in the cabin who had financed
the expedition.
    The captain was a fishy-eyed Norwegian who somehow had fallen into
possession of a complete Shakespeare, which he never read, and Martin had washed
his clothes for him and in return been permitted access to the precious volumes.
For a time, so steeped was he in the plays and in the many favorite passages
that impressed themselves almost without effort on his brain, that all the world
seemed to shape itself into forms of Elizabethan tragedy or comedy and his very
thoughts were in blank verse. It trained his ear and gave him a fine
appreciation for noble English; withal it introduced into his mind much that was
archaic and obsolete.
    The eight months had been well spent, and, in addition to what he had
learned of right speaking and high thinking, he had learned much of himself.
Along with his humbleness because he knew so little, there arose a conviction of
power. He felt a sharp gradation between himself and his shipmates, and was wise
enough to realize that the difference lay in potentiality rather than
achievement. What he could do, they could do; but within him he felt a confused
ferment working that told him there was more in him than he had done. He was
tortured by the exquisite beauty of the world, and wished that Ruth were there
to share it with him. He decided that he would describe to her many of the bits
of South Sea beauty. The creative spirit in him flamed up at the thought and
urged that he recreate this beauty for a wider audience than Ruth. And then, in
splendor and glory, came the great idea. He would write. He would be one of the
eyes through which the world saw, one of the ears through which it heard, one of
the hearts through which it felt. He would write - everything - poetry and
prose, fiction and description, and plays like Shakespeare. There was career and
the way to win to Ruth. The men of literature were the world's giants, and he
conceived them to be far finer than the Mr. Butlers who earned thirty thousand a
year and could be Supreme Court justices if they wanted to.
    Once the idea had germinated, it mastered him, and the return voyage to San
Francisco was like a dream. He was drunken with unguessed power and felt that he
could do anything. In the midst of the great and lonely sea he gained
perspective. Clearly, and for the first time, he saw Ruth and her world. It was
all visualized in his mind as a concrete thing which he could take up in