The Mirror of the Sea

The Mirror of the Sea

Joseph Conrad

4.0
Comment(s)
11
View
49
Chapters

An anchor is a forged piece of iron, admirably adapted to its end, and technical language is an instrument wrought into perfection by ages of experience, a flawless thing for its purpose. An anchor of yesterday (because nowadays there are contrivances like mushrooms and things like claws, of no particular expression or shape - just hooks) - an anchor of yesterday is in its way a most efficient instrument.

The Mirror of the Sea Part 1 Landfalls and Departures I

"And shippes by the brinke comen and gon,

And in swich forme endure a day or two."

The Frankeleyn's Tale.

Landfall and Departure mark the rhythmical swing of a seaman's life and of a ship's career. From land to land is the most concise definition of a ship's earthly fate.

A "Departure" is not what a vain people of landsmen may think. The term "Landfall" is more easily understood; you fall in with the land, and it is a matter of a quick eye and of a clear atmosphere. The Departure is not the ship's going away from her port any more than the Landfall can be looked upon as the synonym of arrival. But there is this difference in the Departure: that the term does not imply so much a sea event as a definite act entailing a process - the precise observation of certain landmarks by means of the compass card.

Your Landfall, be it a peculiarly-shaped mountain, a rocky headland, or a stretch of sand-dunes, you meet at first with a single glance. Further recognition will follow in due course; but essentially a Landfall, good or bad, is made and done with at the first cry of "Land ho!" The Departure is distinctly a ceremony of navigation. A ship may have left her port some time before; she may have been at sea, in the fullest sense of the phrase, for days; but, for all that, as long as the coast she was about to leave remained in sight, a southern-going ship of yesterday had not in the sailor's sense begun the enterprise of a passage.

The taking of Departure, if not the last sight of the land, is, perhaps, the last professional recognition of the land on the part of a sailor. It is the technical, as distinguished from the sentimental, "good-bye." Henceforth he has done with the coast astern of his ship. It is a matter personal to the man. It is not the ship that takes her departure; the seaman takes his Departure by means of cross-bearings which fix the place of the first tiny pencil-cross on the white expanse of the track-chart, where the ship's position at noon shall be marked by just such another tiny pencil cross for every day of her passage. And there may be sixty, eighty, any number of these crosses on the ship's track from land to land. The greatest number in my experience was a hundred and thirty of such crosses from the pilot station at the Sand Heads in the Bay of Bengal to the Scilly's light. A bad passage. . .

A Departure, the last professional sight of land, is always good, or at least good enough. For, even if the weather be thick, it does not matter much to a ship having all the open sea before her bows. A Landfall may be good or bad. You encompass the earth with one particular spot of it in your eye. In all the devious tracings the course of a sailing-ship leaves upon the white paper of a chart she is always aiming for that one little spot - maybe a small island in the ocean, a single headland upon the long coast of a continent, a lighthouse on a bluff, or simply the peaked form of a mountain like an ant-heap afloat upon the waters. But if you have sighted it on the expected bearing, then that Landfall is good. Fogs, snowstorms, gales thick with clouds and rain - those are the enemies of good Landfalls.

Continue Reading

Other books by Joseph Conrad

More

You'll also like

The Placeholder Bride's Secret Billionaire Revenge

The Placeholder Bride's Secret Billionaire Revenge

Luo Ye
5.0

For two years, I was the invisible force behind tech billionaire Kieran Douglas, convinced that our "private" romance was his way of protecting us from the tabloid spotlight. I managed his mergers, warmed his bed, and waited for a future that didn't exist. The illusion shattered at 6:00 AM when a Page Six alert debuted Kieran’s "real" romance with socialite Aspen Schneider. Before I could even process the betrayal, Kieran sent me a cold, professional text: "Order flowers for Aspen. Pink peonies. Her favorite." When I tried to walk away, my own mother called me a disgrace and threatened to lock my inheritance forever unless I married a sixty-year-old businessman to save her failing estate. At a high-society gala that same night, Aspen intentionally crushed my burned hand in front of the cameras, while Kieran stood by and dismissed me as a "mediocre assistant" who had overstayed her welcome. I stood in the cold New York rain, drenched in champagne and humiliation, realizing that every sacrifice I made for Kieran was a joke. I was a ghost in a penthouse that was never mine, discarded the moment his "soulmate" returned. To the world, I was just a placeholder whose time had run out. But Kieran forgot one thing: my father’s multi-million dollar trust fund unlocks the moment I legally marry. I didn't need love; I needed a signature and a shield. I walked into a discreet law firm and signed a marriage contract with a man I believed was the city’s most notorious, scandal-ridden playboy. I thought I was marrying a degenerate "beard" to buy my freedom and secure my revenge. I didn't realize the man who signed that paper wasn't a playboy at all, but Gaston Collins—the most powerful and dangerous man on Wall Street—and he had no intention of letting our fake marriage stay fake.

Secret Triplets: The Billionaire's Second Chance

Secret Triplets: The Billionaire's Second Chance

Roderic Penn
4.5

I stood at my mother’s open grave in the freezing rain, my heels sinking into the mud. The space beside me was empty. My husband, Hilliard Holloway, had promised to cherish me in bad times, but apparently, burying my mother didn't fit into his busy schedule. While the priest’s voice droned on, a news alert lit up my phone. It was a livestream of the Metropolitan Charity Gala. There was Hilliard, looking impeccable in a custom tuxedo, with his ex-girlfriend Charla English draped over his arm. The headline read: "Holloway & English: A Power Couple Reunited?" When he finally returned to our penthouse at 2 AM, he didn't come alone—he brought Charla with him. He claimed she’d had a "medical emergency" at the gala and couldn't be left alone. I found a Tiffany diamond necklace on our coffee table meant for her birthday, and a smudge of her signature red lipstick on his collar. When I confronted him, he simply told me to stop being "hysterical" and "acting like a child." He had no idea I was seven months pregnant with his child. He thought so little of my grief that he didn't even bother to craft a convincing lie, laughing with his mistress in our home while I sat in the dark with a shattered heart and a secret life growing inside me. "He doesn't deserve us," I whispered to the darkness. I didn't scream or beg. I simply left a folder on his desk containing signed divorce papers and a forged medical report for a terminated pregnancy. I disappeared into the night, letting him believe he had successfully killed his own legacy through his neglect. Five years later, Hilliard walked into "The Vault," the city's most exclusive underground auction, looking for a broker to manage his estate. He didn't recognize me behind my Venetian mask, but he couldn't ignore the neon pink graffiti on his armored Maybach that read "DEADBEAT." He had no clue that the three brilliant triplets currently hacking his security system were the very children he thought had been erased years ago. This time, I wasn't just a wife in the way; I was the one holding all the cards.

Rising From Wreckage: Starfall's Epic Comeback

Rising From Wreckage: Starfall's Epic Comeback

Huo Wuer
4.5

Rain hammered against the asphalt as my sedan spun violently into the guardrail on the I-95. Blood trickled down my temple, stinging my eyes, while the rhythmic slap of the windshield wipers mocked my panic. Trembling, I dialed my husband, Clive. His executive assistant answered instead, his voice professional and utterly cold. "Mr. Wilson says to stop the theatrics. He said, and I quote, 'Hang up. Tell her I don’t have time for her emotional blackmail tonight.'" The line went dead while I was still trapped in the wreckage. At the hospital, I watched the news footage of Clive wrapping his jacket around his "fragile" ex-girlfriend, Angelena, shielding her from the storm I was currently bleeding in. When I returned to our penthouse, I found a prenatal ultrasound in his suit pocket, dated the day he claimed to be on a business trip. Instead of an apology, Clive met me with a sneer. He told me I was nothing but an "expensive decoration" his father bought to make him look stable. He froze my bank accounts and cut off my cards, waiting for the hunger to drive me back to his feet. I stared at the man I had loved for four years, realizing he didn't just want a wife; he wanted a prop he could switch off. He thought he could starve me into submission while he played father to another woman's child. But Clive forgot one thing. Before I was his trophy wife, I was Starfall—the legendary voice actress who vanished at the height of her fame. "I'm not jealous, Clive. I'm done." I grabbed my old microphone and walked out. I’m not just leaving him; I’m taking the lead role in the biggest saga in Hollywood—the one Angelena is desperate for. This time, the "decoration" is going to burn his world down.

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book
The Mirror of the Sea The Mirror of the Sea Joseph Conrad Modern
“An anchor is a forged piece of iron, admirably adapted to its end, and technical language is an instrument wrought into perfection by ages of experience, a flawless thing for its purpose. An anchor of yesterday (because nowadays there are contrivances like mushrooms and things like claws, of no particular expression or shape - just hooks) - an anchor of yesterday is in its way a most efficient instrument.”
1

Part 1 Landfalls and Departures I

18/11/2017

2

Part 1 Chapter II

18/11/2017

3

Part 1 Chapter III

18/11/2017

4

Part 2 Emblems of Hope IV

18/11/2017

5

Part 2 Chapter V

18/11/2017

6

Part 2 Chapter VI

18/11/2017

7

Part 3 The Fine Art VII

18/11/2017

8

Part 3 The Fine Art VIII

18/11/2017

9

Part 3 The Fine Art Chapter IX

18/11/2017

10

Part 4 Cobwebs and Gossamer Chapter X

18/11/2017

11

Part 4 Cobwebs and Gossamer Chapter XI

18/11/2017

12

Part 4 Cobwebs and Gossamer Chapter XII

18/11/2017

13

Part 5 The Weight of the Burden XIII

18/11/2017

14

Part 5 The Weight of the Burden XIV

18/11/2017

15

Part 5 The Weight of the Burden XV

18/11/2017

16

Part 6 Overdue and Missing XVI

18/11/2017

17

Part 6 Overdue and Missing XVII

18/11/2017

18

Part 6 Overdue and Missing XVIII

18/11/2017

19

Part 6 Overdue and Missing XIX

18/11/2017

20

Part 7 The Grip of the Land XX

18/11/2017

21

Part 7 The Grip of the Land XXI

18/11/2017

22

Part 8 The Character of the Foe XXII

18/11/2017

23

Part 8 The Character of the Foe XXIII

18/11/2017

24

Part 8 The Character of the Foe XXIV

18/11/2017

25

Part 9 Rules of East and West XXV

18/11/2017

26

Part 9 Rules of East and West XXVI

18/11/2017

27

Part 9 Rules of East and West XXVII

18/11/2017

28

Part 9 Rules of East and West XXVIII

18/11/2017

29

Part 9 Rules of East and West XXIX

18/11/2017

30

Part 10 The Faithful River XXX

18/11/2017

31

Part 10 The Faithful River XXXI

18/11/2017

32

Part 10 XXXII

18/11/2017

33

Part 11 In Captivity XXXIII

18/11/2017

34

Part 11 In Captivity XXXIV

18/11/2017

35

Part 12 Initiation XXXV

18/11/2017

36

Part 12 Initiation XXXVI

18/11/2017

37

Part 13 The Nursery of the Craft XXXVII

18/11/2017

38

Part 13 The Nursery of the Craft XXXVIII

18/11/2017

39

Part 13 The Nursery of the Craft XXXIX

18/11/2017

40

Part 14 The Tremolino XL

18/11/2017