 in health, but is very silent,
and appears uneasy when any one except myself enters his cabin. Yet his manners
are so conciliating and gentle, that the sailors are all interested in him,
although they have had very little communication with him. For my own part, I
begin to love him as a brother; and his constant and deep grief fills me with
sympathy and compassion. He must have been a noble creature in his better days,
being even now in wreck so attractive and amiable.
    I said in one of my letters, my dear Margaret, that I should find no friend
on the wide ocean; yet I have found a man who, before his spirit had been broken
by misery, I should have been happy to have possessed as the brother of my
heart.
    I shall continue my journal concerning the stranger at intervals, should I
have any fresh incidents to record.
 
                                                              August 13th, 17 -.
 
My affection for my guest increases every day. He excites at once my admiration
and my pity to an astonishing degree. How can I see so noble a creature
destroyed by misery, without feeling the most poignant grief? He is so gentle,
yet so wise; his mind is so cultivated; and when he speaks, although his words
are culled with the choicest art, yet they flow with rapidity and unparalleled
eloquence.
    He is now much recovered from his illness, and is continually on the deck,
apparently watching for the sledge that preceded his own. Yet, although unhappy,
he is not so utterly occupied by his own misery, but that he interests himself
deeply in the projects of others. He has frequently conversed with me on mine,
which I have communicated to him without disguise. He entered attentively into
all my arguments in favour of my eventual success, and into every minute detail
of the measures I had taken to secure it. I was easily led by the sympathy which
he evinced, to use the language of my heart; to give utterance to the burning
ardour of my soul; and to say, with all the fervour that warmed me, how gladly I
would sacrifice my fortune, my existence, my every hope, to the furtherance of
my enterprise. One man's life or death were but a small price to pay for the
acquirement of the knowledge which I sought; for the dominion I should acquire
and transmit over the elemental foes of our race. As I spoke, a dark gloom
spread over my listener's countenance. A first I perceived that he tried to
suppress his emotion; he placed his hands before his eyes; and
