A quote from James Fenimore Cooper’s novel The Pilot. An old salt coxswain is talking to a new, but competent, captain about leaving an unsafe anchorage before pending bad weather arrives. Referring first to basic seaman’s skills, the coxswain says:
“These be things that a man is soon expart in, but it takes the time of his nat’ral life to larn to know the weather. There be streaked wind-galls in the offing that speak as plainly, to all that see them, and know God’s language in the clouds, as ever you spoke through a trumpet, to shorten sail....”
So now, we can “larn” a bit faster. It’s fun.
“These be things that a man is soon expart in, but it takes the time of his nat’ral life to larn to know the weather. There be streaked wind-galls in the offing that speak as plainly, to all that see them, and know God’s language in the clouds, as ever you spoke through a trumpet, to shorten sail....”
So now, we can “larn” a bit faster. It’s fun.
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