370 MYSTIC ISLES 



One must be a child again to see all of it; the magic 

 shapes, the haunting tints, the fairy forms. The gar- 

 dener who had directed the growth of the aquarium be- 

 lieved in kelpies, undines, and mermaids, and had made 

 for them the superbest playground conceivable even by 

 sprites. 



There were trees, bushes, and plants of yellow and 

 white coral, of scarlet corallins, dahlias and roses, cab- 

 bages and cauliflowers simulated perfectly, lihes and 

 heaps of precious stones. On flat tables were starfish 

 lazying at full v^idth, strewn shells, and hermit-crabs 

 entering and leaving their captured homes. Mauve and 

 primrose, pink and blue, green and brown, the coral 

 plants nodded in the glittering light that filtered through 

 the translucent brine. They were alive, all these things, 

 as were the sponges, with stomachs and reactions, and 

 impulses to perpetuate their species and to be beautiful. 

 They had no relation to me except as I had to nature, 

 but they were my beginnings, my simple ancestors who 

 had stayed simple and unminded, and I was to count 

 those hours happy when I communed with them. 



Taken from their element they died, but left their 

 mold, to harden in the air they could not breathe, and to 

 amaze the less fortunate people who could not see them 

 in their own estate. The seaweeds grew among them, 

 green or brown, more primordial than the corals, with 

 less of organic life, vegetables and not animals, but 

 eager, too, for expression in their motions, their in- 

 crease in size, and their continuance through posterity. 

 All these were the display of the kindness of the same 

 spirit who rode the thunder, who permitted a million 

 babes to starve, who stirred in men the madness to slay 



