The old note-book contained the record of many such nights as that; but there were other nights, too, when the stars were blazing out, or when the moon on the water made the river a wide mysterious way of speculative dreams.  He was always speculating; the planets and the remote suns were always a marvel to him.  A love of astronomy—­the romance of it, its vast distances, and its possibilities—­began with those lonely river-watches and never waned to his last day.  For a time a great comet blazed in the heavens, a “wonderful sheaf of light” that glorified his lonely watch.  Night after night he watched it as it developed and then grew dim, and he read eagerly all the comet literature that came to his hand, then or afterward.  He speculated of many things:  of life, death, the reason of existence, of creation, the ways of Providence and Destiny.  It was a fruitful time for such meditation; out of such vigils grew those larger philosophies that would find expression later, when the years had conferred the magic gift of phrase.

Life lay all ahead of him then, and during those still watches he must have revolved many theories of how the future should be met and mastered.  In the old notebook there still remains a well-worn clipping, the words of some unknown writer, which he had preserved and may have consulted as a sort of creed.  It is an interesting little document—­a prophetic one, the reader may concede: 

How to take life.—­Take it just as though it was—­as it is—­an earnest, vital, and important affair.  Take it as though you were born to the task of performing a merry part in it—­as though the world had awaited for your coming.  Take it as though it was a grand opportunity to do and achieve, to carry forward great and good schemes; to help and cheer a suffering, weary, it may be heartbroken, brother.  Now and then a man stands aside from the crowd, labors earnestly, steadfastly, confidently, and straightway becomes famous for wisdom, intellect, skill, greatness of some sort.  The world wonders, admires, idolizes, and it only illustrates what others may do if they take hold of life with a purpose.  The miracle, or the power that elevates the few, is to be found in their industry, application, and perseverance under the promptings of a brave, determined spirit.

The old note-book contains no record of disasters.  Horace Bixby, who should know, has declared: 

“Sam Clemens never had an accident either as a steersman or as a pilot, except once when he got aground for a few hours in the bagasse (cane) smoke, with no damage to anybody though of course there was some good luck in that too, for the best pilots do not escape trouble, now and then.”

Bixby and Clemens were together that winter on the Alonzo Child, and a letter to Orion contains an account of great feasting which the two enjoyed at a “French restaurant” in New Orleans—­“dissipating on a ten-dollar dinner—­tell it not to Ma!”—­where they had sheepshead fish, oysters, birds, mushrooms, and what not, “after which the day was too far gone to do anything.”  So it appears that he was not always reading Macaulay or studying French and astronomy, but sometimes went frivoling with his old chief, now his chum, always his dear friend.