he face of the
ocean.

The great characteristic of Lakes is peace, that of the Sea is energy,
somewhat restless, perhaps, but still movement without fatigue.

The Earth lies quiet like a child asleep,
The deep heart of the Heaven is calm and still,
Must thou alone a restless vigil keep,
And with thy sobbing all the silence fill.[59]

A Lake in a storm rather gives us the impression of a beautiful Water
Spirit tormented by some Evil Demon; but a storm at Sea is one of the
grandest manifestations of Nature.

Yet more; the billows and the depths have more;
High hearts and brave are gathered to thy breast;
They hear not now the booming waters roar,
The battle thunders will not break their rest.
Keep thy red gold and gems, thou stormy grave;
Give back the true and brave.[60]

The most vivid description of a storm at sea is, I think, the following
passage from Ruskin's _Modern Painters_:

"Few people, comparatively, have ever seen the effect on the
sea of a powerful gale continued without intermission for three
or four days and nights; and to those who have not, I believe
it must be unimaginable, not from the mere force or size of the
surge, but from the complete annihilation of the limit between
sea and air. The water from its prolonged agitation is beaten,
not into mere creaming foam, but into masses of accumulated
yeast, which hangs in ropes and wreaths from wave to wave, and,
where one curls over to break, form a festoon like a drapery
from its edge; these are taken up by the wind, not in
dissipating dust, but bodily, in writhing, hanging, coiling
masses, which make the air white and thick as with snow, only
the flakes are a foot or two long each: the surges themselves
are full of foam in their very bodies underneath, making them
white all through, as the water is under a great cataract; and
their masses, being thus half water and half air, are torn to
pieces by the wind whenever they rise, and carried away in
roaring smoke, which chokes and strangles like actual water.
Add to this, that when the air has been exhausted of its
moisture by long rain, the spray of the sea is caught by it as
described above, and covers its surface not merely with the
smoke of finely divided water, but with boiling mist; imagine
also the low rain-clouds brought down to