purblind wisdom, after all. When I do
not at all see my own way, I follow that, still aware of its
imperfections; where eyes are of service, I use them, learning from
experience caution, not submission. The real danger in this case was
that of being dashed against the berg; with coolness and some skill"
(was there a little emphasis on this word _skill_?) "that danger could
be disarmed. For any other danger I was ready, but did not fear it.
'Boyish?' The boyish thing, I take it, is always to be a pendant upon
other people's alarms. I prefer rather to be kite than its tail only."

"Well, each of us _does_ follow his own judgment," replied Candor; "you
act as you think; I think you are wrong. If it were shooting a Polar
bear now,--there's pleasure in that, and it were worth the while to run
some risk."

We had tried for a bear together. I seized my advantage.

"It is a pleasure to you to shoot a bear. So to me also. But I would
rather get into intimacy with an iceberg than freight the ship with
bears."

He smiled an end to the colloquy. As I went below, Captain Handy, the
Arctic whaler, met me with,--

"I would as lief as not spend a week on that berg! I have made fast to
such, and lain for days. All depends on the character of the berg. If
it's rotting, look out! If it's sound as that one, you may go to sleep
on it."

I hastened up to proclaim my new ally. "You heed experience; hear
Captain Handy." And I launched his bolt at the head of Censure, and saw
it duck, if no more.

We saw after this, going and returning, many bergs, hundreds in all.
With one of the finest, a little more broken and varied than those
previously described, we came up at a little past noon, and the schooner
stood off and on while Bradford went in the boat to sketch it in
color,--Captain Handy's steady and skilful hand upon the sculling-oar.
Bradford worked at it like a beaver all the afternoon, and then directed
the schooner to lie to through the night, that he might resume his task
in the morning,--coveting especially the effects of early light The
ardent man was off before three o'clock. Nature was kind to him; he
sketched the berg under a dawn of amber and scarlet, followed by floods
on floods of morning gold; and returned to breakfast, after five hours'
work, half in rapture and half in despair. The colors, above all, the
purples, were inconceivable, he said, and there was no use trying to
render them. I reminded him of Ruskin's brave