Excerpt from Ocean Echoes: An Autobiography I have been asked to write my biography. Other people have written of their lives, lives of greater value to the world than mine; though possibly mine too has not been without value in some little ways. Lives have been written so interesting in the telling, that sceptical readers have condemned them as adorned. My story, I believe, is not lacking in excitement it shall be told simply, and as swiftly and truly as though the years were crossing the paper, crowd ing me away from youth and toward the Great Adventure. There may be glued leaves in the volume of my life, but I Shall steam them apart, trying to piece out a pattern that is not so much smudged as the background would lead one to suppose. There will be in the pattern success and failure heart-cheer and heart-break, such as are in all our lives such philosophy too as would result from the thinking my life has invited. That there is love to the very end, and will be, as long as I live, speaks not so well for me (for if ever anyone knows the rough-and-tumble of life, I should know it) as it does for human nature. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.