me great radiating heart, and the
sea was alternately flame and shadow. The headlands of Labrador lay to
the south--bare, boundless, precipitous; and to the east a glittering
iceberg floated slowly towards us, like a palace of gold and emerald.
The ship rolled calmly upon the long swells, the ripples plashing in
low lulling monotone, and her hull and spars were reflected darkly
beneath me. I drew a long gray hair from my temple, and subjected it
to a gentle friction between my palm and finger; then I pricked my
wrist, and leaning forward, placed it against my heart: five
blood-drops--symbols of the five types of organized creation--fell
simmering into the depths, and the scintillant hair, floating after
them, described a true spiral. In an instant the Aurora grew bright to
blindness; there was a rush of infinite stars, and a host of beautiful
beings fluttered to the surface of the sea, within the shadow of the
ship! A gull darted along the water, and in the far distance I heard
the bellow of the huge Greenland whale. All animate nature had
acknowledged my message; I had touched the nerve of the universes!

"'Blow me if there warn't a whale, Ben!' said one of the men in the
maintop.

"'My eyes! but it wor like it,' replied the other.

"Fearful of being remarked, I slipped below, a second time
disappointed, but with such exultant feelings that I tried in vain to
sleep. The intimacy of species and their common language, lost in the
degeneracy of the first human beings, were about to be restored by me.
Confusion had overcome the counsels of the countless things which had
talked and dwelt together in the past, but science was about to win
back from sin the great secret of communication. I should translate
the scream of eagles and the cooing of doves; I should hear the gossip
of my household kittens, and speak familiarly with the mighty
hippopotami. The serpent should teach me his traditions, and the
multitude of mollusks should develop the mysteries of their sluggish
vitality; nay, the plurality of worlds should be demonstrated, and
with the combined intelligences of all the systems, we should wrest
the mysteries of life, matter, and eternity from their Divine
repository!

"I lay awake all night revelling in these anticipations, and at dawn
was quite weak of body. It was now the Sabbath, and at nine o'clock
all hands were summoned to the poop-deck for the customary worship. I
lay upon a coil of rope, when the mate comme