150 
NATURE FOR ITS OWN SAKE 
Moonlight 
by the sea. 
The coast 
in storm, 
and the sand of the beach gleams white as 
winter snow. The Fairies’ Pathway of moon- 
beams, or as the Chinese call it, the Golden 
Dragon, twists and flashes upon the eastern 
water, the dark pines stand in silent ranks their 
tops spread against the purple western sky, and 
from the dividing line of land and sea comes 
that eternal surge of the wave. How it hushes 
the ery of the mortal—that sullen moan of 
waters! What human woe or weariness but 
sobs itself to sleep at last! But for the sea 
there is no rest. Under the stars, as under the 
sun, to-day as through the long centuries of 
yesterday, it throbs and beats at the feet of the 
earth, and its voice is never stilled. 
And is not the sea-shore equally beautiful in 
storm, when the spray is flying high above the 
cliffs and the rock-bases are trembling with the 
shock of water? The majority of us see the 
coast in the calm months of summer when it is 
not agitated by long storms, when the life-sav- 
ing service men have closed their stations, and 
only the curl of the breeze-wave is seen on the 
beach. But the time when the sea is in its 
full power is mid-winter, when the land is 
white with snow and the wave is white with 
foam. Then the roar and hurly-burly of the 
