possibility of struggle! All is so still and dead, so stiff and
shrunken, under the mantle of ice. Ah! ... the very soul freezes. What
would I not give for a single day of struggle--for even a moment
of danger!

"Still I must wait, and watch the drift; but should it take a wrong
direction, then I will break all the bridges behind me, and stake
everything on a northward march over the ice. I know nothing better
to do. It will be a hazardous journey--a matter, maybe, of life or
death. But have I any other choice?

"It is unworthy of a man to set himself a task, and then give in when
the brunt of the battle is upon him. There is but one way, and that
is Fram--forward.

"Tuesday, March 27th. We are again drifting southward, and the wind is
northerly. The midday observation showed 80 deg. 4' north latitude. But
why so dispirited? I am staring myself blind at one single point--am
thinking solely of reaching the Pole and forcing our way through to
the Atlantic Ocean. And all the time our real task is to explore
the unknown polar regions. Are we doing nothing in the service of
science? It will be a goodly collection of observations that we
shall take home with us from this region, with which we are now
rather too well acquainted. The rest is, and remains, a mere matter
of vanity. 'Love truth more, and victory less.'

"I look at Eilif Peterssen's picture, a Norwegian pine forest, and I
am there in spirit. How marvellously lovely it is there now, in the
spring, in the dim, melancholy stillness that reigns among the stately
stems! I can feel the damp moss in which my foot sinks softly and
noiselessly; the brook, released from the winter bondage, is murmuring
through the clefts and among the rocks, with its brownish-yellow water;
the air is full of the scent of moss and pine-needles; while overhead,
against the light-blue sky, the dark pine-tops rock to and fro in
the spring breeze, ever uttering their murmuring wail, and beneath
their shelter the soul fearlessly expands its wings and cools itself
in the forest dew.

"O solemn pine forest, the only confidant of my childhood, it was from
you I learned nature's deepest tones--its wildness, its melancholy! You
colored my soul for life.

"Alone--far in the forest--beside the glowing embers of my fire on
the shore of the silent, murky woodland tarn, with the gloom of night
overhead, how happy I used to be in the enjoyment of nature's harmony!

"Thursday, March 29th. It is wonde