THE TIDES 



I remember that one of the most strange and 

 perturbing pleasures of my childhood was in 

 watching, from a grassy height, the stealthy 

 motions of the tides. The fascination never 

 waned, nor has it yet waned : to-day, as then, 

 I know at times the old thrill, almost the old 

 fear, when through a white calm or up some 

 sea -loch I watch those dark involutions, in 

 sudden twists and long serpentine curves, as 

 the eddies of the tide force their mysterious 

 way. For one thing my childish imagination 

 was profoundly impressed by the words of an 

 old islander whom I had asked where the tides 

 came from and what they were and had they 

 names. We were on the steep slope of a small 

 grassy hill, and overlooked the eastern end of 

 an island where the troubled waters of a caoileas 

 or strait to the south met the vast placid reach 

 of ocean on the north. Through the lustrous 

 green of the Sound, fleckt with long mauve 



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