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"A Medium in Which I Seek Relief": Manuscripts of American Sailors 1919-1940

Cecil Northrop "Me" Title Page

The title page and first eleven pages of Cecil Northrop's "Me" (1923-1924) are also available (with zoom function) on Maritime Digital Collections. In 1923 Northrop worked on a freighter, and then he got a position as an officer aboard Dollar Line's S.S. President Hayes "Round the World" cruises. Northrop keeps diaries throughout his career as a mariner.

Northrop's title is a play on H. Rider Haggard's She: A History of Adventure (1887). Rider (1856 – 14 May 1925) was an English writer of Adventure fiction and a pioneer of the "Lost World" subgenre. The novel was adapted for the screen in 1917 (the version Cecil Northrop presumably could have seen), 1935, and 1965.

"I hold it true..." lines of poetry are by American poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox (November 5, 1850 – October 30, 1919), a popular poet in the late 19th century. According to A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-Seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks of Life (1893), she "had the satisfaction of being a widely read author and of receiving a good price and ready sale for all she produces."

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Cecil Northrop "Me" Poem and Preface Early pages of Cecil Northrop's 1923 diary, titled "Me": Poem on left page, Preface on right page. The poem is a clever takeoff on Rudyard Kipling's "The Vampire." Instead of a woman making a fool of the man, it's the sea.
Transcription of Poem
A fool there was and he went to sea,
Even as you and I,
The poets they called it brave and free
But only a fool will follow the sea
Even as you and I.

A fool there was and his life was spent
In a vile hole that was never meant
For a thing God his image lent,
But we go to sea by our own consent
For only a fool knows a fool’s content
Ever as you and I

Oh! The love we’ve lost and the joy we’ve lost
And the delights of the home we planned
Are worn by the man who stayed at home
Who had brains and sense,
And a whole lot more of things we don’t quite understand
Even as you and I

A fool there was and he lost his stride
And all he owns is his foolish hide
Which is carefully fleeced then flung aside
To sink or float on the deep sea tide
Where some of him lived but most of him lied
Even as you and I.
Transcription of Preface
These notes are not written through the motive of conceit, imagining that my life is more interesting than thousands nay, millions of others which have gone before. There is no attempt at style or literary effort. There may be no continuity, or order. It is merely a medium in which I seek relief. A harbor for these knocks life gives, a thanksgiving for life‘s pleasures. A means of relieving that desire to confide. A confessor for those thoughts which must come to all mortals, and which even to your dearest friend you dare not give utterance. If in the years to come when life’s battles (I should say struggle for in the word battle there lies a fairness) have long ceased to send the blood pounding to my brain, I can look through this book and see that I have profited by experience, I will feel that the hours spent in the confessional of these covers has not been wasted. At any event every word every line is sincere. They are my thoughts good or bad.

Belfast Ireland January 7, 1923
Credits
Thanks to Johnathan Thayer and Stefan Dreisbach-Williams for their help with these transcriptions!

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