364 MARVELS OF THE NORTH 



wide open to the spring air and sun, and the dust of winter is blown away; 

 a time when one can no longer sit still, but must perforce go out-of-doors to 

 inhale the perfume of wood and field and fresh-dug earth, and behold the 

 fjord, free from ice, sparkling in the sunlight. What an inexhaustible fund 

 of the awakening joys of nature does that word April contain ! But here — 

 here that is not to be found. True, the sun shines long and bright, but its 

 beams fall not on forest or mountain or meadow, but only on the dazzling 

 whiteness of the fresh-fallen snow. Scarcely does it entice one out from 

 one's winter retreat. This is not the time of revolutions here. If they come 

 at all, they will come much later. The days roll on uniformly and monot- 

 onously; here I sit, and feel no touch of the restless longings of the spring, 

 and shut myself up in the snail-shell of rny studies. 



"Day after day I dive down into the world of the microscope, forgetful 

 of time and surroundings. Now and then, indeed, I may make a little excur- 

 sion from darkness to light — the day beams around me, ^nd my soul opens 

 a tiny loophole for light and courage to enter in — and then down, down into 

 the darkness, and to work once more. Before turning in for the night I 

 must go on deck. A little while ago the daylight would by this time have 

 vanished, a few solitary stars would have been faintly twinkling, while the 

 pale moon shone over the ice. But now even this has come to an end. The 

 sun no longer sinks beneath the icy horizon ; it is continual day. I gaze into 

 the far distance, far over the barren plain of snow, a boundless, silent, and 

 lifeless mass of ice in imperceptible motion. No sound can be heard save the 

 faint murmur of the air through the rigging, or perhaps far away the low 

 rumble of packing ice. In the midst of this empty waste of white there 

 is but one little dark spot, and that is the Fram. 



"But beneath this crust, hundreds of fathoms down, there teems a world 

 of checkered life in all its changing forms, a world of the same composition 

 as ours, with the same instincts, the same sorrows, and also, no doubt, the 

 same joys; everywhere the same struggle for existence. So it ever is. If 

 we penetrate within even the hardest shell we come upon the pulsations of 

 life, however thick the crust may be. 



THE HARMONIES OF NATURE. 



"I seem to be sitting here in solitude listening to the music of one of 

 Nature's mighty harp-strings. Her grand symphonies peal forth through 

 the endless ages of the universe, now in the tumultuous whirl of busy life, 



