There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal. Roll on, thou deep and dark-blue Ocean - roll! BYRON. CHAPTER IX THE SEA WHEN the glorious summer weather comes, when we feel that by a year's honest work we have fairly won the prize of a good holiday, how we turn instinctively to the Sea. We pine for the delicious smell of the sea air, the murmur of the waves, the rushing sound of the pebbles on the sloping shore, the cries of the sea-birds; and long to Linger, where the pebble-paven shore, Under the quick, faint kisses of the Sea, How beautiful the sea-coast is! At the foot of a cliff, perhaps of pure white chalk, or rich red sandstone, or stern grey granite, lies the shore of gravel or sand, with a few scattered plants of blue Sea Holly, or yellowflowered Horned Poppies, Sea-kale, Sea Convolvulus, Saltwort, Artemisia, and Sea-grasses; the waves roll leisurely in one by one, and as they reach the beach, each in turn rises up in an arch of clear, cool, transparent, green water, tipped with white or faintly pinkish foam, and breaks lovingly on the sands; while beyond lies the open Sea sparkling in the sunshine. Earth hath not a plain So boundless or so beautiful as thine.1 The Sea is indeed at times overpoweringly beautiful. At morning and evening a sheet of living silver or gold, at mid-day deep blue; even Too deeply blue; too beautiful; too bright; There are few prettier sights than the beach at a seaside town on a fine summer's day ; the waves sparkling in the sunshine, the water |