot of new things to
go into the story. "

"What sort of things?