nts lie
veiled in rolling mists; the immeasurable universe glitters and burns
to the farthest outskirts of space; and yet, nestled amid this sublime
activity, the little flower dreams of the day, and in its sleep is
ministered to as perfectly as if it were the only created thing.

When one stands on the shores of night and looks off on that mighty sea
of darkness in which a world lies engulfed, there is no thought but
worship and no speech but silence. Face to face with immensity and
infinity, one travels in thought among the shining islands that rise up
out of the fathomless shadows, and feels everywhere the stir of a life
which knows no weariness and makes no sound, which pervades the
darkness no less than the light, and makes the night glorious as the
day with its garniture of constellations; and even as one waits,
speechless and awestruck, the morning star touches the edges of the
hills, and a new day breaks resplendent in the eastern sky.

Chapter VIII

Off Shore

Who has not heard, amid the heat and din of cities, the voice of the
sea striking suddenly into the hush of thought its penetrating note of
mystery and longing? Then work and the fever which goes with it
vanished on the instant, and in the crowded street or in the narrow
room there rose the vision of unbroken stretches of sky, free winds,
and the surge of the unresting waves. That invitation never loses its
alluring power; no distance wastes its music, and no preoccupation
silences its solicitation. It stirs the oldest memories, and awakens
the most primitive instincts; the long past speaks through it, and
through it the buried generations snatch a momentary immortality.
History that has left no record, rich and varied human experiences that
have no chronicle, rise out of the forgetfulness in which they are
engulfed, and are puissant once more in the intense and irresistible
longing with which the heart answers the call of the sea. Once more
the blood flows with fuller pulse, the eye flashes with conscious
freedom and power, the heart beats to the music of wind and wave, as in
the days when the fathers of a long past spread sail and sought home,
spoil, or change upon the trackless waste. Into every past the sea has
sometime sounded its mighty note of joy or anguish, and deep in every
memory there remains some vision of tossing waves that once broke on
eyes long sealed.

All day the free winds have filled the heavens, and flung here and