Jarl Afflicted With The Lockjaw If ever again I launch whale-boat from sheer-plank of ship at sea, I shall take good heed, that my comrade be a sprightly fellow, with a rattle-box head.

Be he never so silly, his very silliness, so long as he be lively at it, shall be its own excuse.
Upon occasion, who likes not a lively loon, one of your giggling, gamesome oafs, whose mouth is a grin?
Are not such, well-ordered dispensations of Providence?
filling up vacuums, in intervals of social stagnation relieving the tedium of existing?
besides keeping up, here and there, in very many quarters indeed, sundry people's good opinion of themselves?
What, if at times their speech is insipid as water after wine?
What, if to ungenial and irascible souls, their very "mug" is an exasperation to behold, their clack an inducement to suicide?
Let us not be hard upon them for this; but let them live on for the good they may do.
But Jarl, dear, dumb Jarl, thou wert none of these.

Thou didst carry a phiz like an excommunicated deacon's.

And no matter what happened, it was ever the same.

Quietly, in thyself, thou didst revolve upon thine own sober axis, like a wheel in a machine which forever goes round, whether you look at it or no.