could be sounded at once. That picture of him, standing there on my
deck, with an indefinite expression of belonging to the place, as he
would have belonged on his own hearth-rug at home, often recurred to
me, again to be renewed and confirmed.

And thus carelessly was swept into my path, as a stray waif, that man
who would in one little moment change my whole life! It is always so.
Our life sweeps onward like a river, brushing in here a little sand,
there a few rushes, till the accumulated drift-wood chokes the current,
or some larger tree falling across it turns it into a new channel.

I had been so long unaccustomed to company that I found it quite a
pleasant change to have some one to talk to; some one to sympathize
with I neither wanted nor expected; I certainly did not find such a one
in my new acquaintance. For the first two or three days I simply
regarded him with the sort of wondering curiosity with which we examine
a new natural phenomenon of any sort. His perfect self-possession and
coolness, the _nil-admirari_ and _nil-agitari_ atmosphere which
surrounded him, excited my admiration at first, till I discovered that
it arose, not from the composure of a mind too deep-rooted to be swayed
by external circumstances, but rather from a peculiar hardness and
unimpressibility of temperament that kept him on the same level all the
time. He had been born at a certain temperature, and still preserved
it, from a sort of _vis inertive_ of constitution. This impenetrability
had the effect of a somewhat buoyant disposition, not because he could
be buoyed on the tide of any strong emotion, but because few things
could disturb or excite him. Unable to grasp the significance of
anything outside of himself and his attributes, he took immense pride
in stamping _his_ character, _his_ nationality, _his_ practicality,
upon every series of circumstances by which he was surrounded: he