d
during your first passage. Here you turned somewhat aside to pick up a
shell that you saw nearer the water's edge. Here you examined a long
sea-weed, and trailed its length after you for a considerable distance.
Here the effect of the wide sea struck you suddenly. Here you fronted
the ocean, looking at a sail, distant in the sunny blue. Here you looked
at some plant on the bank. Here some vagary of mind seems to have
bewildered you; for your tracks go round and round, and interchange each
other without visible reason. Here you picked up pebbles and skipped
them upon the water. Here you wrote names and drew faces with a razor
sea-shell in the sand.
After leaving the beach, clambered over crags, all shattered and tossed
about everyhow; in some parts curiously worn and hollowed out, almost
into caverns. The rock, shagged with sea-weed,--in some places, a thick
carpet of sea-weed laid over the pebbles, into which your foot would
sink. Deep tanks among these rocks, which the sea replenishes at high
tide, and then leaves the bottom all covered with various sorts of
sea-plants, as if it were some sea-monster's private garden. I saw a
crab in one of them; five-fingers too. From the edge of the rocks, you
may look off into deep, deep water, even at low tide. Among the rocks, I
found a great bird, whether a wild-goose, a loon, or an albatross, I
scarcely know. It was in such a position that I almost fancied it might
be asleep, and therefore drew near softly, lest it should take flight;
but it was dead, and stirred not when I touched it. Sometimes a dead
fish was cast up. A ledge of rocks, with a beacon upon it, looking like
a monument erected to those who have perished by shipwreck. The smoked,
extempore fireplace where a party cooked their fish. About midway on the
beach, a fresh-water brooklet flows towards the sea. Where it leaves the
land, it is quite a rippling little current; but in flowing across the
sand, it grows shallower and more shallow, and at last is quite lost,
and dies in the effort to carry its little tribute to the main.
* * * * *
An article to be made of telling the stories of the tiles of an
old-fashioned chimney-piece to a child.
* * * * *
A person conscious that he was soon to die, the humor in which he would
pay his last visit to familiar persons and things.
* * * * *
A description of the various cl
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