THE BREEZE ON BEACHY HEAD 



waves coming round the promon- 

 tory before the west wind still give 

 the idea of a flowing stream, as they 

 did in Homer's days. Here beneath 

 the cliff, standing where beach and sand meet, it 

 is still ; the wind passes six hundred feet overhead. 

 But yonder, every larger wave rolling before the 

 breeze breaks over the rocks ; a white line of 

 spray rushes along them, gleaming in the sun- 

 shine ; for a moment the dark rock-wall disap- 

 pears, till the spray sinks. 



The sea seems higher than the spot where I 

 stand, its surface on a higher level raised like 

 a green mound as if it could burst in and oc- 

 cupy the space up to the foot of the cliff in a 

 moment. It will not do so, I know ; but there 

 is an infinite possibility about the sea; it may do 

 what it is not recorded to have done. It is not 

 to be ordered, it may overleap the bounds human 

 observation has fixed for it. It has a potency 

 unfathomable. There is still something in it not 



