234 NATURE NEAR LONDON. 



the cliff blocks of chalk have fallen, leaving hollows 

 as when a knot drops from a beam. They lie crushed 

 together at the base, and on the point of this jagged 

 ridge a wheatear perches. 



There are ledges three hundred feet above, and from 

 these now and then a jackdaw glides out and returns 

 again to his place, where, when still and with folded 

 wings, he is but a speck of black. A spire of chalk 

 still higher stands out from the wall, but the rains 

 have got behind it and will cut the crevice deeper and 

 deeper into its foundation. Water, too, has carried 

 the soil from under the turf at the summit over the 

 verge, forming brown streaks. 



Upon the beach lies a piece of timber, part of a 

 wreck ; the wood is torn and the fibres rent where it 

 was battered against the dull edge of the rocks. The 

 heat of the sun burns, thrown back by the dazzling 

 chalk ; the river of ocean flows ceaselessly, casting 

 the spray over the stones ; the unchanged sky is blue. 



Let us go back and mount the steps at the Gap, 

 and rest on the sward there. I feel that I want the 

 presence of grass. The sky is a softer blue, and the 

 sun genial now the eye and the mind alike are 

 relieved the one of the strain of too great solitude 

 (not the solitude of the woods), the other of too 

 brilliant and hard a contrast of colours. Touch but 

 the grass, and the harmony returns ; it is repose after 

 exaltation. 



A vessel comes round the promontory; it is not 

 a trireme of old Rome, nor the "fair and stately 

 galley" Count Arnaldus hailed with its seamen 

 singing the mystery of the sea. It is but a brig in 



