VIBeside the Sea
HEARING that Professor Maturin was back again in town, I made an early call, and found him hale and hearty, bleached and bronzed, and even more than usually clear-eyed.
“Behold me returned from a summer beside the sea,” he said in greeting. “I see that you note the visible indications of my sea-change. Whenever you are in the mood for a tide of talk, I believe I can convince you that my experience was as rich as its outward signs are strange.” I reminded him that there was never any time like the present, and added such further solicitation that he began at once.
“You know the locality of my preference: a place frequented just enough not to be lonely, a region of bays and sounds as well as of open sea; where the waves batter at the cliffs only to return their spoil to the sands—where, in short, the unity of the element appears in endless variety. My favorite station was a dune-guarded beach of sand, which swept on either hand into pebbles and stones, until lost in the rocks heaped below the boulder cliffs that formed the horns of a crescent cove.
“At first I spent unmeasured hours looking over the expanse toward the terminal haze, and watching, as far out as I could, the great ridges rolling with the motion of wind and tide and open sea. At the farthest, they looked like mountain ranges, one behind the other; nearer, they were dark green hills with grayish summits. Nearer yet, one could see them reflect the sky, and sometimes the shore. Nearest of all, there was a visible upgathering before the rush, plunge, and sweep on the beach—all endlessly repeated and infinitely varied.
“The same perpetual repetition and variety appeared in the surge, as it flooded up the sands in a wide curve of plash, ripple, and foam; paused, retreated slowly, and then swept out, only to join with the drag of the bottom in opposing an incoming wave, until it rose high, plunged forward, and broke into the churning shallows, which were quickly covered by the main body of the wave as it flooded in.
“The outermost margin of almost every surge lingered long enough to make its record in a tiny ridge of sand and to reflect the light and color of the sky; then it sank into the sand, leaving a burden of pebbles and shells, stubble and seaweed, and the like. This flotsam and jetsam isso constantly swept up, drawn back, and tossed to and fro that I was not surprised to find the sands, under a microscope, composed entirely of such materials worn to powder. Behind me, the sea and the wind had heaped the sand into hills, that shore grasses burrowed into and held together. To left and right, the cliffs, although high and precipitous, were so scarred and worn by storm and wave that they looked almost primeval. Their tops were bared by the winds and corroded by the alternate action of heat and moisture; their granite sides were seamed and stained by the surge; and their feet were encumbered with fragments of their own wreckage that must have thundered down like avalanches. These rocks, whether flung forward in reefs like sculptured waves, or heaped like ruins, were naturally of a rich old rose, but they were often also gray with barnacles, or green with sea growths, and they showed even deeper in tone when submerged beneath the many pools that similarly mellowed and enriched the coloring of pebbles, shells, and weeds.
“My observation of the almost infinitely varied flora and fauna of the sea was, naturally, but superficial. Yet I saw many delightful plant and flower-like forms of dark or light green, yellow,brown, and red, all ceaselessly retinted by the ever-changing sky lights, and the reflection and refraction of the water. Sometimes they rioted in thick tangles among the rocks; again they softly swayed, outspread toward the rising and falling surface.
“The fauna I preferred to look at under water, for, on the whole, I found them grotesque, although I was bound to admire their adjustment to their environment, and to respect them as possible images of our remote ancestors. I was especially impressed with the constant warfare beneath the surface, as exemplified in the regular manœuvring of whole armies of tiny fish, only to have company after company routed by the dash and gulp of some larger enemy.
“The bottom of the sea I have never seen, save through the glass-bottomed boats of the Bermudas, but some day I hope for a diver’s view of the depths. It is easy to understand why the imagination of the poets should be stimulated by the idea of that cool, dim quietness, disturbed only by the swaying of verdure and the movement of great fish; of the richness of color, and the long, slow passage of time, measured only by the up-building of the coral.
“The open sea is, of course, familiar to us all,and yet its apparent boundlessness and immeasurable depth are ever new as the most immense thing in our knowledge—the sky belonging rather to the realm of the intangible. Mid-ocean always makes me feel the infinite continuity of time, the omnipresence of natural law, and a stimulus to greater harmony with its workings. Nowhere else are my ‘cosmic emotions’ so stirred. One gets something of the same impression on land wherever one can mark the ceaseless rising, pausing, and falling of the tide, under the mysterious governance of the moon. I am more than fond of the regular, gentle quality of the tide’s behavior, even if it does sometimes seem stealthy in its creeping toward and around the half-oblivious observer.
“I cannot similarly commend the behavior of the wind, when it opposes the tide in bluster on the sea or pushes it in tumult on the shore. The tide is a serene and responsible world power; the wind almost always performs its indispensable functions with all the eccentricity of genius. A breeze is positively attractive when ruffling the surface or sweeping spray from the wave-crests, and the wind itself is unobjectionable when it consistently urges the waves in one direction. But when it plays havoc with the clouds, or ‘ruffianson the enchafèd flood’ until it fastens upon the eluctant sea a behavior as bad and a reputation worse than its own—then I am by no means for it.
“It was my fortune this summer to witness several storms of such intensity that I became impressed with the routine of their procedure. The sea—grown dark, heavy, and oily—is first flicked and spotted, and then strangely lighted, all over, with the dash of rain and hail; the sun is made lurid, then shrouded, and then hidden by a metallic sky; the clouds grow gloomy and sullen until they are shattered by peals of thunder and riven by livid lightnings. Then the wind rushes, howls, and roars; tearing and hurtling the clouds and tumbling and lashing the waves until they leap and plunge, reel and writhe, flinging up hissing foam and whirling spray ‘shrewd with salt.’ It is undoubtedly glorious—but I like it best when it is over, leaving the torn waves heavy with foam as a reminder, by contrast, of the quieter beauties of a calmer sea.
“Even the sky, the most beautiful thing that we know, seems to multiply its beauty by the sea. One day I saw night gradually lapsing into dawn. The sea glimmered as though the stars had come down, and then flashed until, in the languageof Swinburne, it blossomed rosily and flowered in the sun, floating all fiery upon the burning water. I saw many long mornings of sapphire sky and lapis-lazuli sea, and many noons when the waves glittered until their spray became diamonds. Through long afternoons the sea reflected sky and clouds in every shade of silver, blue, and green. The amber fire of the setting sun not only made the heavens splendid, but poured both direct and reflected rays upon the sea until nothing but the idea of a stupendous opal could suggest its coloring. Later, all would fade until land was lost, the sea grew deep and dark, and the only light was the foam and the reflections of the stars. With the moon, all grew new again. Rising low and large, it threw a broad, undulating pathway as golden as that of the sun was silver. Where it reached the shore its glitter extended along the surf, gleaming over the sands, and twinkling wherever spray or dew had fallen. Later yet, as the moon quietly sank, the general illumination grew dim, until obscurity covered land and sea alike, and the sea seemed to merge into infinite space.
“Then, as at no other time, one hears the sound of the sea. I spent many hours listening, endeavoring to analyze it, and to interpret its effect.Its continuity and variety are perhaps its most striking characteristics. It is so ceaseless that it suggests the everlasting. Within this perpetuity it rises and sinks, leaps and falls, gathers and dissolves; it sweeps and rolls, sways and trembles; it seems to approach and withdraw, to flow and overflow; it sounds and resounds, repeats and changes. And well it may do all this and more, considering that its source is a countless number and variety of waves, surging, breaking, and seething among themselves; rushing, plashing, lapping on the shore, chafing sand, rattling pebbles, grating shells, grinding rocks:—all of the resulting sound being constantly varied as well as augmented by breeze, wind, and storm; by the configuration and reverberating qualities of the shore; and by the varying acoustic properties of the atmosphere.
“Analysis being thus nearly baffled, I turned to analogy, and found the sound like the rumble of thunder, the crash of falling rocks, the rush of cataracts; like the quiver of green branches and the rustle of dry leaves; like the bellow and roar of animals; the clash of arms and armor. It is very much like music in its elements of monotone, chord, cadence, melody, and harmony; its relations of continuity, rhythm, repetition, and variation;in its sounds as of cymbal, tympani, bell, trumpet, viol, harp, or organ; its suggestions of symphony or chorale. It is, perhaps, most of all like the human voice, half audible in whisper or murmur; inarticulate in sigh or sob; muffled in mutter or moan; hushed in lullaby or croon; blended in a unison of song or supplication; confused in the hum and rumor, the call and shout, the clamor or tumult of great crowds.
“From such prosing of my own I turned to the record and interpretation of sea music by the poets. From them I collected an alphabetical list of characterizations, and by the time that I had accumulated about one hundred I fell so into their spirit that I, myself, produced the following—as yet unnamed—poetic fragment:
Always attunéd, its anthem billowing, breaking is blown;Ceaseless, its cadenced complaining deepens to dirge or to drone;Ever its eloquent echo falling, again flies free,Till it gathers and grows in grandeur like heaven’s high harmony.
Always attunéd, its anthem billowing, breaking is blown;Ceaseless, its cadenced complaining deepens to dirge or to drone;Ever its eloquent echo falling, again flies free,Till it gathers and grows in grandeur like heaven’s high harmony.
Always attunéd, its anthem billowing, breaking is blown;
Ceaseless, its cadenced complaining deepens to dirge or to drone;
Ever its eloquent echo falling, again flies free,
Till it gathers and grows in grandeur like heaven’s high harmony.
“I stopped there, because ‘kissing’ was the next striking epithet and that seemed rather too fanciful, although the Swinburnian spirit aroused by the composition yearned, so to speak, to go on to ‘mightily murmured the main’ and ‘sonorously sounded the sibilant sea.’
“Seriously, however, the problem of adequately recording and interpreting the aspects of the sea is as fascinating as it is difficult. The best media are, of course, sculpture for its form and substance, painting for its light and color, music for its movement and sound. Poetry and prose reflect something of all of these, poetry more suggestively, prose more accurately. The poets, however, turn so quickly from actual aspects and impressions to their mental and emotional accompaniments, that they seem devoted rather to exploiting their own poetic gifts than the richness of their subject. Their observation is usually sensitive and keen, but it is quickly checked and often distorted by the action of fancy. Accuracy of expression is frequently disturbed by spontaneous or deliberate search for the picturesque or figurative utterance, made so easy by the enormous vocabulary that the sea has impressed upon our language. Poets who are gifted with rhythmical or harmonic power habitually exceed in those directions also. Happily there are some sea poems that are true as well as beautiful, but it seems quite too bad that such masters as Shelley, Arnold, and Emerson should intellectualize, and Coleridge, Rossetti, and Poe should dream, about the sea until they make it appear merely a ministerto their moods rather than the immense, unspoiled, cosmic thing it really is.”
“Man overboard?” said Professor Maturin suddenly, as he halted abruptly before me in the perambulation he had begun after rising to secure the manuscript of his poetic fragment, and had slowly continued ever since back and forth along the long rug that he calls his “beat”—“I have flowed in good earnest. Your submerged appearance indicates that you agree with me that my experience was well-nigh overwhelming.”
Accepting his helping hand, I pulled myself out of the depths of the huge leather chair into which I had sunk, and expressed my genuine appreciation by saying, along with my good-nights, “The next time we meet, I should like just such another dip.”