But their most engaging quality is the picture of the
writer; with his indomitable self-confidence and courage, his
readiness in every pinch of circumstance or change of plan, and his
ever fresh enjoyment of the whole web of human experience, nature,
adventure, science, toil and rest, society and solitude. It should
be borne in mind that the writer of these buoyant pages was, even
while he wrote, harassed by responsibility, stinted in sleep and
often struggling with the prostration of sea-sickness. To this
last enemy, which he never overcame, I have omitted, in my search
after condensation, a good many references; if they were all left,
such was the man's temper, they would not represent one hundredth
part of what he suffered, for he was never given to complaint. But
indeed he had met this ugly trifle, as he met every thwart
circumstance of life, with a certain pleasure of pugnacity; and
suffered it not to check him, whether in the exercise of his
profession or the pursuit of amusement.
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