IV FALLING CLIFFS 197 



Hard cliffs of igneous stone, which stand un- 

 changed within the memory of man, have little in 

 common with the generations that flicker across 

 earth. There is nothing human about them. 

 Ours — of a red marl that in places is all but mud — 

 change ceaselessly; they are ruins never ruined; 

 they are partners in our fragility; and it is, I 

 think, because they crumble and fall and age 

 visibly that we look on them with so careful, 

 so friendly, an eye, and speak of them always with 

 a tinge of regret, as one speaks of an old man who 

 is no longer what he was. To leave them and 

 then come back is like returning to a familiar 

 house that has been altered into something more 

 and something less than home. Pinnacles that 

 jutted boldly into the sky, buttresses that appeared 

 to be a support have fallen into water-washed 

 heaps upon the beach below. Springs have ended 

 by breaking down the patches they decked with 

 greenery. The tide flows streaky-red with fallen 

 land. New cracks have opened, are opening all 

 the time. 



Benjie has frequented the beaches and rocks 

 under cliff night and day for sixty years. While 

 he crouched on the stern-seat and, with a 

 strange mingling of lament for change, and 



