The Last Man

I AM the native of a sea-surrounded nook, a cloud-enshadowed land, which, when thesurface of the globe, with its shoreless ocean and trackless continents, presents itself to mymind, appears only as an inconsiderable speck in the immense whole; and yet, whenbalanced in the scale of mental power, far outweighed countries of larger extent and morenumerous population. So true it is, that man's mind alone was the creator of all that wasgood or great to man, and that Nature herself was only his first minister. England, seatedfar north in the turbid sea, now visits my dreams in the semblance of a vast and wellmanned ship, which mastered the winds and rode proudly over the waves. In my boyishdays she was the universe to me. When I stood on my native hills, and saw plain andmountain stretch out to the utmost limits of my vision, speckled by the dwellings of mycountrymen, and subdued to fertility by their labours, the earth's very centre was fixed forme in that spot, and the rest of her orb was as a fable, to have forgotten which would havecost neither my imagination nor understanding an effort.