NONSUCH 



horizon is clear except for the stegosaurus-hke bulk 

 of Gurnet's Head a half mile off. Not quite clear, 

 however, for my eye catches a tiny dot, a less than 

 period — my tug Gladisf en at the vanishing point 

 of sea and sky, drawing her two miles of slender 

 tentacle thread, strung with the sextet of tiny pocket 

 nets through the cold blackness of the lower ocean. 



To my left towers a massive arch carved out by 

 wind and water and framing a vista of cliff and 

 sea and distant cedars. Not far away are two other 

 arches long since fallen in, and I look up at the 

 weakest point of the colossal curve overhead and 

 wonder whether I will be allowed to complete this 

 sentence. Somewhere in its substance there is the 

 deciding grain of sand, somewhere a certain wave 

 is gathering strength ; in some imminent or distant 

 time-space a gentle wind is arising. At the ap- 

 pointed time, when all these three shall meet, the 

 wave will splash up and loosen the grain of sand, 

 the wind will blow it from its age-old support, and 

 gravitation, patient gravitation, will have its way. 

 Whether it happens before this page is completed, 

 and uncounted tons of rock bury these eyes, hand 

 and paper, or whether some successor ten thousand 

 years from now will be enabled suddenly to cease 

 worrying about the petty things of his life is of no 

 importance. It is only certain that then as now, 

 tropicbirds, quite indistinguishable from those of 

 today will rush for the last time through the arch 

 and hover excitedly over the fallen debris. 



(On July fifteenth, three weeks after this was 



148 



