The beast in man lies so close to the surface.  We think we are human and law-abiding of our own volition, whereas, as a matter of fact, nine-tenths of it is from pure habit.  It doesn’t occur to us to be anything else.  But let all standards and customs be scrapped, let us see the things done freely that never even entered our minds before, and a lot of us are liable to develop ape and tiger proclivities.  We nearly all put unconscious limits to our humanity.  The most chivalrous and kindly Westerner or Southerner would admit that massacring Chinamen, Mexicans, or Negroes is not such a great crime; and the most devoted mother or father is prone to regard as unspanked brats children who to a third party appear quite as well as the critic’s own.

SEPTEMBER 20.

I am still in command and loving every minute of it.  With any other captain than ours it would be a come-down to resume my place as a subordinate.  But in his case I think that all mourn a little when he is away.

SEPTEMBER 29.

[Sidenote:  New knowledge of navigation and ship handling.]

Oh, it’s great stuff, this being in command and handling the ship alone.  Particularly I enjoy swooping down on some giant freighter, like a hawk on a turkey, running close alongside, where a wrong touch to helm or engine may spell destruction, and then demanding through a megaphone why she does or does not do so and so.  I have learned more navigation and ship-handling since being over here than in all my previous seagoing experience.  In the old ante-bellum days one hesitated to get too close to another ship, even in daytime, far more so at night, even with the required navigation lights on.  Now, without so much light as a glowworm could give, we run around, never quite certain when the darkness ahead may turn into a ship close enough to throw a brick at.

However, I am back in the ranks again now, as the captain has come back and resumed command.

OCTOBER 9.

[Sidenote:  Job of an executive officer is thankless.]

You must not be resentful because of things you have gone through, unappreciated by those perhaps for whom you have undergone them.  It is one of the laws of life, and a hard law too, but it comes to everybody, either in a few big things or a multitude of little ones.  Do the people who keep the world turning around ever get due recognition?  I was thinking in much the same resentful vein myself to-day, in my own small way, how thankless the job of an executive officer is; how you never reach any big end, or even feel that you have made progress, but just keep on the job, watching and inspecting and fussing to keep the whole personnel-materiel machine running smoothly, and knowing that your recognition is purely negative, in that, if all goes well, you don’t get called down.  And then I calm down and realize that it is all in the game, and that it is the best tribute so to handle your job in life that nothing has to be said.  If your car runs perfectly, you neither feel nor hear it, and give it little credit on that account.  But let it strip a gear or something go!!