It is a right down life of hard wear and tear, and the man who is not, in a good degree, fitted to become a common sailor will never make an officer.

Take that to heart, all ye naval aspirants.
Thrust your arms up to the elbow in pitch and see how you like it, ere you solicit a warrant.

Prepare for white squalls, living gales and typhoons; read accounts of shipwrecks and horrible disasters; peruse the Narratives of Byron and Bligh; familiarise yourselves with the story of the English frigate Alceste and the French frigate Medusa.
Though you may go ashore, now and then, at Cadiz and Palermo; for every day so spent among oranges and ladies, you will have whole months of rains and gales.
And even thus did Selvagee prove it.

But with all the intrepid effeminacy of your true dandy, he still continued his Cologne-water baths, and sported his lace-bordered handkerchiefs in the very teeth of a tempest.

Alas, Selvagee! there was no getting the lavender out of you.
But Selvagee was no fool.