XI 



AT SEA 



/^NE does not seem really to have got out- of - 

 ^-^ doors till he goes to sea. On the land he is 

 shut in by the hills, or the forests, or more or less 

 housed by the sharp lines of his horizon. But at 

 sea he finds the roof taken off, the walls taken 

 down; he is no longer in the hollow of the earth's 

 hand, but upon its naked back, with nothing be- 

 tween him and the immensities. He is in the 

 great cosmic out-of-doors, as much so as if voyaging 

 to the moon or to Mars. An astronomic solitude 

 and vacuity surround him; his only guides and 

 landmarks are stellar; the earth has disappeared; 

 the horizon has gone; he has only the sky and its 

 orbs left; this cold, vitreous, blue -black liquid 

 through which the ship plows is not water, but 

 some denser fdtm of the cosmic ether. He can 

 now see the curve of the sphere which the hills hid 

 from him ; he can study astronomy under improved 

 conditions. If he was being borne through the 

 interplanetary spaces on an immense shield, his 

 impressions would not perhaps be much different. 

 He would find the same vacuity, the same blank or 

 negative space, the same empty, indefinite, oppres- 

 sive out-of-doors- 



