HOMER ON THE SEA. 211 



self-centred ; only half an hour has passed, and he is 

 green, cadaverous, dank, prostrate, the manhood seem- 

 ingly spunged out of him. N.B. — In this respect T am 

 a Frenchman. 



At the sio;ht of the sea the Ten Thousand shouted. 

 At that sight I too should have shouted, had not the 

 glorious vision come upon me through the windows of 

 a railway carriage ; where my fellow-travellers, not 

 comprehending such ecstasy, might have seized me as 

 an escaped lunatic. But if my lungs were quiescent, my 

 heart shouted tumultuously. There gleamed once more 

 the lauohino^ lines of lioht, there heaved and broke 

 upon the sands the many-sounding waves ; and at the 

 sight arose the thought, obvious enough, yet carrying 

 a sort of surprise, that even thus had the sea been 

 glancing, dancing, laughing, breaking in uninterrupted 

 music, ever since I had left it. While I was bustling 

 through crowded streets, amid the " fever and the stir 

 unprofitable," harassed by printers, bored by politicians, 



" The weary, weary A, and the barren, barren B," 



bendino' over old books, eno-ao-ed in serious work and 

 daily frivolous talk, through all these hurrying hours, 

 the tides had continued rising and receding, the pools 

 had been filled and refilled, the zoophytes had quietly 

 dedicated their beauty to the sun, the molluscs had 

 crawled among the weeds, the currents of life had 

 ebbed and flowed in the great systole and diastole of 

 nature. 



By a mysterious law, every Thirst blindly, yet un- 

 erringly, finds its way to the fountain. My thirst had 



