as the swimmer's:
a waste ocean threatens to devour him; if he front it not bravely, it
will keep its word. By incessant wise defiance of it, lusty rebuke and
buffet of it, behold how it loyally supports him, bears him as its
conqueror along. 'It is so,' says Goethe, 'with all things that man
undertakes in this world.'

Brave Sea-captain, Norse Sea-king,--Columbus, my hero, royalest
Sea-king of all! it is no friendly environment this of thine, in the
waste deep waters; around thee mutinous discouraged souls, behind thee
disgrace and ruin, before thee the unpenetrated veil of Night.
Brother, these wild water-mountains, bounding from their deep bases
(ten miles deep, I am told), are not entirely there on thy behalf!
Meseems _they_ have other work than floating thee forward:--and the
huge Winds, that sweep from Ursa Major to the Tropics and Equators,
dancing their giant-waltz through the kingdoms of Chaos and Immensity,
they care little about filling rightly or filling wrongly the small
shoulder-of-mutton sails in this cockle-skiff of thine! Thou art not
among articulate-speaking friends, my brother; thou art among
immeasurable dumb monsters, tumbling, howling wide as the world here.
Secret, far off, invisible to all hearts but thine, there lies a help
in them: see how thou wilt get at that. Patiently thou wilt wait till
the mad South-wester spend itself, saving thyself by dextrous science
of defence, the while: valiantly, with swift decision, wilt thou
strike in, when the favouring East, the Possible, springs up. Mutiny
of men thou wilt sternly repress; weakness, despondency, thou wilt
cheerily encourage: thou wilt swallow down complaint, unreason,
weariness, weakness of others and thyself;--how much wilt thou swallow
down! There shall be a depth of Silence in thee, deeper than this Sea,
which is but ten miles deep: a Silence unsoundable; known to God only.
Thou shalt be a Great Man. Yes, my World-Soldier, thou of the World
Marine-service,--thou wilt have to be _greater_ than this tumultuous
unmeasured World here round thee is: thou, in thy strong soul, as with
wrestler's arms, shalt embrace it, harness it down; and make it bear
thee on,--to new Americas, or whither God wills!

CHAPTER XII.

REWARD.

'Religion,' I said; for, properly speaking, all true Work is Religion:
and whatsoever Religion is not Work may go and dwell among the
Brahmins, Antinomians, Spinning Dervishes, or where it will; with me
it shal