Crime & punishment > My friend the murderer

102
THE MAN FROM ARCHANGEL.
my impatience of all constraint. Among my books
and my drugs in my lonely den at Mansie I could let
the great drove of the human race pass onward with
their politics and inventions and tittle-tattle, and I
remained behind stagnant and happy. Not stagnant
either, for I was working in my own little groove,
and making progress. I have reason to believe that
Dalton’s atomic theory is founded upon error, and
I know that mercury is not an element.
During the day I was busy with my distillations
and analyses. Often I forgot my meals, and when
old Madge summoned me to my tea I found my
dinner lying untouched upon the table. At night
I read Bacon, Descartes, Spinoza, Kant—all those
who have pried into what is unknoAvable. They
are all fruitless and empty, barren of result, but
prodigal of polysyllables, reminding me of men who
while digging for gold have turned up many worms,
and then exhibit them exultantly as being what they
sought. At times a restless spirit would come upon
me, and I would walk thirty and forty miles without
rest or breaking fast. On these occasions, when I
used to stalk through the country villages, gaunt,
unshaven, and dishevelled, the mothers would rush
into the road and drag their children indoors, and
the rustics would swarm out of their pot-houses to
gaze at me. I believe that I was known far and
wide as the “ mad laird o’ Mansie.” It was rarely,
however, that I made these raids into the country,
for I usually took my exercise upon my own beach,
where I soothed my spirit with strong black to¬
bacco, and made the ocean my friend and my con¬
fidant.
What companion is there like the great, restless,
throbbing sea ? What human mood is there which
it does not match and sympathize with ? There are