"Thursday, December 27th. Christmas has come round again, and we are still so far from home. How dismal it all is! Nevertheless, I am not melancholy. I might rather say I am glad; I feel as if awaiting something great which lies hidden in the future; after long hours of uncertainty I can now discern the end of this dark night; I have no doubt all will turn out successfully, that the voyage is not in vain and the time not wasted, and that our hopes will be realized. An explorer's lot is, perhaps, hard and his life full of disappointments, as they all say; but it is also full of beautiful moments--moments when he beholds the triumphs of human faith and human will, when he catches sight of the haven of success and peace. "I am in a singular frame of mind just now, in a state of sheer unrest. I have not felt inclined for writing during the last few days; thoughts come and go, and carry me irresistibly ahead. I can scarcely make myself out, but who can fathom the depths of the human mind. The brain is a puzzling piece of mechanism: 'We are such stuff as dreams are made of.' Is it so? I almost believe it--a microcosm of eternity's infinite 'stuff that dreams are made of.' "This is the second Christmas spent far away in the solitude of night, in the realm of death, farther north and deeper into the midst of it than any one has been before. There is something strange in the feeling; and then this, too, is our last Christmas on board the Fram. It makes one almost sad to think of it. The vessel is like a second home, and has become dear to us. Perhaps our comrades may spend another Christmas here, possibly several, without us who will go forth from them into the midst of the solitude. This Christmas passed off quietly and pleasantly, and every one seems to be well content. By no means the least circumstance that added to our enjoyment was that the wind brought us the 83d degree as a Christmas-box. Our luck was, this time, more lasting than I had anticipated; the wind continued fresh on Monday and Tuesday, but little by little it lulled down and veered round to the north and northeast. Yesterday and to-day it has been in the northwest. Well, we must put up with it; one cannot help having a little contrary wind at times, and probably it will not last long.