CHAPTER VI 
THE OPEN SEA 
One’s first impression of the open sea, gained 
from a steamer’s deck, is usually not too happy. 
The mind is distracted or it is dull, even if the 
body be not racked, and a sorry conclusion about 
the sea is acommon result. It isa dreary waste 
of waters. The horizon rim makes a perfect circle 
about one, the sky is a great arch overhead, and 
there is nothing to be seen but an occasional 
school of porpoises or the misty form of some 
sailing craft straining along the sky-line. 
The nouveau thinks the whole affair monoto- 
nous and, indeed, at first glance variety does 
seem lacking. Yet in reality there is not an 
hour when the wind does not shift the form of 
the waves, not an hour when the light and color 
of the water are not changing, not an hour from 
dawn to dawn when the uneasy, faceted surface 
is not throwing back reflections of the sky in a 
thousand variegated hues. The sea and the sky 
are always changing. What appears at first a 
113 
First im- 
pressions. 
Sea 
changes, 
