How
slowly
the
time
passes
here, encompassed
as
I
am
by
frost
and
snow!
Yet
a
second
step
is
taken
towards
my enterprise. I
have
hired
a
vessel
and
am
occupied
in
collecting
my sailors;
those
whom
I
have
already
engaged
appear
to
be
men
on
whom
I
can
depend
and
are
certainly possessed
of
dauntless courage.
But
I
have
one
want
which
I
have
never
yet
been
able
to
satisfy,
and
the
absence
of
the
object
of
which
I
now
feel
as
a
most
severe
evil, I
have
no
friend, Margaret:
when
I
am
glowing
with
the
enthusiasm
of
success,
there
will
be
none
to
participate
my joy;
if
I
am
assailed
by
disappointment,
no
one
will
endeavour
to
sustain
me
in
dejection. I
shall
commit
my
thoughts
to
paper,
it
is
true;
but
that
is
a
poor
medium
for
the
communication
of
feeling. I
desire
the
company
of
a
man
who
could
sympathize
with
me,
whose
eyes
would
reply
to
mine.
You
may
deem
me
romantic, my
dear
sister,
but
I bitterly feel
the
want
of
a friend. I
have
no
one
near
me,
gentle
yet
courageous, possessed
of
a
cultivated
as
well
as
of
a
capacious
mind,
whose
tastes
are
like
my own,
to
approve
or
amend
my plans.
How
would
such
a
friend
repair
the
faults
of
your
poor
brother! I
am
too
ardent
in
execution
and
too
impatient
of
difficulties.
But
it
is
a
still
greater
evil
to
me
that
I
am
self-educated:
for
the
first
fourteen
years
of
my
life
I
ran
wild
on
a
common
and
read
nothing
but
our
Uncle
Thomas'
books
of
voyages.
At
that
age
I became acquainted
with
the
celebrated
poets
of
our
own
country;
but
it
was
only
when
it
had
ceased
to
be
in
my power
to
derive
its
most
important
benefits
from
such
a
conviction
that
I
perceived
the
necessity
of
becoming acquainted
with
more
languages
than
that
of
my
native
country.
Now
I
am
twenty-eight
and
am
in
reality
more
illiterate
than
many
schoolboys
of
fifteen.
It
is
true
that
I
have
thought
more
and
that
my daydreams
are
more
extended
and
magnificent,
but
they
want
(as
the
painters
call
it) KEEPING;
and
I
greatly
need
a
friend
who
would
have
sense
enough
not
to
despise
me
as
romantic,
and
affection
enough
for
me
to
endeavour
to
regulate
my mind. Well,
these
are
useless complaints; I
shall
certainly find
no
friend
on
the
wide
ocean,
nor
even
here
in
Archangel,
among
merchants
and
seamen.
Yet
some
feelings, unallied
to
the
dross
of
human
nature, beat
even
in
these
rugged
bosoms. My lieutenant,
for
instance,
is
a
man
of
wonderful
courage
and
enterprise;
he
is
madly
desirous
of
glory,
or
rather,
to
word
my phrase
more
characteristically,
of
advancement
in
his
profession.
He
is
an
Englishman,
and
in
the
midst
of
national
and
professional prejudices, unsoftened
by
cultivation,
retains
some
of
the
noblest
endowments
of
humanity. I
first
became acquainted
with
him
on
board
a whale vessel;
finding
that
he
was
unemployed
in
this
city, I easily engaged
him
to
assist
in
my enterprise.
The
master
is
a
person
of
an
excellent
disposition
and
is
remarkable
in
the
ship
for
his
gentleness
and
the
mildness
of
his
discipline.
This
circumstance, added
to
his
well-known
integrity
and
dauntless courage,
made
me
very
desirous
to
engage
him. A
youth
passed
in
solitude, my
best
years
spent
under
your
gentle
and
feminine
fosterage, has
so
refined
the
groundwork
of
my
character
that
I cannot
overcome
an
intense
distaste
to
the
usual
brutality
exercised
on
board
ship: I
have
never
believed
it
to
be
necessary,
and
when
I
heard
of
a
mariner
equally noted
for
his
kindliness
of
heart
and
the
respect
and
obedience
paid
to
him
by
his
crew, I felt
myself
peculiarly
fortunate
in
being
able
to
secure
his
services. I
heard
of
him
first
in
rather
a romantic manner,
from
a
lady
who
owes
to
him
the
happiness
of
her
life. This, briefly,
is
his
story.
Some
years
ago
he
loved
a
young
Russian
lady
of
moderate fortune,
and
having
amassed a
considerable
sum
in
prize-money,
the
father
of
the
girl
consented
to
the
match.
He
saw
his
mistress
once
before
the
destined
ceremony;
but
she
was
bathed
in
tears,
and
throwing
herself
at
his
feet,
entreated
him
to
spare
her,
confessing
at
the
same
time
that
she
loved
another,
but
that
he
was
poor,
and
that
her
father
would
never
consent
to
the
union. My
generous
friend
reassured
the
suppliant,
and
on
being
informed
of
the
name
of
her
lover, instantly abandoned
his
pursuit.
He
had
already
bought a
farm
with
his
money,
on
which
he
had
designed
to
pass
the
remainder
of
his
life;
but
he
bestowed
the
whole
on
his
rival,
together
with
the
remains
of
his
prize-money
to
purchase
stock,
and
then
himself
solicited
the
young
woman's father
to
consent
to
her
marriage
with
her
lover.
But
the
old
man
decidedly refused,
thinking
himself
bound
in
honour
to
my friend, who,
when
he
found
the
father inexorable,
quitted
his
country,
nor
returned
until
he
heard
that
his
former
mistress
was
married according
to
her
inclinations. "What a
noble
fellow!"
you
will
exclaim.
He
is
so;
but
then
he
is
wholly
uneducated:
he
is
as
silent
as
a Turk,
and
a
kind
of
ignorant
carelessness
attends
him, which,
while
it
renders
his
conduct
the
more
astonishing,
detracts
from
the
interest
and
sympathy
which
otherwise
he
would
command.
Yet
do
not
suppose,
because
I
complain
a
little
or
because
I
can
conceive
a
consolation
for
my
toils
which
I
may
never
know,
that
I
am
wavering
in
my resolutions.
Those
are
as
fixed
as
fate,
and
my
voyage
is
only
now
delayed
until
the
weather
shall
permit my embarkation.
The
winter
has been dreadfully severe,
but
the
spring
promises
well,
and
it
is
considered
as
a remarkably
early
season,
so
that
perhaps
I
may
sail
sooner
than
I expected. I
shall
do
nothing
rashly:
you
know
me
sufficiently
to
confide
in
my prudence
and
considerateness whenever
the
safety
of
others
is
committed
to
my care. I cannot
describe
to
you
my
sensations
on
the
near
prospect
of
my undertaking.
It
is
impossible
to
communicate
to
you
a
conception
of
the
trembling
sensation,
half
pleasurable
and
half
fearful,
with
which
I
am
preparing
to
depart. I
am
going
to
unexplored regions,
to
"the
land
of
mist
and
snow,"
but
I
shall
kill
no
albatross;
therefore
do
not
be
alarmed
for
my
safety
or
if
I
should
come
back
to
you
as
worn
and
woeful
as
the
"Ancient Mariner."
You
will
smile
at
my allusion,
but
I
will
disclose
a secret. I
have
often
attributed
my
attachment
to, my
passionate
enthusiasm
for,
the
dangerous
mysteries
of
ocean
to
that
production
of
the
most
imaginative
of
modern
poets.
There
is
something
at
work
in
my soul
which
I
do
not
understand. I
am
practically industrious—painstaking, a
workman
to
execute
with
perseverance
and
labour—but besides
this
there
is
a
love
for
the
marvellous, a
belief
in
the
marvellous, intertwined
in
all
my projects,
which
hurries
me
out
of
the
common
pathways
of
men,
even
to
the
wild
sea
and
unvisited
regions
I
am
about
to
explore.
But
to
return
to
dearer
considerations.
Shall
I meet
you
again,
after
having
traversed
immense
seas,
and
returned
by
the
most
southern
cape
of
Africa
or
America? I
dare
not
expect
such
success,
yet
I cannot
bear
to
look
on
the
reverse
of
the
picture.
Continue
for
the
present
to
write
to
me
by
every
opportunity: I
may
receive
your
letters
on
some
occasions
when
I
need
them
most
to
support my spirits. I
love
you
very
tenderly.
Remember
me
with
affection,
should
you
never
hear
from
me
again.