INTRODUCTORY. 



interest, and largely augments the number, not by 

 any means a small one, of those who have made it 

 their permanent choice. To those who have no 

 desire for serious study, and no leisure withal, we 

 would commend the perusal of the following passage 

 which occurs in Quatrefages' charming volumes, 

 and will merit a passing reflection : " If you still 

 preserve any of those illusions which, day by day 

 are vanishing amid the turmoils of life, if you regret 

 the dreams that have fled never to return, go to 

 the ocean side, and there on its sonorous banks you 

 will assuredly recall some of the golden fancies that 

 shed their radiance over the hours of your youth. 

 If your heart have been struck by any of those 

 poignant griefs which darken a whole life, go to the 

 borders of the sea, seek out some lonely beach, 

 beyond reach of the exacting conventualities of 

 society, and when your spirit is well-nigh broken 

 with anguish, seek some elevated rock, where your 

 eye may at once scan the heaving ocean and the 

 firmament above ; listen to the grand harmonious 

 voices of the winds and waves, as at one moment 

 they seem to murmur gentle melodies, and at 

 another swell in the thundering crash of their 

 majesty ; mark the capricious undulations of the 

 waves, as far as the bounds of the horizon, where 

 they merge into the fantastic figures of the clouds 

 and seem to rise before your eyes into the liquid 



