Joseph Conrad 
Initiations 

Excerpt: ""Ships!" exclaimed an elderly seaman in clean shore togs. "Ships" – and his keen glance, turning away from my face, ran along the vista of magnificent figure-heads that in the late seventies used to overhang in a serried rank the muddy pavement by the side of the New South Dock – "ships are all right; it’s the men in ’em…""