“And the ship sailed onward, gliding serenely down the moonlit river toward the dark lands beyond.”

“In the middle distance, sails were gliding like butterflies, and farther away, ships dotted the mouth of the bay between Awa and Sagami as if brushed in ink in a single flowing stroke.”

“The day had begun sombrely in grey cloud and mist, but had ended in a pomp of scarlet and gold. Over the western hills beyond the harbour were amber deeps and crystalline shadows, with the fire of sunset below. The north was a mackerel sky of little, fiery golden clouds. The red light flamed on the white sails of a vessel gliding down the channel, bound to a Southern port in a land of palms. Beyond her, it smote upon and incarnadined the shining, white, grassless faces of the sand-dunes.”

“Only the ship is made of books, its sails thousands of overlapping pages, and the sea it floats upon is dark black ink.”

“The Thames is a wretched river after the Mersey and the ships are not like Liverpool ships and the docks are barren of beauty ... it is a beastly hole after Liverpool; for Liverpool is the town of my heart and I would rather sail a mudflat there than command a clipper out of London”

“No ship can out sail death”