116 LEAVES FROM THE BOOK OF NATURE. 



the fickle sea, the envious ocean, the fierce, hungry waves, 

 the furious breakers, all become the representatives of so 

 many human passions. Our fancy peoples the ocean with 

 sweet, luring sirens, endowed with magic power to weave 

 a spell and to draw the yielding mariner down to the 

 green crystal halls beneath the waves. There sea-kings 

 and morgana fairies live in enchanted palaces ; monsters 

 of unheard size and shape flit ghost-like through that dark, 

 mysterious realm, and huge snakes trail themselves slowly 

 from "their coiled sleep in the central deep, amidst all 

 the dry pied things that lie in the hueless mosses under 

 the sea." The bewildered and astounded mind tries, in 

 his own way, to connect the great phenomena of nature 

 with his fate and the will of the Almighty. It sees in 

 homeless, restless birds the harbingers of the coming storm, 

 in flying fishes the spirits of wrecked seamen, and points 

 to the Flying Dutchman and the Ancient Mariner as illus- 

 trations of the justice of God's wrath. 



The strong mind, the believing soul, of course, shake 

 off all such idle dreams and vain superstitions. To them 

 the sea is the very source of energy and courage. The 

 life at sea is a life of unceasing strife and struggle. Hence 

 all sea-faring nations are warlike, fond of adventures, and 

 poetical. But the sea's greatest charm is, after all, its 

 freedom. The free, unbounded ocean, where man feels no 

 restraint, sees no narrow limits, where he must rely upon 

 his own stout heart, strong in faith, where he is alone 

 with his great Father in heaven, gives him a sense of 

 his own freedom and strength, like no other part of the 

 earth, and makes him return to the sea, its perils and 



