After having, in the course of a long and very stormy life, given heed
to the clouds of the sky and the various aspects of the sea, which can
change before your eyes as you look, like a woman who discovers another
whom she likes better, and you stand forsaken and rejected, because a
girl's mind is like the ocean above-mentioned, and full of storms as the
Spanish Sea, and I early received my shock of that kind for life, of
which I do not intend to speak, but the weather is of a nature that I
have never before observed in this country, with small seas, rare and
moderate storms, and on this first Yule-day a peace on the earth and
such a complacent calm on the sea that you might row out in a trough.
The wreckage that came in on the 8th and 9th December last was the only
extravagance, so to speak, of the sea this year, for there was too much
in some places, and this will probably give the Lensmand a pretext for
holding an auction, to the great ruination of the people, for the planks
were rare ones, both long and good-hearted timber. But at an auction
half the pleasure is lost, besides more that is very various in
kind--for instance, brandy: and the town gentlemen who sell such liquor
to the farmer must answer to their consciences what substances and
ingredients such a drink is cooked out of, as it brings on mental
weakness and bodily torment, proof of which I have seen numberless times
in strong and well-fabricated persons, especially during the Yule-days.
But this is not my friendship's time, for they say at the farm that the
Oldermand [Footnote: Master-pilot] is haughty, and will not swallow
their devil's drink at any price. But I sit alone before a bottle of old
Jamaica, which is part of what Jacob Worse brought home from the West
Indies in 1825, and I think of him and Randulf and the old ones, and the
smell of the liquor seems to call up living conversations, which you can
hear, and you must laugh, although you are alone, and you have such a
desire to write everything down as it happened; but no more to the
newspapers for this reason, that they have been after me with false
teeth and a nice, neat widow, of whom nothing more will be said. And
this extraordinarily mild winter has in some way kept the rheumatism out
of my limbs; besides, I am strong by nature and no age to speak of; but,
of course, it must be admitted that youth is better and more lively, of
which, as above, nothing more will be said.
As the years go on, Mr. Editor, disappointments bite fast into us, like
barnacles and mussels under ships; but we ourselves do not feel that our
speed is decreasing, and that we are dropping astern, and, as already
hinted, old age does not protect us against folly.
Yours very truly,
LAURITZ BOLDEMANN SEEHUS.