His
manner was a wild mixture of the peevishness of second childhood,
and the solemn dignity of a God. He at length went on deck, and I
saw him no more.
A feeling, for which I have no name, has taken possession of my soul
--a sensation which will admit of no analysis, to which the lessons of
bygone times are inadequate, and for which I fear futurity itself will
offer me no key. To a mind constituted like my own, the latter
consideration is an evil. I shall never --I know that I shall never
--be satisfied with regard to the nature of my conceptions. Yet it
is not wonderful that these conceptions are indefinite, since they
have their origin in sources so utterly novel. A new sense --a new
entity is added to my soul.
It is long since I first trod the deck of this terrible ship, and
the rays of my destiny are, I think, gathering to a focus.
Incomprehensible men! Wrapped up in meditations of a kind which I
cannot divine, they pass me by unnoticed. Concealment is utter folly
on my part, for the people will not see. It was but just now that I
passed directly before the eyes of the mate --it was no long while ago
that I ventured into the captain's own private cabin, and took
thence the materials with which I write, and have written.
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