ncompetency were the three great
causes of emigration; and for all of them, and drink first and foremost,
this trick of getting transported overseas appears to me the silliest
means of cure. You cannot run away from a weakness; you must some time
fight it out or perish; and if that be so, why not now, and where you
stand? _Coelum non animam_. Change Glenlivet for Bourbon, and it is
still whisky, only not so good. A sea-voyage will not give a man the
nerve to put aside cheap pleasure; emigration has to be done before we
climb the vessel; an aim in life is the only fortune worth the finding;
and it is not to be found in foreign lands, but in the heart itself.

Speaking generally, there is no vice of this kind more contemptible than
another; for each is but a result and outward sign of a soul tragically
shipwrecked. In the majority of cases, cheap pleasure is resorted to by
way of anodyne. The pleasure-seeker sets forth upon life with high and
difficult ambitions; he meant to be nobly good and nobly happy, though
at as little pains as possible to himself; and it is because all has
failed in his celestial enterprise that you now behold him rolling in
the garbage. Hence the comparative success of the teetotal pledge;
because to a man who had nothing it sets at least a negative aim in
life. Somewhat as prisoners beguile their days by taming a spider, the
reformed drunkard makes an interest out of abstaining from intoxicating
drinks, and may live for that negation. There is something, at least,
_not to be done_ each day; and a cold triumph awaits him every evening.

We had one on board with us, whom I have already referred to under the
name of Mackay, who seemed to me not only a good instance of this
failure in life of which we have been speaking, but a good type of the
intelligence which here surrounded me. Physically he was a small
Scotsman, standing a little back as though he were already carrying the
elements of a corporation, and his looks somewhat marred by the
smallness of his eyes. Mentally, he was endowed above the average. There
were but few subjects on which he could not converse with understanding
and a dash of wit; delivering himself slowly and with gusto like a man
who enjoyed his own sententiousness. He was a dry, quick, pertinent
debater, speaking with a small voice, and swinging on his heels to
launch and emphasise an argument. When he began a discussion, he could
not bear to leave it off, but would pick the s