The theme of the sea is heroic—epic. Since the first stirrings of theimagination of man the sea has enthralled him; and since the dawn ofliterature he has chronicled his wanderings upon its vast bosom.
It is one of the curiosities of literature, a fact that old IsaacDisraeli might have delighted to linger over, that there have been nocollectors of sea-tales; that no man has ever, as in the presentinstance, dwelt upon the topic with the purpose of gathering some ofthe best work into a single volume. And yet men have written of thesea since 2500 B.C. when an unknown author set down on papyrus hisaccount of a struggle with a sea-serpent. This accou