and again feel the sides of the tank with my feet. If die I must, let me perish at least from well-directed though exhausting effort, not sink from mere bootless weariness in sustaining myself till the morning shall bring relief.
“The sides of the place seemed to grow higher as I now kept my watery course beneath them. It was not altogether a dead pull. I had some variety of emotion in making my circuit. When I swam in the shadow, it looked to me more cheerful beyond in the moonlight. When I swam in the moonlight, I had the hope of making some discovery when I should again reach the shadow. I turned several times on my back to rest just where those wavy lines would meet. The stars looked viciously bright to me from the bottom of that well; there was such a company of them; they were so glad in their lustrous revelry; and they had such space to move in! I was alone, sad to despair, in a strange element, prisoned, and a solitary gazer upon their mocking chorus. And yet there was nothing else with which I could hold communion!
“I turned upon my breast and struck out almost frantically once more. The stars were forgotten; the moon, the very world of which I as yet formed a part, my poor Mary herself, were forgotten. I thought only of the strong man
there perishing; of me in my lusty manhood, in the sharp vigor of my dawning prime, with faculties illimitable, with senses all alert, battling
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