ON BEACHY HEAD 



quite grasped and understood something still to 

 be discovered a mystery. 



So the white spray rushes along the low broken 

 wall of rocks, the sun gleams on the flying frag- 

 ments of the wave, again it sinks, and the rhythmic 

 motion holds the mind, as an invisible force holds 

 back the tide. A faith of expectancy, a sense that 

 something may drift up from the unknown, a large 

 belief in the unseen resources of the endless space 

 out yonder, soothes the mind with dreamy hope. 



The little rules and little experiences, all the 

 petty ways of narrow life, are shut off behind by 

 the ponderous and impassable cliff; as if we had 

 dwelt in the dim light of a cave, but coming 

 out at last to look at the sun, a great stone had 

 fallen and closed the entrance, so that there was 

 no return to the shadow. The impassable preci- 

 pice shuts off our former selves of yesterday, forc- 

 ing us to look out over the sea only, or up to the 

 deeper heaven. 



These breadths draw out the soul ; we feel that 

 we have wider thoughts than we knew ; the soul 

 has been living, as it were, in a nutshell, all un- 

 aware of its own power, and now suddenly finds 

 freedom in the sun and the sky. Straight, as if 

 sawn down from turf to beach, the cliff shuts off 

 the human world, for the sea knows no time and 

 no era; you cannot tell what century it is from 

 275 



