write more because of my sore eyes,
which are not to be wondered at, after all that they have seen in bitter
weather and in a long life of trouble and hardship from my youth up,
mostly at sea in spray and driving snow-storms at the fishing, which is
all over and past, as everything old is past. But things new are coming
to the front, and here I sit alone like Job, though he, to be sure, had
some friends, but loneliness is a sore thing for old folk, and idleness
which they are not used to, so that the Sheriff might as well have given
me back my post as master-pilot on my return from America. But he would
not do it, because I was not cunning enough to agree with him, when he
did not understand anybody, but it is given out officially that I am too
old, and thus I sit here without having shaved for a week, because I am
angry and my hand trembles, but not owing to old age. And I don't think,
either, that anybody is much to be envied for having friends like Job's,
and I am not stricken with boils and sitting among potsherds, but am
quite hale and strong, if I am rather dried-up and stiff, but I would
undertake to dance a reel and a Hamburg schottische if I could only get
a girl with a fairly round waist to take hold of, but it seems to me
that they are shrinking in and becoming flatter than they were in my
young days; but then I think that it is surely the sore eyes that are
cheating me, for I have always held this belief, that girls are girls in
all times, but old folks should be quiet and mind what they understand,
which is nothing that relates to the young. But a man should not get
sour _in finem_, for all that, and I have found that it is a dangerous
thing to grow old, for this reason, that one becomes so surly before
one's time, and that is against my inner construction, and I have now
sat here awhile and gazed out on the sea through rain and mist, and then
I straightened my old back and spat out my quid, which in all truth
smacked more of the brass box than of tobacco, because it had been
chewed several times, but I have cut myself a new one with my knife, as
I can no longer bite it off, for the reason that there are hardly any
teeth, but I have still a few front ones, and I have one good tooth,
which is hidden and is no ornament, but it is useful when I eat tough
things like dried ham. And I take up the pen again because I want to let
you know that I am not so ill but that I may hold out for a while yet;
and, if I keep