UNEARTHLINESS. 225 



nothing in comparison with what was seen that night. 

 In the Atlantic, there is very seldom any portion of the 

 ocean luminous, except the crests of the waves, and these 

 mostly appear so during wet murky weather. Whereas, 

 in the Pacific, all instances of the sort previously coming 

 under my notice, had been marked by patches of greenish 

 light, unattended with any pallidness of the sea. Save 

 twice on the coast of Peru, when I was summoned from 

 my hammock by the alarming cry of ' All hands ahoy ! 

 tack ship ! ' and rushing on deck, beheld the sea white 

 as a shroud ; for which reason it was feared we were on 

 soundings/' * 



This idea of unearthliness is a great element in the 

 Romance of Natural History. Our matter-of-fact age 

 despises and scouts it as absurd, and those who are con- 

 scious of such impressions acknowledge that they are 

 unreal, yet feel them none the less. The imaginative 

 Greeks peopled every wild glen, every lonely shore, every 

 obscure cavern, every solemn grove, with the spiritual, 

 only rarely and fitfully visible or audible. So it has been 

 with all peoples, especially in that semi-civilised stage 

 which is so favourable to poetic developments : the elves 

 and fays, the sprites and fairies, the Jack-o'-lanterns, the 

 Will-o'-the-wisps, and Robin-goodfellows, and Banshees, 

 what are they all but the phenomena of nature, dimly 

 discerned, and attributed by a poetic temperament to 

 beings of unearthly races, but of earthly sympathies? 

 The garish day, with its clearness and perfect definition of 



* Melville's Mardi, vol. i., p. 187. 

 P 



