Orn.—On what then does the tint of the ocean depend, which has itself given name to a colour?
Hal.—I think probably on vegetable matter, and, perhaps, partially, on two elementary principles, iodine and brome, which it certainly contains, though these are possibly the results of decayed marine vegetables. These give a yellow tint, when dissolved in minuteportions in water, and this, mixed with the blue of pure water, would occasion sea green. I made, many years ago, being on theMer de Glace, an experiment on this subject. I threw a small quantity of iodine, a substance then recently discovered, into one of those deep blue basins of water, which are so frequent on that glacier, and, diffusing it as it dissolved with a stick, I saw the water change first to sea green in colour, then to grass green, and lastly to yellowish green: I do not, however, give this as a proof, but only as a fact favourable to my conjecture.
Poiet.—It appears to me to confirm your view of the subject, that snow and ice, which are merely pure crystallized water, are always blue, when seen by transmitted light. I have often admired the deep azure in crevices in masses of snow in severe winters, and the same colour in the glaciers of Switzerland, particularly at the arch where the Arve issues, in the Valley of Chamouni. We thank you for your illustration.
Hal.—In return, I ask you for some further remarks on this grand waterfall. You said just now, you preferred the fall of the Velino forpicturesque effect to any other waterfallyou have seen; yet it is a small river compared even with the Traun, and nothing compared with the Gotha, the Rhine, or, above all, the Glommen.
Poiet.—Size is merely comparative: I prefer the fall of the Velino, because its parts are in harmony. It displays all the force and power of the element, in its rapid and precipitous descent, and you feel, that even man would be nothing in its waves, and would be dashed to pieces by its force. The whole scene is embraced at once by the eye, and the effect is almost as sublime as that of the Glommen, where the river is at least one hundred times as large; for the Glommen falls, as it were, from a whole valley upon a mountain of granite, and unless where you see the giant pines of Norway, fifty or sixty feet in height, carried down by it and swimming in its whirlpools like straws, you have no idea of its magnitude and power: yet still, I think, considering it in all its relations, this is the most awful fall of water I have seen, as that of Velino is the most perfect and beautiful. I am not sure, that I ought not to place the fall of the Gotha above that of the Rhine, both for variety of effect and beauty; and the river, in my opinion,is quite as large, and the colour of the water quite as beautiful.
Hal.—But our horses are ready, and the time of separation arrives. I trust we shall all have a happy meeting in England in the winter. I have made you idlers at home and abroad, but I hope to some purpose; and, I trust, you will confess the time bestowed upon angling has not been thrown away. The most important principle perhaps in life is to have a pursuit—a useful one if possible, and at all events an innocent one. And the scenes you have enjoyed—the contemplations to which they have led, and the exercise in which we have indulged, have, I am sure, been very salutary to the body, and, I hope, to the mind. I have always found a peculiar effect from this kind of life; it has appeared to bring me back to early times and feelings, and to create again the hopes and happiness of youthful days.
Phys.—I felt something like what you described, and were I convinced that in the cultivation of the amusement, these feelings would increase, I would devote myself to it with passion; but, I fear, in my case this is impossible. Ah! could I recover any thing like that freshnessof mind, which I possessed at twenty-five, and which, like the dew of the dawning morning, covered all objects and nourished all things that grew, and in which they were more beautiful even than in mid-day sunshine,—what would I not give!—All that I have gained in an active and not unprofitable life. How well I remember that delightful season, when, full of power, I sought for power in others; and power was sympathy, and sympathy power;—when the dead and the unknown, the great of other ages and of distant places, were made, by the force of the imagination, my companions and friends;—when every voice seemed one of praise and love; when every flower had the bloom and odour of the rose; and every spray or plant seemed either the poet’s laurel, or the civic oak—which appeared to offer themselves as wreaths to adorn my throbbing brow. But, alas! this cannot be; and even you cannot havetwo springsin life—though I have no doubt you have fishing days, in which the feelings of youth return, and that your autumn has a morevernalcharacter than mine.
Poiet.—I do not think Halieus had ever any season, except a perpetual and gentlespring; for the tones of his mind have been always so quiet, it has been so little scorched by sunshine, and so little shaken by winds, that, I think, it may be compared to that sempivernal climate fabled of the Hesperides, where the same trees produced at once buds, leaves, blossoms, and fruits.
Hal.—Nay, my friends! spare me a little, spare my gray hairs. I have not perhaps abused my youth so much as some of my friends, but all things that you have known, I have known; and if I have not been so much scorched by the passions from which so many of my acquaintances have suffered, I owe it rather to the constant employment of a laborious profession, and to the exertions called for by the hopes, wants, and wishes of a rising family, than to any merits of my own, either moral orconstitutional. For my health, I may thank my ancestors, after my God, and I have not squandered what was so bountifully given; and though I do not expect, like our arch-patriarch, Walton, to number ninety years and upwards, yet, I hope, as long as I can enjoy in a vernal day the warmth and light of the sunbeams, still to haunt the streams—following the example of our late venerablefriend, the President of the Royal academy,[9]in company with whom, when he was an octogenarian, I have thrown the fly, caught trout, and enjoyed a delightful day of angling and social amusement, in the shady green meadows by the bright clear streams of the Wandle.