THE SEA 



The sea ever baffles description. It is a living 

 thing, pulsating with energy, and, possessed of a 

 subtle consciousness, elusive and full of moods — 

 changeable as woman and as incomprehensible. 

 Now it is tender and appealing ; again distant and 

 cold. Perhaps it is because of its essentially femi- 

 nine traits that it so beguiles. Certainly it fasci- 

 nates as nothing else fascinates in Nature. 



There is what may be called a sense of the sea, 

 which is indefinable. No lesser body of water, no 

 other aspe<fl of Nature affords this. It is in the 

 air, like a touch of autumn, and we know it as 

 much through feeling as through seeing. The 

 coast is saturated for some distance inland with 

 this presence of the sea, much as the beach is 

 soaked with salt water. It is music and poetry to 

 the soul and as elusive as they, wrapping us in 

 dreams and yielding fugitive glimpses of that which 

 we may never grasp, but which skirts, like a beau- 

 tiful phantom, the mind's horizon. Like music, 

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