chap, ii THE ARCTIC CIRCLE 19 



can have no conception of the joy a true landsman feels 

 whenever he quits, if but for an hour, one of those hateful 

 prisons of the deep called ships. Words cannot describe 

 my normal loathing for the sea, save as a floor to look down 

 upon from a height of not less than iooo feet, when the 

 air endows it with an aspect of repose not its own. Then 

 indeed it becomes glorious, and the ships upon it resemble 

 fairy creatures, and the sun broods over it like a divine 

 presence. My altar to Neptune shall be raised upon a hill, 

 and thence will I offer him countless hecatombs. Such, 

 however, is the innate folly of man, that, when he sees a 

 beautiful view, he desires to be in the midst of it. " How 

 fair it looks ! " He thinks to gain by going where beauty 

 seems to be. But the beauty is not there, but here, whence 

 it is beheld. Not on that golden surface of the rippled sea, 

 not on that rose-tinted peak, but here. Not in the remem- 

 bered past, not in the brightly promising future, but, if any- 

 where, here and now. Tell a man this a thousand times ; 

 repeat it to yourself again and again. It is useless. Where 

 beauty is seen, there would we be— thither will we — beside 

 the great ones in history (who doubtless lived miserable 

 lives), anywhere that looks fair ; dort wo Du nicht bist, 

 dort ist das Gltick. But go there and you will find it 

 flown, the glamour gone further on, or worse, further 

 back. 



Christiansund is doubtless commonplace enough. The 

 point I thought I should always remember about it was 

 the sense of solidity of the earth underfoot. Any road 

 that led inland was good enough for us. We chose one 

 that struck uphill toward a moutonnised moor. It ended 

 in a picturesque wooden shed, a rope-walk that was tidied 

 up and put away for the summer. Behind came the hill- 

 top, and a little rocky park with a tower on its summit, to 

 which we scrambled, going through bogs and up little 



