He has been used from childhood to think of the unexpected, the possibility of all possible things in Nature, as a sword hanging over every peaceful, quiet hour, and he generally carries this instinct with him in his intercourse with his fellow-creatures.

While you are talking to him, he may dive into his mind like the sea-fowl, but you do not suspect it, and are not therefore disconcerted.

This introspection may occur while he has tears in his eyes, and in moments when he is most deeply affected--it is his nature, and he will always retain a dash of it, even when he has moved, with all his belongings, from natural into civilised surroundings.

He eludes you, steals, with his imagination and his watchful suspicion, in, among, and around your thoughts; indeed, if he is a really talented Nordlander--I am too dull and disinterested to be able to do it--I believe that, without your suspecting it, he can go, with his hands in his pockets, right through your mind, in at your forehead, and out at the back of your head.

He would be invaluable as a detective or a diplomatist, if only he had more strength of character, and succumbed with less childish weakness to the influence of the moment; but these are unfortunately his weak points.