^ SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



place awaiting them somewhere with a warmer smil. 

 ? gvew impatient to take wing ; and asked myself 



constantly— a why, though ill at ease 



Within this region I subsist, 

 Whose spirits fail within the mist^ 

 And languish for the purple sea?" 



Indeed I languished for the sea with a sort of .oolo- 

 « c lenturl 111 health was but a n.inor pretext. 

 The major pretext was an ever-acceleratmg desxre to 

 become mo' intimately acquainted with the orgamsa- 

 tion of marine animals, as an aid in those researche 

 in General Physiology which, commenced some twenty 

 years ago, had for the last six years become a pass.on. 

 ' The sea was an old playfellow of mine, and from 

 boyhood our friendship had been continually heighten- 

 "' It is almost needless to add that, like mostboys 

 io live on the coast. I had early visions of bemg a 

 sailor • to be a tar .seemed the culmination of all 

 earthi; ambition. Indeed, as a preparatory trammg 

 U high aim, at nine years old I declined to wear 



gloves, and secretly chewed bits of crgar rn gmse o^ a 

 auid as an evidence of nautical quahfication. The 

 ZLo was horrible ; but manliness at nine years oM 

 disdains nausea, and I " stood" to riry quul wU he 

 unflinching resolution to be afterwards shown m st nd- 

 •ng to my guns. To rehearse the intense y nautr 

 flavour of my diction at that period, and my fatal 



Lacy in ai technical terms, is bey..d my powe. 

 But whatever else I learned of the sea, I j-"-'' ]* >= 



of its inhabitants. Starfishes and jellyfish could not 



