AT THE SEASIDE. 27 



the sight ? And thus the benign offices of the sea to manhood 

 are once more apparent. Retrospection with a view to con- 

 tentment and thankfulness is chief amongst them. Present 

 work, present duties, present opportunities, is the burden of the 

 everlasting sea-melody to mature life. The music which those 

 monotonous chords call forth from the past is the swan-song of 

 a dead self. The father lives his youth over again at the sea- 

 side in his children, has his slower pulses quickened with their 

 glee, and is taught thoughtfulness for others by their wants. 

 Thus age is regenerated by childhood, childhood invigorated 

 by maturity, and the influences of the seaside enable these 

 periods of life to bear reciprocally upon each other. Pater- 

 familias may therefore find some compensations in the hard 

 fate which annually drives him to the sea. 



If a man have the least eye for colour, supposing other re- 

 sources to fail him, residence at the sea may become tolerable 

 by noticing the artistic effects of light on rock-scenery. A 

 splendid effect is produced on a bare Highland scene in autumn 

 when it is clothed in purple sheets of heather; an inland 

 pasture is not easily surpassed in vivid colouring when a sunny 

 June evening brightens out over it after an hour or two of rain. 

 But the intensity of these hues is far exceeded by sea scenery. 

 In addition to the geological structure of the rocks, which 

 forms, as it were, the groundwork of the picture, the play of 

 light from above and the strong reflected lights of the sea 

 below bring out in enchanted lustre what before was sufficiently 

 vivid, and leave the nooks and crannies in the deepest of 

 shade. Canon Kingsley dwells with special fondness in his 

 Prose Idylls upon the brilliant hues of his Devon rocks, and 

 the changes which successively pass over their tints at sunset. 

 But these variations of strongly-chequered light and shade are 

 by no means peculiar to the West of England ; they constitute 

 a special charm of any rocky coast. Our painters cunningly 

 seize upon them to give the tone to a sea-piece ; and during a 



