AT THE SEASIDE. 31 



archaeology and associations of our sea-shores give in their most 

 pleasant form, not merely the history, but the legends, poetry, 

 and romance of the kingdom as well. 



Old age finds no keener outdoor pleasure than to revisit the 

 sea-shores familiar to it from childhood. Then memory and 

 reflection summon the past to their silent sessions, as the man, 

 cheered, it may be hoped, with all of love and deference which 

 should accompany old age, watches at evening the fishing-boats 

 hoist their sails to pass the harbour-bar ere the tide falls, and 

 so, with their large brown spread of canvas, sweep majestically 

 into the night. The grandchildren, it may be, play around ; 

 their father walks up and down, unfolding to his approving wife, 

 in the intervals of his cigar, the plan of his great work On Di- 

 morphism, which is to waft him on to fame. All things around 

 him, the aged man ponders, are full of hope and innocent en- 

 joyment, each looking on to some higher stage, some blessing 

 to blossom in the future. Has not this reflection a comfortable 

 bearing on his own years, which are fast nearing their earthly 

 term ? And if the inestimable boon be further granted him of 

 knowing that his life has not altogether been spent uselessly 

 and selfishly, if he be conscious of a good fight not unfairly 

 fought, if not a few memories of kindly deeds beset him, of 

 efforts made not wholly in vain to carry out the law of love in 

 his dealings with others, if peaceable thoughts and pure fancies 

 and righteous deeds and helping words have been the diet on 

 which he has fed his soul, who would not envy him this retro- 

 spect of life, mellowed by the sea's freshness, and with each 

 hard outline softened by its gracious influences ? Then, turning 

 from the past to the present, the sea spread out before him, 

 with its sails mysteriously sinking below the horizon to seek 

 another world, must needs remind him of the numberless philo- 

 sophers and poets who have loved to view in it " that immortal 

 sea which brought us hither," as well as the sea which rounds 

 our little life, the unknown waters on which, when our anchors 



