“I will bear with it for a short period; but in the spring, when the soft winds prepare to waft us, fly to me; and we will traverse the dark blue seas, secure, through a thousand storms, in each others devotion. Were you ever at sea? How does the roar of the mighty winds, and the rushing of waters, accord with you—the whistling of the breeze, the sparkling of the waves by night, and the rippling of the foam against the sides of that single plank which divides you from eternity? Fear you, Calantha? Oh, not if your lover were by your side, your head reclining on his bosom, your heart freed from every other tie, and linked alone by the dearest and the tenderest to his fate! Can you fancy yourself there, about the middle watch? How many knots does she make? How often have they heaved the log? Does she sail with the speed of thought, when that thought is dictated by love? Perhaps it is a calm. Heed it not: towards morn it will freshen: a breeze will spring up; and by to-morrow even, we shall be at anchor. Wilt thou sail? ‘They that go down into the great deep; they see the wonders of the Lord.’ That thou may’st see as few as possible of his terrific wonders, is, my beloved, the prayer of him who liveth alone for thee! “The prettiest and most perilous navigation for large ships is the Archipelago. There we will go; and there thou shalt see the brightest of moons, shining over the headlands of green Asia, or the isles, upon the bluest of all waves—the most beautiful, but the most treacherous. Oh, Calantha! what ecstasy were it to sail together, or to travel in those pleasant lands I have often described to you—freed from the gloom and the forebodings this heavy, noisome atmosphere engenders!—Dearest! I write folly and nonsense:—do I not? But even this, is it not a proof of love?”