"But it occupies my thoughts no longer. I know well enough there will be a change some time or other, and the way to the stars leads through adversity. I have found a new world; and that is the world of animal and plant life that exists in almost every fresh-water pool on the ice-floes. From morning till evening and till late in the night I am absorbed with the microscope, and see nothing around me. I live with these tiny beings in their separate universe, where they are born and die, generation after generation; where they pursue each other in the struggle for life, and carry on their love affairs with the same feelings, the same sufferings, and the same joys that permeate every living being from these microscopic animalcules up to man--self-preservation and propagation--that is the whole story. Fiercely as we human beings struggle to push our way on through the labyrinth of life, their struggles are assuredly no less fierce than ours--one incessant, restless hurrying to and fro, pushing all others aside, to burrow out for themselves what is needful to them. And as to love, only mark with what passion they seek each other out. With all our brain-cells, we do not feel more strongly than they, never live so entirely for a sensation. But what is life? What matters the individual's suffering so long as the struggle goes on? "And these are small, one-celled lumps of viscous matter, teeming in thousands and millions, on nearly every single floe over the whole of this boundless sea, which we are apt to regard as the realm of death. Mother Nature has a remarkable power of producing life everywhere--even this ice is a fruitful soil for her. "In the evening a little variety occurred in our uneventful existence, Johansen having discovered a bear to the southeast of the ship, but out of range. It had, no doubt, been prowling about for some time while we were below at supper, and had been quite near us; but, being alarmed by some sound or other, had gone off eastward. Sverdrup and I set out after it, but to no purpose; the lanes hindered us too much, and, moreover, a fog came on, so that we had to return after having gone a good distance."