A Light of Other Days.

It is night—and the harbour is a fairy-place of electric lights, white and coloured, all with their own meanings. And yet, in all that glory of illumination, one old-fashioned gleam arrests the gaze. It is a friendly oil-lamp by the rickety gangway of a schooner. This relic of the past—with the creaking of the moorings as the little vessel rises and falls on the slow swell of the tide—brings up a rush of memories. There is another oil-lamp on the foremast, and it is pleasant to think that it has been hauled up to its position by hand and that it is not electric. That swinging lamp arouses a memory of some words of that great sea-lover, John Masefield:—

“Some day, perhaps, when the golden age has returned, and all clipper-ships and liners are rusted nests for the tunnies beyond the reach of lead, the oarsmen of the world's galleys will have a poesy and a drama. They will have an elaborate ritual of beautiful songs. They will sing hymns to the sea when the riding lantern goes up at dusk. They will invest their affections for the elements with the attributes of duty, and they will act little plays about the under-water and the white goddesses that haunt the weeds thereof.”