 | Twice-told tales |  |
FOOT-PRINTS ON THE SEA-SHORE.
It must be a spirit much unlike my own, which can
keep itself in health and vigor without sometimes
stealing from the sultry sunshine of the world, to
plunge into the cool bath of solitude. At intervals,
and not infrequent ones, the forest and the ocean
summon me — one with the roar of its waves, the
other with the murmur of its boughs — forth from
the haunts of men. But I must wander many a mile,
ere I could stand beneath the shadow of even one
primeval tree, much less be lost among the multitude
of hoary trunks, and hidden from earth and sky by
the mystery of darksome foliage. Nothing is within
my daily reach more like a forest than the acre or
two of woodland near some suburban farm-house.
When, therefore, the yearning for seclusion becomes
a necessity within me, I am drawn to the sea-shore,
which extends its line of rude rocks and seldom-trodden
sands, for leagues around our bay. Setting
bound myself with a hermit's vow, to interchange no
thoughts with man or woman, to share no social
pleasure, but to derive all that day's enjoyment from
shore, and sea, and sky, — from my soul's communion
with these, and from fantasies, and recollections,
or anticipated realities. Surely here is enough
to feed a human spirit for a single day. Farewell,
then, busy world! Till your evening lights shall
shine along the street — till they gleam upon my sea-flushed
face, as I tread homeward, — free me from
your ties, and let me be a peaceful outlaw.
Highways and cross-paths are hastily traversed;
and, clambering down a crag, I find myself at the
extremity of a long beach. How gladly does the
spirit leap forth, and suddenly enlarge its sense of
being to the full extent of the broad, blue, sunny
deep! A greeting and a homage to the Sea! I
descend over its margin, and dip my hand into the
wave that meets me, and bathe my brow. That far-resounding
roar is Ocean's voice of welcome. His
salt breath brings a blessing along with it. Now let
us pace together — the reader's fancy arm in arm
with mine — this noble beach, which extends a mile
or more from that craggy promontory to yonder
rampart of broken rocks. In front, the sea; in the
rear, a precipitous bank, the grassy verge of which
is breaking away, year after year, and flings down
its tufts of verdure upon the barrenness below. The
beach itself is a broad space of sand, brown and
sparkling, with hardly any pebbles intermixed. Near
brightly in the sunshine, and reflects objects like a
mirror; and as we tread along the glistening border,
a dry spot flashes around each footstep, but grows
moist again, as we lift our feet. In some spots, the
sand receives a complete impression of the sole —
square toe and all; elsewhere, it is of such marble
firmness, that we must stamp heavily to leave a print
even of the iron-shod heel. Along the whole of this
extensive beach gambols the surf-wave; now it makes
a feint of dashing onward in a fury, yet dies away
with a meek murmur, and does but kiss the strand;
now, after many such abortive efforts, it rears itself
up in an unbroken line, heightening as it advances,
without a speck of foam on its green crest. With
how fierce a roar it flings itself forward, and rushes
far up the beach!
As I threw my eyes along the edge of the surf, I
remember that I was startled, as Robinson Crusoe
might have been, by the sense that human life was
within the magic circle of my solitude. Afar off in
the remote distance of the beach, appearing like sea-nymphs,
or some airier things, such as might tread
upon the feathery spray, was a group of girls.
Hardly had I beheld them, when they passed into
the shadow of the rocks and vanished. To comfort
myself — for truly I would fain have gazed a while
longer — I made acquaintance with a flock of beach-birds.
These little citizens of the sea and air preceded
me by about a stone's-throw along the strand,
seeking, I suppose, for food upon its margin. Yet,
imitate, they drew a continual pleasure from their
toil for a subsistence. The sea was each little bird's
great playmate. They chased it downward as it
swept back, and again ran up swiftly before the impending
wave, which sometimes overtook them and
bore them off their feet. But they floated as lightly
as one of their own feathers on the breaking crest.
In their airy flutterings, they seemed to rest on the
evanescent spray. Their images, — long-legged little
figures, with grey backs and snowy bosoms, —
were seen as distinctly as the realities in the mirror
of the glistening strand. As I advanced, they flew a
score or two of yards, and, again alighting, recommenced
their dalliance with the surf-wave; and thus
they bore me company along the beach, the types of
pleasant fantasies, till, at its extremity, they took
wing over the ocean, and were gone. After forming
a friendship with these small surf-spirits, it is really
worth a sigh, to find no memorial of them save their
multitudinous little tracks in the sand.
When we have paced the length of the beach, it
is pleasant, and not unprofitable, to retrace our steps,
and recall the whole mood and occupation of the
mind during the former passage. Our tracks, being
all discernible, will guide us with an observing consciousness
through every unconscious wandering of
thought and fancy. Here we followed the surf in its
reflux, to pick up a shell which the sea seemed loth
to relinquish. Here we found a sea-weed, with an
immense brown leaf, and trailed it behind us by its
by the tail, and counted the many claws of that
queer monster. Here we dug into the sand for pebbles,
and skipped them upon the surface of the water.
Here we wet our feet while examining a jellyfish,
which the waves, having just tossed it up, now
sought to snatch away again. Here we trod along
the brink of a fresh-water brooklet, which flows
across the beach, becoming shallower and more shallow,
till at last it sinks into the sand, and perishes in
the effort to bear its little tribute to the main. Here
some vagary appears to have bewildered us; for our
tracks go round and round, and are confusedly intermingled,
as if we had found a labyrinth upon the
level beach. And here, amid our idle pastime, we
sat down upon almost the only stone that breaks the
surface of the sand, and were lost in an unlooked-for
and overpowering conception of the majesty and
awfulness of the great deep. Thus, by tracking our
foot-prints in the sand, we track our own nature in
its wayward course, and steal a glance upon it, when
it never dreams of being so observed. Such glances
always make us wiser.
This extensive beach affords room for another
pleasant pastime. With your staff, you may write
verses — love-verses, if they please you best — and
consecrate them with a woman's name. Here, too,
may be inscribed thoughts, feelings, desires, warm
outgushings from the heart's secret places, which you
would not pour upon the sand without the certainty
that, almost ere the sky has looked upon them, the
record be effaced. Now — for there is room enough
on your canvas — draw huge faces — huge as that of
the Sphynx on Egyptian sands — and fit them with
bodies of corresponding immensity, and legs which
might stride half-way to yonder island. Child's play
becomes magnificent on so grand a scale. But, after
all, the most fascinating employment is simply to
write your name in the sand. Draw the letters
gigantic, so that two strides may barely measure
them, and three for the long strokes! Cut deep,
that the record may be permanent! Statesmen and
warriors, and poets, have spent their strength in no
better cause than this. Is it accomplished? Return,
then, in an hour or two, and seek for this mighty
record of a name. The sea will have swept over it,
even as time rolls its effacing waves over the names
of statesmen, and warriors, and poets. Hark, the
surf-wave laughs at you!
Passing from the beach, I begin to clamber over
the crags, making my difficult way among the ruins
of a rampart, shattered and broken by the assaults of
a fierce enemy. The rocks rise in every variety of
attitude; some of them have their feet in the foam,
and are shagged half-way upward with sea-weed;
some have been hollowed almost into caverns by the
unwearied toil of the sea, which can afford to spend
centuries in wearing away a rock, or even polishing
a pebble. One huge rock ascends in monumental
shape, with a face like a giant's tombstone, on which
the veins resemble inscriptions, but in an unknown
of an antediluvian race; or else that nature's
own hand has here recorded a mystery, which, could
I read her language, would make mankind the wiser
and the happier. How many a thing has troubled
me with that same idea! Pass on, and leave it unexplained.
Here is a narrow avenue, which might
seem to have been hewn through the very heart of
an enormous crag, affording passage for the rising
sea to thunder back and forth, filling it with tumultuous
foam, and then leaving its floor of black pebbles
bare and glistening. In this chasm there was once
an intersecting vein of softer stone, which the waves
have gnawed away piecemeal, while the granite walls
remain entire on either side. How sharply, and with
what harsh clamor, does the sea rake back the pebbles,
as it momentarily withdraws into its own depths!
At intervals, the floor of the chasm is left nearly dry;
but anon, at the outlet, two or three great waves are
seen struggling to get in at once; two hit the walls
athwart, while one rushes straight through, and all
three thunder, as if with rage and triumph. They
heap the chasm with a snow-drift of foam and spray.
While watching this scene, I can never rid myself of
the idea, that a monster, endowed with life and fierce
energy, is striving to burst his way through the narrow
pass. And what a contrast, to look through the
stormy chasm, and catch a glimpse of the calm bright
sea beyond!
Many interesting discoveries may be made among
these broken cliffs. Once, for example, I found a
nook of the rocks, where his shaggy carcass lay
rolled in a heap of eel-grass, as if the sea-monster
sought to hide himself from my eye. Another time,
a shark seemed on the point of leaping from the surf
to swallow me; nor did I, wholly without dread,
approach near enough to ascertain that the man-eater
had already met his own death from some fisherman
in the bay. In the same ramble, I encountered a
bird — a large grey bird — but whether a loon, or a
wild goose, or the identical albatross of the Ancient
Mariner, was beyond my ornithology to decide. It
reposed so naturally on a bed of dry sea-weed, with
its head beside its wing, that I almost fancied it alive,
and trod softly lest it should suddenly spread its
wings skyward. But the sea-bird would soar among
the clouds no more, nor ride upon its native waves;
so I drew near, and pulled out one of its mottled tail-feathers
for a remembrance. Another day, I discovered
an immense bone, wedged into a chasm of
the rocks; it was at least ten feet long, curved like a
scimetar, bejeweled with barnacles and small shellfish,
and partly covered with a growth of sea-weed.
Some leviathan of former ages had used this ponderous
mass as a jaw-bone. Curiosities of a minuter
order may be observed in a deep reservoir, which is
replenished with water at every tide, but becomes a
lake among the crags, save when the sea is at its
height. At the bottom of this rocky basin grow marine
plants, some of which tower high beneath the
water, and cast a shadow in the sunshine. Small
sea-weed; there is also a solitary crab, who appears
to lead the life of a hermit, communing with none of
the other denizens of the place; and likewise several
five-fingers — for I know no other name than that
which children give them. If your imagination he at
all accustomed to such freaks, you may look down
into the depths of this pool, and fancy it the mysterious
depth of ocean. But where are the hulks and
scattered timbers of sunken ships? — where the
treasures that old ocean hoards? — where the corroded
cannon? — where the corpses and skeletons of
seamen, who went down in storm and battle?
On the day of my last ramble, (it was a September
day, yet as warm as summer,) what should I behold
as I approached the above described basin but
three girls sitting on its margin, and — yes, it is veritably
so — laving their snowy feet in the sunny water!
These, these are the warm realities of those
three visionary shapes that flitted from me on the
beach. Hark! their merry voices, as they toss up
the water with their feet! They have not seen me.
I must shrink behind this rock, and steal away again.
In honest truth, vowed to solitude as I am, there is
something in this encounter that makes the heart
flutter with a strangely pleasant sensation. I know
these girls to be realities of flesh and blood, yet,
glancing at them so briefly, they mingle like kindred
creatures with the ideal beings of my mind. It is
pleasant, likewise, to gaze down from some high
crag, and watch a group of children, gathering pebbles
with old Ocean's hoary heard. Nor does it infringe
upon my seclusion, to see yonder boat at anchor off
the shore, swinging dreamily to and fro, and rising
and sinking with the alternate swell; while the crew
— four gentlemen, in round-about jackets — are busy
with their fishing-lines. But, with an inward antipathy
and a headlong flight, do I eschew the presence
of any meditative stroller like myself, known by his
pilgrim staff, his sauntering step, his shy demeanor,
his observant yet abstracted eye. From such a man,
as if another self had scared me, I scramble hastily
over the rocks, and take refuge in a nook which many
a secret hour has given me a right to call my own.
I would do battle for it even with the churl that
should produce the title-deeds. Have not my musings
melted into its rocky walls and sandy floor, and
made them a portion of myself?
It is a recess in the line of cliffs, walled round by a
rough, high precipice, which almost encircles and
shuts in a little space of sand. In front, the sea appears
as between the pillars of a portal. In the
rear, the precipice is broken and intermixed with
earth, which gives nourishment not only to clinging
and twining shrubs, but to trees, that gripe the rock
with their naked roots, and seem to struggle hard for
footing and for soil enough to live upon. These are
fir trees; but oaks hang their heavy branches from
above, and throw down acorns on the beach, and
shed their withering foliage upon the waves. At this
autumnal season, the precipice is decked with variegated
from the summit downward; tufts of yellow-flowering
shrubs, and rose bushes, with their reddened
leaves and glossy seed-berries, sprout from each
crevice; at every glance, I detect some new light or
shade of beauty, all contrasting with the stern, grey
rock. A rill of water trickles down the cliff and fills
a little cistern near the base. I drain it at a draught,
and find it fresh and pure. This recess shall be my
dining-hall. And what the feast? A few biscuits,
made savory by soaking them in sea-water, a tuft of
samphire gathered from the beach, and an apple for
the desert. By this time, the little rill has filled its
reservoir again; and, as I quaff it, I thank God more
heartily than for a civic banquet, that He gives me
the healthful appetite to make a feast of bread and
water.
Dinner being over, I throw myself at length upon
the sand, and, basking in the sunshine, let my mind
disport itself at will. The walls of this my hermitage
have no tongue to tell my follies, though I sometimes
fancy that they have ears to hear them, and a
soul to sympathize. There is a magic in this spot.
Dreams haunt its precincts, and flit around me in
broad sun-light, nor require that sleep shall blindfold
me to real objects, ere these be visible. Here can I
frame a story of two lovers, and make their shadows
live before me, and be mirrored in the tranquil water,
as they tread along the sand, leaving no foot-prints.
Here, should I will it, I can summon up a single
shade, and be myself her lover. Yes, dreamer, —
fancies. Sometimes, too, the Past comes back, and
finds me here, and in her train come faces which
were gladsome, when I knew them, yet seem not
gladsome now. Would that my hiding Place were
lonelier, so that the past might not find me! Get ye
all gone, old friends, and let me listen to the murmur
of the sea, — a melancholy voice, but less sad than
yours. Of what mysteries is it telling? Of sunken
ships, and whereabouts they lie? Of islands afar
and undiscovered, whose tawny children are unconscious
of other islands and of continents, and deem
the stars of heaven their nearest neighbors? Nothing
of all this. What then? Has it talked for so many
ages, and meant nothing all the while? No; for
those ages find utterance in the sea's unchanging
voice, and warn the listener to withdraw his interest
from mortal vicissitudes, and let the infinite idea of
eternity pervade his soul. This is wisdom; and,
therefore, will I spend the next half-hour in shaping
little boats of drift-wood, and launching them on
voyages across the cove, with the feather of a seagull
for a sail. If the voice of ages tell me true, this
is as wise an occupation as to build ships of five hundred
tons, and launch them forth upon the main,
bound to `far Cathay.' Yet, how would the merchant
sneer at me!
And, after all, can such philosophy be true? Methinks
I could find a thousand arguments against it.
Well, then, let yonder shaggy rock, mid-deep in the
surf — see! he is somewhat wrathful, — he rages and
and let me exercise my oratory like him of Athens,
who bandied words with an angry sea and got the
victory. My maiden speech is a triumphant one;
for the gentleman in sea-weed has nothing to offer in
reply, save an immitigable roaring. His voice, indeed,
will be heard a long while after mine is hushed.
Once more I shout, and the cliffs reverberate the
sound. Oh, what joy for a shy man to feel himself
so solitary, that he may lift his voice to its highest
pitch without hazard of a listener! But, hush! —
be silent, my good friend! — whence comes that
stifled laughter? It was musical, — but how should
there be such music in my solitude? Looking upwards,
I catch a glimpse of three faces, peeping from
the summit of the cliff, like angels between me and
their native sky. Ah, fair girls, you may make yourselves
merry at my eloquence, — but it was my turn
to smile when I saw your white feet in the pool! Let
us keep each other's secrets.
The sunshine has now passed from my hermitage,
except a gleam upon the sand just where it meets the
sea. A crowd of gloomy fantasies will come and
haunt me, if I tarry longer here, in the darkening
twilight of these grey rocks. This is a dismal place
in some moods of the mind. Climb we, therefore,
the precipice, and pause a moment on the brink, gazing
down into that hollow chamber by the deep,
where we have been, what few can be, sufficient to
our own pastime — yes, say the word outright! —
self-sufficient to our own happiness. How lonesome
spots where happiness has been! There lies my
shadow in the departing sunshine with its head upon
the sea. I will pelt it with pebbles. A hit! a hit!
I clap my hands in triumph, and see! my shadow
clapping its unreal hands, and claiming the triumph
for itself. What a simpleton must I have been all
day, since my own shadow makes a mock of my
fooleries!
Homeward! homeward! It is time to hasten home.
It is time; it is time; for as the sun sinks over the western
wave, the sea grows melancholy, and the surf has a
saddened tone. The distant sails appear astray, and
not of earth, in their remoteness amid the desolate
waste. My spirit wanders forth afar, but finds no
resting place, and comes shivering back. It is time
that I were hence. But grudge me not the day that
has been spent in seclusion, which yet was not solitude,
since the great sea has been my companion,
and the little sea-birds my friends, and the wind has
told me his secrets, and airy shapes have flitted
around me in my hermitage. Such companionship
works an effect upon a man's character, as if he had
been admitted to the society of creatures that are not
mortal. And when, at noontide, I tread the crowded
streets, the influence of this day will still be felt; so
that I shall walk among men kindly and as a brother,
with affection and sympathy, but yet shall not melt
into the indistinguishable mass of human kind. I
shall think my own thoughts, and feel my own emotions,
and possess my individuality unviolated.
But it is good, at the eve of such a day, to feel and
know that there are men and women in the world.
That feeling and that knowledge are mine, at this
moment; for, on the shore, far below me, the fishing-party
have landed from their skiff, and are cooking
their scaly prey by a fire of drift-wood, kindled in
the angle of two rude rocks. The three visionary
girls are likewise there. In the deepening twilight,
while the surf is dashing near their hearth, the ruddy
gleam of the fire throws a strange air of comfort
over the wild cove, bestrewn as it is with pebbles and
sea-weed, and exposed to the `melancholy main.'
Moreover, as the smoke climbs up the precipice, it
brings with it a savory smell from a pan of fried fish,
and a black kettle of chowder, and reminds me that
my dinner was nothing but bread and water, and a
tuft of samphire, and an apple. Methinks the party
might find room for another guest, at that flat rock
which serves them for a table; and if spoons be
scarce, I could pick up a clam-shell on the beach.
They see me now; and — the blessing of a hungry
man upon him! — one of them sends up a hospitable
shout — halloo, Sir Solitary! come down and sup
with us! The ladies wave their handkerchiefs. Can
I decline? No; and be it owned, after all my solitary
joys, that this is the sweetest moment of a Day
by the Sea-Shore.
| Twice-told tales | |