
Watson and the Shark, by John Singleton Copley, 1778. National Gallery of Art, Washington DC.
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Miscellany
“If ever a loss at sea fell under the definition, in the terms of a bill of lading, of Act of God,” Joseph Conrad wrote, “this one does, in its magnitude, suddenness, and severity; and in the chastening influence it should have on the self-confidence of mankind.” The sentence ends the first paragraph of his 1912 essay “Some Reflections on the Loss of the Titanic.”
Take back your golden fiddles, and we’ll beat to open sea.
—Rudyard Kipling, 1892