i 



INTEODUCTION. xi 



to disfigure his canvas by a representation of such Guy-dom. But yet 



"My Lord! we women swim not with our hearts, 

 Nor yet our judgments, but the world's opinions." 



Well, well! "Pelham" said long ago that the world considered eccentricity in small 

 things, folly; in great ones, genius. So a woman is right in not dressing differently 

 from the world's opinion when she is in the world, if she can ; and when she cannot 

 she must bear the mortification like the heroine she is: for among women there are 

 a good many heroines of whom the world knows nothing. But enough! Enough, 

 too, that if costumed as I have described, you, loving disciple, are, at any rate for 

 once, conscious as you step along, that you are in the right dress in the right place; 

 that you could not walk where you are now walking but for it; and that to walk 

 where you are walking, makes you feel free, bold, joyous, monarch of all you survey, 

 untrammelled, at ease, at home! At home, though among all manner of strange, 

 unknown creatures, flung at your feet every minute by the quick succeeding waves. 

 Curiously fragile, paper-like, sea-urchins — -you wonder if alive or dead — some mere 

 empty cases, some heavy with the corpse within; jelly- and star- fishes; ridiculous 

 little crabs, who find their legs at once, and trot hurriedly off; and mixed with 

 these, perhaps, the heavy body of a once beautiful sea-gull, its life cut short by an 

 idle shot; and a thousand, other things which must not be named or numbered here; 

 for, if you are a sea-weed collector only, you will not care to be troubled about 

 sponges, zoophytes, or shells, nay, probably would not even notice them, for it is 

 curious how the eye accustoms itself to see what it is searching after, and to ignore 

 everything else. Any mother knows this who has walked down a wooded lane in 

 spring with a schoolboy son. To her it is full of primroses, violets, and such 

 matters; to him of the birds' nests which, even when pointed out, she can scarcely 

 distinguish in the thick green hedge. "None so blind as those who won't see," 

 "except, perhaps, those who are looking for something else. 



But probably, as you proceed in your walk, you will observe that more and more 

 sea-weeds are being left among the creatures on the sand, and, if so, by all means 

 examine the nature of the wash-up before you pass on. If you see chiefly large 

 lumps of the olive-coloured Fuci, such as are figured in the first four Plates, you 

 need not trouble yourself. Pursue your way. But if delicate little tufts, pink or 

 brown, are lying about, secure a few of each sort as nearly as you can guess at 

 them, before you proceed. The initiated will, of course, have a definite idea of what 

 to gather in such a case, and so will you — and soon become one of them — if you 

 will now on this first occasion keep your random gatherings by themselves, so that 

 on your return you may notice what it was you picked up. It is possible that all 

 your little tufts may be but one species — that very common Ceramium riibrum (Fig. 

 242), which is a sort of Paul Pry in sea-weed society, intruding himself everywhere 

 in many varieties of appearance. Or they may be altogether a mass of another 

 common thing, Plocamium coccineum (Fig. 178), for as it looks very pink as it lies, 

 you would be certain to pick it up, were it there. And sea-weeds are so often torn 

 from the rocks in shoals, that it is very common to find a quantity of specimens 

 of one thing together; and as only an experienced eye can detect a species as it 



