ddened 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 gray 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 dessert. 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 sunlight, 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 footprints. Here,
should I will it, I can summon up a single shade and be myself her
lover.--Yes, dreamer, but your lonely heart will be the colder for
such 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 driftwood and launching them on