’But no more of Mary Wilson now.  Rather let us think a little of A.L.  Browne, F.R.C.P.!—­with a breathing-tube in his trachea, and Eternity under his pillow...’ [Dr. Browne’s letter then continues on a subject of no interest here.]

[The present writer may add that Dr. Browne’s prognosis of his own case proved correct, for he passed away two days after writing the above.  My transcription of the shorthand book marked ‘III.’  I now proceed to give without comment, merely reminding the reader that the words form the substance of a book or document to be written, or to be motived (according to Miss Wilson) in that Future, which, no less than the Past, substantively exists in the Present—­though, like the Past, we see it not.  I need only add that the title, division into paragraphs, &c., have been arbitrarily contrived by myself for the sake of form and convenience.]

[Footnote 1:  This I intend to publish under the title of ’The Last Miracle; ‘II.’ will bear that of ‘The Lord of the Sea’; the present book is marked ‘III.’  The perusal of ‘IV.’  I have yet finished, but so far do not consider it suitable for publication.]

(Here begins the note-book marked ’III.’)

THE PURPLE CLOUD

Well, the memory seems to be getting rather impaired now, rather weak.  What, for instance, was the name of that parson who preached, just before the Boreal set out, about the wickedness of any further attempt to reach the North Pole?  I have forgotten!  Yet four years ago it was familiar to me as my own name.

Things which took place before the voyage seem to be getting a little cloudy in the memory now.  I have sat here, in the loggia of this Cornish villa, to write down some sort of account of what has happened—­God knows why, since no eye can ever read it—­and at the very beginning I cannot remember the parson’s name.

He was a strange sort of man surely, a Scotchman from Ayrshire, big and gaunt, with tawny hair.  He used to go about London streets in shough and rough-spun clothes, a plaid flung from one shoulder.  Once I saw him in Holborn with his rather wild stalk, frowning and muttering to himself.  He had no sooner come to London, and opened chapel (I think in Fetter Lane), than the little room began to be crowded; and when, some years afterwards, he moved to a big establishment in Kensington, all sorts of men, even from America and Australia, flocked to hear the thunderstorms that he talked, though certainly it was not an age apt to fly into enthusiasms over that species of pulpit prophets and prophecies.  But this particular man undoubtedly did wake the strong dark feelings that sleep in the heart; his eyes were very singular and powerful; his voice from a whisper ran gathering, like snow-balls, and crashed, as I have heard the pack-ice in commotion far yonder in the North; while his gestures were as uncouth and gawky as some wild man’s of the primitive ages.