60 MY DEVON YEAR 



infant gulls with brightness, where they squat together 

 and discuss the world, and look with young but un- 

 fearful eyes at the friendly air soon to support earliest 

 flutterings. 



All hues of gold and silver are here, with such 

 reflections from each sun-tipped wavelet of the sea 

 as only marble can glean and give again. The 

 foam rises and falls like a fringe of pearls about 

 each jutting promontory or detached rock ; high- 

 water mark is defined by a band of darkness fading 

 to russet, where seaweeds grow that love both water 

 and air ; while above, springing to some graceful 

 point or needle, of shining stone, the marble rises 

 with proportions so true, and general distribution of 

 parts so harmonious in their relations to the mass, 

 that cliffs I know as friends seem to me rather a sort 

 of noble vessels floating upon the sea than adamantine 

 barriers set to oppose it. Light inspires them with 

 an apparent levity. Their crags and sunny scarps 

 seem wrought of imponderable pearly surfaces, that 

 might be spread to the wind or furled until another 

 sunrise, when the day is done and the evening twi- 

 light leaves them grey again. 



A dance of colour such as artists love is spread 

 here from the dawn hour onward. The chalk cliffs 

 easterly can tell no such rainbow story ; the red sand- 

 stone is, for the most part, impassive and expression- 

 less, though of a genial brilliancy against blue sky 

 in sunshine, and not devoid of character when com- 

 bined with other rock in conglomerate forms ; but the 



