CHAPTER VIII. 

 AN OCEAN OF AZURE 



" The boom of the waves on the shingle."— Lewis Morris. 

 " Roll on, thou deep and dark-blue Ocean, roll ! "—Byron. 



"NJOT that the Ocean is always and every- 

 ^ where blue. In a certain **arm of the sea," 

 the Bristol Channel, it is commonly any tint 

 that you please rather than blue — brown, green, 

 yellow, chocolate, only not the colour that we 

 love. If by chance it dons for a few hours 

 a robe of azure, that robe is merely a passing 

 loan from the sky. And in dull weather it can 

 only be described as a huge puddle of muddy 

 liquid. 



People often grow to like best that to which 

 they are accustomed. A lady, who had spent 

 most of her life on the borders of that brown 

 Channel, once assured me that she infinitely 

 preferred it to the ''deep blue sea." She had 

 been to stay by the latter, and had found its 



70 



