CHAPTER V 



BATTLEFIELD OF THE SHORE 



THE edges and rims of things are much more 

 exciting than the things themselves. This is 

 true even of man's handiwork vi^hen he works for 

 the love of the working — witness the glorious, 

 cosmic-horizon, china rims of Ming tissue bowls. 



As long as the planet Earth was covered by the 

 waters these were monotonous and comparatively 

 safe. But with the appearance of the first dry land, 

 shores began to be. Up to this time fish and other 

 sea creatures could enjoy their three planes of 

 watery space, they could swim up, down and 

 around, and when the active air made the surface 

 unpleasant, they simply dived to calm. 



All was changed with the coming of a shore. The 

 stand-patters, to be sure, merely swam away from 

 it, and to the flyingfishes, if there were flying- 

 fish then, the shore meant nothing, for they must 

 ever rise from and fall into the sea. 



But out of hoi polloi, from protozoa to fish, there 

 was, as please God there always will be, a moiety 

 — a small glorious band disturbed by a blind, divine 

 discontent, by unconsciously progressive guts, who 

 gathered from far and near, and began an unending 

 assault on this primeval shore, this new, amazing 



77 



