hing but
a succession of moods and feelings, shifting as incalculably as the
changing winds? Perhaps my brain is over-tired; day and night my
thoughts have turned on the one point, the possibility of reaching
the Pole and getting home. Perhaps it is rest I need--to sleep,
sleep! Am I afraid of venturing my life? No, it cannot be that. But
what else, then, can be keeping me back? Perhaps a secret doubt of
the practicability of the plan. My mind is confused; the whole thing
has got into a tangle; I am a riddle to myself. I am worn out, and
yet I do not feel any special tiredness. Is it perhaps because I sat
up reading last night? Everything around is emptiness, and my brain
is a blank. I look at the home pictures and am moved by them in a
curious, dull way; I look into the future, and feel as if it does
not much matter to me whether I get home in the autumn of this year
or next. So long as I get home in the end, a year or two seem almost
nothing. I have never thought this before. I have no inclination to
read, nor to draw, nor to do anything else whatever. Folly! Shall I
try a few pages of Schopenhauer? No, I will go to bed, though I am
not sleepy. Perhaps, if the truth were known, I am longing now more
than ever. The only thing that helps me is writing, trying to express
myself on these pages, and then looking at myself, as it were, from
the outside. Yes, man's life is nothing but a succession of moods,
half memory and half hope.

"Thursday, January 18th. The wind that began yesterday has gone on
blowing all to-day with a velocity of 16 to 19 feet per second, from
S.S.E., S.E., and E.S.E. It has no doubt helped us on a good way north;
but it seems to be going down; now, about midnight, it has sunk to
4 metres; and the barometer, which has been rising all the time, has
suddenly begun to fall; let us hope that it is not a cyclone passing
over us, bringing northerly wind. It is curious that there is almost
always a rise of the thermometer with these stronger winds; to-day it
rose to 13 deg. Fahr. below zero (-25 deg. C). A south wind of less velocity
generally lowers the temperature, and a moderate north wind raises
it. Payer's explanation of this raising of the temperature by strong
winds is that the wind is warmed by passing over large openings in
the ice. This can hardly be correct, at any rate in our case, for
we have few or no openings. I am rather inclined to believe that the
rise is produced by air from higher strat