OCEAK GAEDENS; 



better regime to go through, than the daily repetition 

 of the monotonous programme of entertainment thus 

 playfully described and ridiculed ? 



Snrely the visitor at the sea-side is in reach of 

 something more pleasant and profitable than such a 

 routine ! 



Do not the sublime aspects of the ocean — the 

 sound of its deep, ceaseless yoice— the eternal on- 

 coming of its waves, now in calm undulations, and 

 now in hurtling wildness against the base of those 

 cliffs whose white brows are wreathed with perennial 

 flowers — suggest other matters both for reflection 

 and amusement ? Surely the very whispering of 

 the breeze that has travelled so far over that vast 

 moving surface of the fathomless deep, and which 

 seems muttering of its mysteries, while laden with 

 its sweet saline odour — " ce parfitm acre de la mer^^ 

 as Dumas has termed it — might lead us towards 

 other and higher trains of thought. Surely those 

 voices in the wind, mingling with the strange mur- 

 mur of the waves as they break in cadenced regu- 

 larity upon the shore, rouse, in the feelings of those 

 Vv^ho hear them for the first time, or after a long 

 absence, strange sensations of admiration, and curio- 

 sity, and wonder. But no; to most of the idle 

 crowd those sights and sounds are invisible and 



