Denuded woodland and disfigured landscape bring to mind that iron Necessity which it is not pleasant to see advertised. But the sea is unimproved. It is the universal solvent, and dissolves the trivial, the commonplace, the mean, and gives an heroic cast to whatever it touches. One needs, however, to observe it from the shore and to have that vantage which is derived from being on land. In mid-ocean it is too entirely dominant--there is nothing to afford contrast. It is like the moon--so fair at a distance, such desolation upon its surface. One can be alone on the mountains and find them friendly, but who would choose to be alone in mid-ocean? There is a sense of isolation, a disassociation, as if one had, in fact, severed connection with earthly affairs altogether; hour after hour and day after day the same inscrutable desert of water, which begins everywhere and ends nowhere.
Yet how inviting it appears when the glittering sunbeams dance on a gently rippling surface. It seems an expression of irrepressible gaiety as if all the joyousness in Nature had come to the surface here. The twinkling dance of the innocent waves--who can recall the tragedies now?
[Illustration: THE SEA COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY RUDOLF EICKEMEYER]
The gulls appear to enjoy some favoritism, as though they were kin to the sea--its very own. To them it is altogether friendly; they find it always congenial. Whether the breeze blows north or south, it is all the same. In the last gale it was next to impossible to keep one's feet in the full force of the wind, but the gulls sustained themselves with ease. Over the gray-green sea the clouds appeared to rest like a cowl. The thunder of the waves drowned all else and shut one off from the world; consciousness was swallowed up in the din and tumult. In vast mountainous billows the swirling waters rushed for the shore and dissolved in spray. I stood in the lee of the rocks, bracing myself against the gale--a reed shaken by the wind--and saw flocks of coots riding at ease in the maelstrom beyond. Always facing the wind, they sank into the troughs and rose again, were lost to view as the crests broke over them, and reappeared in the old position. Ships would have dragged their anchors where these coots rode at ease, anchored by heaven knows what power.