AN UNDISCOVERED ISLAND. 187 



certain pastoral repose such as comes to Nature 

 when man is remote ; but that which gave us the 

 thrill of something strangely sweet and satisfying, 

 something apart from the world we had left, was 

 not anything we saw with eye. All that was visible 

 was beautiful, but it was a loveliness not unfamiliar ; 

 it was the invisible continually breaking in upon our 

 consciousness that laid us under a spell. We were 

 conscious of something lovelier than we saw ; a 

 world not to be discerned by sight, but real and 

 unspeakably beautiful to the soul. Even to Caliban 

 the isle was &quot;full of noises&quot;; &quot;sounds and sweet 

 airs that give delight&quot; did not escape his brutish 

 sense. Sometimes &quot; a thousand twangling instru 

 ments &quot; hummed about his ears ; sometimes voices 

 whose soft music was akin to sleep floated about him ; 

 and sometimes the clouds &quot; would open and show 

 riches ready to drop upon &quot; him. There was a 

 sweet enchantment in the air to which the dullest 

 could not be indifferent. It hovered over us like 

 some finer beauty, just beyond the vision of sense, 

 and yet as real, almost as tangible, as the things we 

 touched and saw. 



Alone as we were upon the little island, we felt 

 the diviner world of which that tiny bit of earth 

 was part ; we knew the higher beauty of which all 

 that visible loveliness was but a sign and symbol. 

 The song of the sea, breathed from we knew not 

 what depths of space, was not more real than this 

 melody, haunting the island and dropping from the 



