A SALT BREEZE 153 



upon the youth of the world; there is no age, no 

 change, no decay here. It is older than the conti- 

 nents, and, in a measure, their creator. That it 

 should devour them again, 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 

 instability; 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; 'tis 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 fascination there. In the absence of 

 this the best substitute is the beach. 



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

 is the place for large types, large thoughts. 'Tis 

 not farms, or a township, we see now, but God's 

 own domain. Possession, ownership, civilization, 

 boundary lines cease, and there within reach is a 

 clear page of terrestrial space, as unmarred and as 

 unmarrable as if plucked from the sidereal heavens. 



How inviting and adventurous the ships look, 



