The scene was favorable to the conversation which had been broken off when we left the study, and the Doctor came back to it of his own accord. I was much absorbed with the grandeur of this midnight scene, and had remained for some time quiet. My companion, breaking in abruptly, said: "I think I promised to prove to you that I am the most sensible fellow alive. Now let me tell you, to begin with, that I would not exchange this view for any other I have ever seen. It is one of which I am very fond; for at this hour the repose which you here see is frequently repeated; and, to compare big things with little, it might be likened to some huge lion sleeping over his prey, which he is not yet prepared to eat, quick to catch the first sound of movement. There is something truly terrible in this untamed nature. Man's struggle here gives him something to rejoice in; and I would not barter it for the effeminate life to which I should be destined at home, on any account whatever. Perhaps, if I should there be compelled absolutely to earn my daily bread, the case might be different, for enforced occupation is quite too sober an affair to give time for much reflection; but I should most likely lead an idle sort of life there, and should simply live without--so far as I can see--a motive. I should encounter few perils, have few sorrows, fewer disappointments, and want for nothing,--nothing, indeed, but temptation to exert myself, or prove my own manhood in its strength, or enjoy the luxury of risking the precious breath of life, which is so little worth, and which is so easily knocked away. You have seen one side of me,--how I live. Well, I enjoy life and make the most of it, after my own fashion, as everybody should do. If it is a luxurious fashion, as you are pleased to say, it but gives me a keener relish for the opposite; and that it does not unfit me for encountering the hardships of the field is proved by the reputation for endurance which I have among the natives. If I sleep between well-aired sheets one night, I can coil myself up among my dogs on the ice-fields the next, and sleep there as well,--I care not if it's as cold as the frigid circle of Lucifer. If I have a _penchant_ for Burgundy, and like to drink it out of French glass, I can drink train-oil out of a tin cup when I am cold and hungry, and never murmur. I like well-fitting clothes, but rough furs suit me just as well in season. Why, it would make you laugh fit to kill yourself to see these Danish workingmen,--the laborers, you know, with whom I sometimes travel,--fellows that can't read nor write, poor mechanics, rough sailors, 'hewers of wood and drawers of water' generally for this poor settlement,--who never tasted Burgundy in all their lives, and would rather have one keg of corn brandy than a tun of it, and who never took their frugal fare off anything more tempting than tin. Do you think that these people can, under any circumstances, be induced to strengthen their limbs with