At the Water's Edge 



were struggling for utterance. There is no 

 passion to be found in nature like the anger of 

 the stormy sea, when wildly dark, beneath a 

 blackening sky, it hurls its furious billows in 

 sublime assault against some towering and in- 

 vulnerable cliff, that stands upon the world's 

 foundations in supreme repose, and spurns the 

 raging flood in silent and contemptuous disdain 

 — the most stupendous picture of nature's an- 

 tagonistic forces, the finest symbol earth can 

 yield of the universal warfare between light and 

 darkness, good and evil. But anger is not its 

 ruling passion. Beneath a radiant sky, before 

 a freshening breeze, its rejoicing waves sweep 

 onward in a buoyant humor, dashing them- 

 selves against the rocks only in harmonious 

 encounter, with the reaction of a sparkling re- 

 bound, quickened into an exalted liveliness of 

 hue and motion, as if land and sea were two 

 great kindred souls experiencing the stimulus 

 of eager, exhilarating converse. 



What endless graduation in the pulsations of 

 the deep, from the, terrible sublimity of storm 

 to the majestic peace, approaching nearest 

 slumber, that broods at other times upon the 

 main ; in all its wide diversities of character 

 presenting aspects multitudinous as are the 

 i6s 



