to do. He
took hold of it, however, by the neck, and held it close to the
bolt, so that its tongue was less extended. After having warmed the
bolt somewhat with his hand, he managed to get the tongue free. The
poor little puppy seemed overjoyed at its release, and, to show its
gratitude, licked Bentzen's hand with its bloody tongue, and seemed
as if it could not be grateful enough to its deliverer. It is to
be hoped that it will be some time before this puppy, at any rate,
gets fast again in this way; but such things happen every now and then.

"Sunday, November 11th. I am pursuing my studies as usual day after
day; and they lure me, too, deeper and deeper into the insoluble
mystery that lies behind all these inquiries. Nay! why keep revolving
in this fruitless circuit of thought? Better go out into the winter
night. The moon is up, great and yellow and placid; the stars are
twinkling overhead through the drifting snow-dust.... Why not rock
yourself into a winter night's dream filled with memories of summer?

"Ugh, no! The wind is howling too shrilly over the barren ice-plains;
there are 33 degrees of cold, and summer, with its flowers, is far,
far away. I would give a year of my life to hold them in my embrace;
they loom so far off in the distance, as if I should never come back
to them.

"But the northern lights, with their eternally shifting loveliness,
flame over the heavens each day and each night. Look at them; drink
oblivion and drink hope from them: they are even as the aspiring
soul of man. Restless as it, they will wreathe the whole vault of
heaven with their glittering, fleeting light, surpassing all else
in their wild loveliness, fairer than even the blush of dawn; but,
whirling idly through empty space, they bear no message of a coming
day. The sailor steers his course by a star. Could you but concentrate
yourselves, you too, O northern lights, might lend your aid to guide
the wildered wanderer! But dance on, and let me enjoy you; stretch
a bridge across the gulf between the present and the time to come,
and let me dream far, far ahead into the future.

"O thou mysterious radiance! what art thou, and whence comest thou? Yet
why ask? Is it not enough to admire thy beauty and pause there? Can we
at best get beyond the outward show of things? What would it profit
even if we could say that it is an electric discharge or currents of
electricity through the upper regions of the air, and were able to
describ