A sailing vessel and a steamer are different articles; you get attached to a sailing vessel as you do to anything animate, to your horse, or your dog; but I defy anyone to get attached to a smoky, oily steamer. There is an individuality about the sailing vessel; none about the steamer.
When the seven wise men of Greece delivered the oracular dictum that there were only two beautiful things in the world, women and roses, and only two good things, women and wine, they spoke according to their limited experience--they had never seen the new type of racing yacht under sail. Of course the perfection of animate beauty is represented by women, but certainly inanimate nature can show nothing more beautiful than 'Britannia,' 'Navahoe,' 'Valkyrie,' 'Satanita,' their sails well filled, the sun shining on them, streaking along twelve or thirteen knots an hour, apparently without an effort, scarcely raising a ripple. And then a yacht is so exceedingly feminine in her ways. One day everything goes right with her--she will not only do all she is asked to do, but a great deal more than her greatest admirers ever thought she could do: the next day everything goes wrong with her--she will not do anything she is asked, and indeed will not do what her admirers know she can do without an effort.
Some women--I speak it with all respect--bear being 'squeezed' and 'pinched,' they almost seem to like it, at any rate they don't cry out; whereas others will cry out immediately and vigorously. So will yachts.
The more you squeeze one vessel, the more you pinch her, the more she seems to enjoy it. Squeeze another, pinch her into the wind, and she lies down and calls out at once. The difference between vessels in this respect is quite funny, and essentially feminine.
Curiously enough, extremes meet; that is to say, if the pendulum of taste or fashion goes very much over to one side, it is sure to go over just as far on the other. Sailing yachts of 100, 200, 300 tons have gone out of fashion, and leviathan steamers of 800, 1,000, 1,500 tons have taken their place; but at the same time that a taste for immense steamers has driven moderate-sized sailing vessels out of the field, a taste for small boats, 5-raters, 3-raters, 1/2-raters--I don't quite understand their rating--has sprung up, and promises almost to supplant the big steamers themselves.