NONSUCH 



and sent out a man in a boat to salvage the young 

 tropicbird. 



I am anxious to get down to the affairs of the 

 creatures who are waging their shore conflict, but 

 I keep wishing that someone would first write a 

 most wonderful essay — a veritable saga — of this 

 area from the point of view of the elements — the 

 physics and chemistry of this most active, dynamic, 

 pseudo- vital zone. Here we have a gas, a liquid, and 

 a solid forever having it out, with force, move- 

 ment, sound, victories and defeats, all of which 

 would pass as organic in a hundred particulars. 



The shore being what it is, a place unique, dra- 

 matic, of the greatest interest, it should not have to 

 depend on any simile, however apt, any metaphor 

 despite its appropriateness. Yet such is human 

 frailty, with such mental difficulty can we set apart 

 man's quarrels and nature's competitions, that the 

 strife on the seashore for new opportunities, in- 

 creased advantages in life, can be considered only 

 in phraseology of warfare and battle. Once we yield 

 to this temptation, the superficial resemblances be- 

 come amazing. 



From my desk I look down the south hillside of 

 Nonsuch, over the solid ranks of goldenrod and be- 

 tween the gnarled cedar trunks to the heaving green 

 waters. There is no scream of shells overhead but 

 an almost continuous roar of the surf in my ears, 

 not to be distinguished in memory from the sound 

 of distant guns, as they came, night after night, to 



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