(no subject)
The Muse asks: What have you most regretted losing?
There is not a single sailor lost under my command whose death I have not regretted, even those who fell due to their own incompetence or difficulty in learning the ways of the ship. I have also been distressed by every court-martial I have ever witnessed, even those where men sentenced to death were guilty of their crimes. I can make it signify with murder, but it brings me low when men are run up for trying to sneak back to their sweethearts or breaking discipline with one another, especially men who repent of their crimes.
What I have most regretted losing, however, is time. I was astonished when I saw my little girls after nearly a year at sea! And I never even knew that Sophie was to have another child until I learned of George's birth when the mail finally reached us. Stephen is always complaining how we rush him from one place to the next, crying that there is not a moment to lose, and as happy as it makes me to have a good wind behind me, I sometimes think that there is something to what he says.
There is not a single sailor lost under my command whose death I have not regretted, even those who fell due to their own incompetence or difficulty in learning the ways of the ship. I have also been distressed by every court-martial I have ever witnessed, even those where men sentenced to death were guilty of their crimes. I can make it signify with murder, but it brings me low when men are run up for trying to sneak back to their sweethearts or breaking discipline with one another, especially men who repent of their crimes.
What I have most regretted losing, however, is time. I was astonished when I saw my little girls after nearly a year at sea! And I never even knew that Sophie was to have another child until I learned of George's birth when the mail finally reached us. Stephen is always complaining how we rush him from one place to the next, crying that there is not a moment to lose, and as happy as it makes me to have a good wind behind me, I sometimes think that there is something to what he says.