A SALT BREEZE. 169 



ure, their creator. That it should devour them again, f 

 like Saturn his children, only adds to our sense of itS; 

 mystery and power. 



The sea is another firmament. The land is fugi- 

 tive : it abides not. Vast areas have been scalped by 

 the winds and the rains ; but the sea, whose law is 

 mutation, changes not ; type of fickleness and insta- 

 bility ; yet the granite crumbles, and it remains the 

 same. The semicircle that bounds your view seaward, 

 and that travels with you along the beach, a vast, 

 liquid crescent or half-moon, upon the inner, jagged 

 edge of which you stand, is the type of that which 

 changes not, which neither ends nor begins, and into 

 which all form and all being merge. 



This is a part of the vague fascination of the shore ; ] 

 't is the boundary of two worlds. With your feet upon 

 the present, you confront aboriginal time and space. 

 If we could reach the point in the horizon where the 

 earth and sky meet, we might find the same fascina- 

 tion there. In the absence of this the best substitute 

 is the beachl 



We seemi to breathe a larger air on the coast. It 

 is the place for large types, large thoughts. 'T is not 

 farms, or a township, we see now, but God's own do- 

 main. Possession, ownership, civilization, boundary 

 lines cease, and there within reach is a clear page of 

 terrestrial space, as unmarred and a unmarrable as 

 if plucked from the sidereal heavens. 



How inviting and adventurous the ships look, drop- 

 ping behind the rim of the horizon, or gently blown 



