William McFee

An Ocean Tramp William McFee

"In the beginning," I heard him tell a religious person, "In the beginning my mother bore me. When I was a child I was wont to bore my mother. Now we bore each other." That this was primarily intended to shock our friend's devotional sensibilities I do not doubt, but I imagine it contained some small truth all the same. I think he rather shrank from personalities, resolutely refusing even to be photographed, hating that process with an unexampled vehemence strange in one so modern and so versed in mechanical and chemical science. "I!" he would rage. "What have I done to merit portraiture? Have I builded a city, or painted a masterpiece, or served my country, or composed an iliad?" Again, "Better a single faulty human effort than the most perfect photograph ever developed." Scanty indeed, therefore, did I find the materials with which to fashion an introduction to this book.