these
to the serenity of this sail-swinging, ripple-stirring, gently-creaking
craft, in her veil of luminous vapor? "How delightful this is!" said I.

The traveller eyed me with surprise, but at last comprehending the idea,
admitted, that with the exception of the fog and the calm, the scarcity of
news, the damp state of the decks, and the want of the morning papers, it
was very charming indeed. Then the traveller got a little restive, and
began to peer closely into the fog, and look aloft to see if he could make
out the stay-sails, and then he entered into a long confidential talk with
the captain, in relation to the chances of "getting on," of a fresh breeze
springing up, and the fog lifting; whether we should make Louisburgh by
to-morrow night, and if not, when; with various other salt-water
speculations and problems. Then Picton climbed up on the patent-windlass
to get a full view of the fog at the end of the bow-sprit, and took
another survey of the buried stay-sails, and the flying-jib. Then he and
the Newfoundland sailor on the look-out, had a long consultation of great
gravity and importance; and finally he turned around and came up to the
place where I was standing, and broke out: "I say, what the devil are we
to do with ourselves this morning?"

"What are we to do?" That eternal question. It instantly seemed to double
the thickness of the fog, to arrest the slow movement of the vessel.
Picton had nothing to do for a fortnight, and I had left home with the
sole object of going somewhere where soul and body could rest. "Nothing to
do," was precisely the one thing needful. "Nothing to do," is exquisite
happiness, for real happiness is but a negation. "Nothing to do," is
repose for the body, respite for the mind. It is an ideal hammock
swinging in drowsy tropical groves, apart from the roar of the busy,
relentless world; away from the strife of faction, the toils of business,
the restless stretch of ambition, wealth's tinsel pride, poverty's galling
harness. "Nothing to do," is the phantom of young Imagination, the
evanescent hope that promises to crown

"A youth of labor with an age of ease."

"Nothing to do," was the charm that lured us on board the "Balaklava," and
now "nothing to do," was with us like the Bottle-Imp, an incubus, still
crying out: "You may yet exchange me for a smaller coin, if such there
be!" "Nothing to do," is an imposture. Something to do is the very life of
life, the beginning and