THE BREEZE ON BEACHY HEAD 



THE waves coming round the promontory before the 

 west wind still give the idea of a flowing stream, as they 

 did in Homer's days. Here beneath the cliff, standing 

 where beach and sand meet, it is still ; the wind passes 

 six hundred feet overhead. But yonder, every larger 

 wave rolling before the breeze breaks over the rocks ; a 

 white line of spray rushes along them, gleaming in the 

 sunshine ; for a moment the dark rock-wall disappears, 

 till the spray sinks. 



The sea seems higher than the spot where I stand, its 

 surface on a higher level raised like a green mound 

 as if it could burst in and occupy the space up to the 

 foot of the cliif in a moment. It will not do so, I know ; 

 but there is an infinite possibility about the sea ; it may 

 do what it is not recorded to have done. It is not to be 

 ordered, it may overleap the bounds human observation 

 has fixed for it. It has a potency unfathomable. There 

 is still something in it not quite grasped and under- 

 stood something still to be discovered a mystery. 



So the white spray rushes along the low broken wall 

 of rocks, the sun gleams on the flying fragments of the 

 wave, again it sinks, and the rhythmic motion holds the 

 mind, as an invisible force holds back the tide. A 

 faith of expectancy, a sense that something may drift 

 up from the unknown, a large belief in the unseen re- 

 sources of the endless space out yonder, soothes the 

 mind with dreamy hope. 



