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.
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