What seafarer has not suffered from a bout of loneliness and boredom? These twin monsters can creep in like the tide after one’s watch is over and there is little else to do. Some seafarers may plunge into depression. One maritime charity group seems to think that a two-day online course on mental health costing £125 per participant will address the problem. What a silly idea! Why not promote instead the love for reading amongst seafarers? As the following quotes suggest, books can do wonders for both mind and spirit.

Books are the greatest and the most satisfactory of recreations. I mean the use of books for pleasure. Without books, without having acquired the power of reading for pleasure, none of us can be independent, but if we can read we have a sure defence against boredom in solitude.

— Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon, Recreation Address at Harvard University (1919)

The first time I read an excellent book, it is to me just as if I had gained a new friend. When I read over a book I have perused before, it resembles the meeting with an old one.

— Oliver Goldsmith, The Citizen of the World; or, Letters from a Chinese Philosopher, Letter LXXXIII (1762)

To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.

— W. Somerset Maugham, Books and You (1940)

When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me.

— W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage (1915)

There is more treasure in books than in all the pirates’ loot on Treasure Island and at the bottom of the Spanish Main… and best of all, you can enjoy these riches every day of your life.

— Walt Disney, Walt’s Quotes, Walt Disney Archives

Without the word, without the writing of books, there is no history, there is no concept of humanity. And if anyone wants to try to enclose in a small space, in a single house or a single room, the history of the human spirit and to make it his own, he can only do this in the form of a collection of books.

— Hermann Hesse, ‘The Magic of the Book’ (1930)

All that Mankind has done, thought, gained or been it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of Books. They are the chosen possession of men.

— Thomas Carlyle, Heroes and Hero Worship (1840), Lecture V

He hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book; he hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink: his intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible in the duller parts.

— William Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost (c. 1595-6)

The young watch television twenty-four hours a day, they don’t read and they rarely listen. This incessant bombardment of images has developed a hypertrophied eye condition that’s turning them into a race of mutants.

— Federico Fellini, I’m a Born Liar: A Fellini Lexicon (2003)

Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body: as by the one, health is preserved, strengthened and invigorated; by the other, virtue, which is the health of the mind, is kept alive, cherished and confirmed.

— Joseph Addison, The Tatler (1754)

Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live.

— Gustave Flaubert, letter to Mademoiselle Leroyer de Chantepie (1867)

It is true that we get nothing whatsoever except pleasure from reading; it is true that the wisest of us is unable to say what that pleasure may be. But that pleasure — mysterious, unknown, useless as it is — is enough. That pleasure is so curious, so complex, so immensely fertilizing to the mind of anyone who enjoys it, and so wide in its effects, that it would not be in the least surprising to discover, on the day of judgment when secrets are revealed and the obscure is made plain, that the reason why we have grown from pigs to men and women, and come out from our caves, and dropped our bows and arrows, and sat round the ?re and talked and drunk and made merry and given to the poor and helped the sick and made pavements and houses and erected some sort of shelter and society on the waste of the world, is nothing but this: we have loved reading.

— Virginia Woolf, How Should One Read a Book? (1926)

~ Barista Uno

Did you like this article? Share it with your friends!

I recently came across a traditiional folk ballad called ‘Hard, Hard Times’. It is light-hearted but has a serious social message, so I thought I should share it with the readers of Marine Café Blog. The song is part of the James Madison Carpenter Collection of the English Folk Dance and Song Society. This London-based organisation (https://www.efdss.org/) has been doing a wonderful job of promoting English folk music, dance and related arts.

‘Hard, Hard Times’ talks about dishonesty, greed and hyprocrisy in society at large — the same ills that plague much of the shipping and mannning sectors and bring misery to those who work at sea. Indeed, it reminds me of some maritime folks who are far from being admirable. Listen to the song as performed by Hazel Askew, a singer, musician and workshop leader based in London:

Hard, Hard Times

(Collected from Mrs. Katherine Stirling in Alicesville, Alabama, USA)

Come listen my friends and I’ll sing you a song
Concerning hard times and it won’t take me long
When everybody is striving to buy
And cheating each other – I cannot tell why

And it’s hard, hard times

First there’s the merchant, so honest we’re told
Whatever he sells you, my friend, you are sold
Believe what I tell you and don’t be surprised
If what’s worth a dollar will now cost you five

And it’s hard, hard times

Then there’s the lawyer, you plainly will see
He will plead your case for a very large fee
He’ll law you and tell the wrong side is right
And make you believe that a black horse is white

And it’s hard, hard times

And then there’s the doctor, I liked to’ve forgot
I believe to my soul he’s the worst of the lot
He’ll tell you he’ll cure you for half you possess
And when you are buried he’ll take all the rest

And it’s hard, hard times

And last there’s the preacher, the worst of them all
Preaching for money but not for the soul
He rides his circuit some twelve times a year
And if your soul’s lost you’ll be sure he don’t care

And it’s hard, hard times

Nota Bene: The audio recording of ‘Hard, Hard Times’ by Hazel Askew as well as the song lyrics are the intellectual property of the English Folk Dance and Song Society. They are published on this website for educational, non-commercial use. For all other uses, permission must be requested from EFDSS (https://www.efdss.org/).

Additional information: There are other versions of the song, including William James Emberley’s ‘Hard, Hard Times’. Emberley adapted an older song to describe the plight of Newfoundland fishermen during the Great Depression of the 1930s. 

~ Barista Uno

Did you like this article? Share it with your friends!