Some had been bandits and others saints, but none mediocre.

Their most audacious undertakings had much about them that was prudent and practical.

When they devoted themselves to business they were at the same time serving civilization.

In them the hero and the trader were so intermingled that it was impossible to discern where one ended and the other began.

They had been pirates and cruel men, but the navigators from the foggy seas when imitating the Mediterranean discoveries in other continents had not shown themselves any more gentle or loyal.
After these conversations, Ulysses felt greater esteem for the old pottery and the shabby little figures that adorned his uncle's bedroom.
They were objects vomited up by the sea, Grecian amphoras wrested from the shells of mollusks after a submarine interment centuries long.