once at least the peculiar nature of an engineer’s destiny.  I have had some years of it, and I know what I am talking about.

The point to distinguish is that the engineer not only has the responsibility, but he has, in nine cases out of ten, to do it.  He, the officer, must befoul his person and derange his hours of rest and recreation, that others may enjoy.  He must be available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, at sea or in port.  Whether chief or the lowest junior, he must be ready to plunge instantly to the succour of the vilest piece of mechanism on board.  When coaling, his lot is easier imagined than described.

The remarkable thing to note is that Mr. McFee imposed upon these laborious years of physical toil a strenuous discipline of intellect as well.  He is a born worker:  patient, dogged, purposeful.  His years at sea have been to him a more fruitful curriculum than that of any university.  The patient sarcasm with which he speaks of certain Oxford youths of his acquaintance does not escape me.  His sarcasm is just and on the target.  He has stood as Senior Wrangler in a far more exacting viva voce—­the University of the Seven Seas.

If I were a college president, out hunting for a faculty, I would deem that no salary would be too big to pay for the privilege of getting a man like McFee on my staff.  He would not come, of course!  But how he has worked for his mastery of the art of life and the theory thereof!  When his colleagues at sea were dozing in their deck chairs or rattling the bones along the mahogany, he was sweating in his bunk, writing or reading.  He has always been deeply interested in painting, and no gallery in any port he visited ever escaped him.  These extracts from some of his letters will show whether his avocations were those of most engineers: 

As I crossed the swing-bridge of the docks at Garston (Liverpool) the other day, and saw the tapering spars silhouetted against the pale sky, and the zinc-coloured river with its vague Cheshire shores dissolving in mist, it occurred to me that if an indulgent genie were to appear and make me an offer I would cheerfully give up writing for painting.  As it is, I see things in pictures and I spend more time in the Walker Gallery than in the library next door.

I’ve got about all I can get out of books, and now I don’t relish them save as memories.  The reason for my wish, I suppose, is that character, not incident, is my metier.  And you can draw character, paint character, but you can’t very well blat about it, can you?

    I am afraid Balzac’s job is too big for anybody nowadays.  The worst
    of writing men nowadays is their horrible ignorance of how people
    live, of ordinary human possibilities.