, I did not attempt to spring up the shrouds. I
looked round in horror for the objects of my excited thoughts; and as
I saw another enormous wave advancing till it overhung me, instead of
getting out of its reach, which I could easily have done, I kept
staring at it as it broke into what seemed innumerable goblin faces
and yelling voices over my head. I was down again. My leading thought
now was that I would strike out and swim for my life. But when I had
just made up my mind to this--which the sailors would have called
being washed away--I rose once more to the surface--and struck _up_
like a good one! I was at the cross-trees in a breath, and once in
safety there, I looked back both with shame and indignation.

When my job was finished, I went higher up in a sort of dogged humour.
I went higher, and higher, and higher than I ever ventured before,
till I felt the mast bending and quivering in the gale like the point
of a fishing-rod; and then I looked down upon the sea. And what, think
you, I found there? Why, the goblin faces were small white specks of
foam that I could hardly see; and their yelling voices were a smooth,
round, swelling tone, that rolled like music through the rigging. The
mountain-waves were like a flock of sheep in a meadow, running and
gamboling, and lying down and rising up; and in the expanse beyond the
neighbourhood of the ship, they were all lying down together, or
wandering like shadows over a smooth surface. I felt grand then, I
assure you. I looked down, and around, and above, till thoughts that
were not the instincts of an animal, came dancing up in my mind, like
bubbles upon the face of the sea. And as I returned slowly to the
deck, these thoughts grew and multiplied, and began to arrange
themselves into a form which I am not scholar enough to describe. But
through this new medium, I saw things as they are, not as habit and
prejudice make them. I did not fear the waves, and I did not despise
them. I humoured the sea as I got down towards the bulwarks, which
were still buried every now and then; and so I reached my quarters in
safety.

And what has all this to do with it? I will tell you. With the means
of doing a thing, nothing is difficult, if you only understand
thoroughly the nature of the thing. The obstacles that commonly deter
you are not in the thing, but in you; and until you understand this,
you will keep gaping and shrinking, and saying, 'It is impossible.'
Some folk, when look