WE PREPARE EOR THE SLEDGE EXPEDITION 3 



"Sunday, November iSth. It seems as if I could 

 not properly realize the idea that I am really to set 

 out, and that in three months' time. Sometimes I de- 

 lude myself with charming dreams of my return home 

 after toil and victory, and then all is clear and bright. 

 Then these are succeeded by thoughts of the uncer- 

 tainty and deceptiveness of the future and what may 

 be lurking in it, and my dreams fade away like the 

 northern lights, pale and colorless. 



•' ' Ihr naht euch wieder, schwankende Gestalten.' 



" Ugh ! These everlasting cold fits of doubt ! Be- 

 fore every decisive resolution the dice of death must be 

 thrown. Is there too much to venture, and too little to 

 gain ? There is more to be gained, at all events, than 

 there is here. Then is it not my duty } Besides, there 

 is only one to whom I am responsible, and she . . .t 

 I shall come back, I know it. I have strensfth enous^h 

 for the task. ' Be thou true unto death, and thou shalt 

 inherit the crown of life.' 



" We are oddly constructed machines. At one mo- 

 ment all resolution, at the next all doubt. . . . To-day our 

 intellect, our science, all our ' Leben und Treiben,' seem 

 but a pitiful Philistinism, not worth a pipe of tobacco ; 

 to-morrow we throw ourselves heart and soul into these 

 very researches, consumed with a burning thirst, to ab- 

 sorb everything into ourselves, longing to spy out fresh 

 paths, and fretting impatiently at our inability to solve 



