X 
INTRODUCTION. 
And once on the beach under the favourable circumstances of a fine day, a receding tide, 
sufficient refection in the basket to prevent an inglorious retreat for lack of food — what is the 
wdsest course to pursue? To go straight down at once to as low-water as the tide admits of, 
and so gradually follow its retreat ; or to indulge the very natural inclination to stop and 
gather the wash-up {wreck, or wrack) which may possibly be scattered at your feet? The 
answer depends upon circumstances, but, as a general rule, the first is decidedly the better 
plan for a sea-weed collector. Sunshine so quickly injures the greater number of the finer 
plants (fading them to yellow and white), that they are scarcely worth picking up after a few 
hours’ exposure. But if a rough sea has brought an unusually profuse and thick deposit, they 
are well worth a turn over or two from your stick just to see that you are not leaving pearls 
behind you unaware ; and if you are one of those who patronise zoophytes as well as algae, you 
are pretty sure to find something worth stopping a few minutes for. Very good zoophytes are 
sometimes washed up to the very last high-water mark line, an instance of which once occurred 
at Filey, where a layer of the scarce Thuiaria articulata was left round one side of the bay, 
close under the cliffs. 
In such cases, of course, the bird-in-the-hand principle must come into play. You must 
not leave the certain good thing behind you, lest you lose it; for, find what you may afterwards, 
you will fret about the neglected treasure. Secure it, therefore, but hurry on afterwards ; and 
to beginners I would say. Go down to lower water at once. 
And now, if you have to walk along the sands before reaching the rocks you purpose 
scrambling over, enjoy yourself thoroughly as you go, by keeping close to the sea ; never 
minding a few touches from the last gentle waves as they ripple over at your feet. Feel all 
the luxury of not having to be afraid of your boots ; neither of wetting nor destroying them. 
Feel all the comfort of walking steadily forward, the very strength of the soles making you 
tread firm — confident in yourself, and, let me add, in your dress. Verily we women are all, 
“more or less” (as sea-weed descriptions have it), at the mercy of our dress! It is an 
unpleasant truth, but a truth it is. Does it not require an actual effort of moral courage, for 
instance, to go to a dinner-party, when you know that you are by no means fresh from the 
hands of a milliner, but that other people are likely to be pre-eminently so ? Can even a sense 
(which shall be granted you) of some internal compensating superiority prevent you feeling a 
little — just a little! — abashed, or dashed,'' as the strong common phrase goes, by the 
consciousness that for you the last new moon’s “ Belle Assemblee” has been published in vain ? 
Take courage and admit the fact ! You may hate the particular fashion of the day ; disap- 
prove of it as a matter of taste ; be quite aware that no artist, or, at all events, no high-art 
artist, would venture 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, hut 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 mortifica- 
tion 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 
