One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
The Promised Land always lies on the other side of a Wilderness.
We have an unknown distance yet to run, an unknown river to explore. What falls there are, we know not; what rocks beset the channel, we know not; what walls ride over the river, we know not. Ah, well! we may conjecture many things.
It's more of an adventure when you set off into unknown territory, and there's nothing like that feeling you get when you discover a place on the Earth where no one has ever been.
We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end.
My course is set for an uncharted sea.
Yet, upon the whole, the space I traversed is unlikely to become the haunt of civilized man, or will only become so in isolated spots, as a chain of connection to a more fertile country; if such a country exist to the westward.
The ocean is a central image. It is the symbolism of a great journey.
We are imprisoned in the realm of life, like a sailor on his tiny boat, on an infinite ocean.
