Here I pause. I had undergone that portion of my career which was to be passed among my people. My life as father, husband, citizen, was at an end. Thenceforth I was to be a solitary man. I was to make my couch with the savage, the outcast, and the slave. I was to see the ruin of the mighty and the overthrow of empires. Yet, in the tumult that changed the face of the world, I was still to live and be unchanged. In revenge for the fall of Jerusalem, I traversed the globe to seek out an enemy of Rome. I found in the northern snows a man of blood; I stirred up the soul of Alaric, and led him to the sack of Rome. In revenge for the insults heaped upon the Jew by the dotards and dastards of the city of Constantine, I sought out an instrument of compendious ruin. I found him in the Arabian sands, and poured ambition into the soul of Mecca. In revenge for the pollution of the ruins of the Temple, I roused the iron tribes of the West, and at the head of the Crusaders expelled the Saracens. I fed full on revenge, and fed the misery of revenge. A passion for human fame seized me. I drew my sword for Italy; triumphed, was a king, and learned to curse the hour when I first dreamed of fame. A passion for gold seized me. Wealth came to my wish, and to my torment. Days and nights of misery were the gift of avarice. In my passion I longed for regions where the hand of man had never rifled the mine. I found a bold Genoese, and led him to the discovering of a new world. With its metals I inundated the old; and to my misery added the misery of two hemispheres. Yet the circle of passion was not to surround my fated steps for ever. Noble aspirations rose in my melancholy heart. I had seen the birth of true science, true liberty, and true wisdom. I had lived with Petrarch, stood enraptured beside the easel of Angelo and Raphael. I had stood at Maintz, beside the wonder-working machine that makes knowledge imperishable, and sends it with winged speed through the earth. At the pulpit of the mighty man of Wittenberg I had knelt; Israelite as I was, and am, I did involuntary homage to the mind of Luther. At this hour I see the dawn of things to whose glory the glory of the past is but a dream. But I must close these thoughts, wandering as the steps of my pilgrimage. I have more to tell--strange, magnificent, and sad. But I must await the impulse of my heart. * * * * * RICHARD HENRY DANA Two Years Before the Mast