AT SEA. 



ONE does net seem really to have got out-of-doors 

 till he goes to sea. On the land he is shut in by the 

 hills, or the forests, or more or less housed by the 

 sharp lines of his horizon. But at sea he finds the 

 roof taken off, the walls taken down ; he is no longer 

 in the hollow of the earth's hand, but upon its naked 

 back, with nothing between him and the immensities. 

 He is in the great cosmic out-of-doors, as much so as 

 if voyaging to the moon or to Mars. An astronomic 

 solitude and vacuity surround him ; his only guides 

 and landmarks are stellar ; the earth has disappeared ; 

 the horizon has gone ; he has only the sky and its 

 orbs left ; this cold, vitreous, blue-black liquid through 

 which the ship ploughs is not water, but some denser 

 form of the cosmic ether. He can now see the curve 

 of the sphere which the hills hid from him ; he can 

 study astronomy under improved conditions. If he 

 was being borne through the interplanetary spaces on 

 an immense shield, his impressions would not perhaps 

 be much different. He would find the same vacuity, 

 the same blank or negative space, the same empty, 

 indefinite, oppressive out-of-doors. 



For it must be admitted that a voyage at sea is 

 19 



