ell of spent billows and
far-heaving tides. The movement of the waters is, as it were,
subconsciously felt rather than perceived; or, if perceived, it is
lost in the pervading sense of placid spaciousness. The boats
and their occupants, so far from disturbing the sense of calm,
are made to enhance it. And the unruffled surface of the water is
rendered palpably impalpable by the magic of reflections.

Morris has given us a word-picture of similar import.

"Oh, look! the sea is fallen asleep,
The sail hangs idle evermore;
Yet refluent from the outer deep
The low wave sobs upon the shore.
Silent the dark cave ebbs and fills
Silent the broad weeds wave and sway;
Yet yonder fairy fringe of spray
Is born of surges vast as hills."

Jefferies gives us a companion picture of a calm sea in full
sunshine. "Immediately in front dropped the deep descent of the
bowl-like hollow which received and brought up to me the faint
sound of the summer waves. Yonder lay the immense plain of
the sea, the palest green under the continued sunshine, as
though the heat had evaporated the colour from it; there was no
distinct horizon, a heat-mist inclosed it, and looked farther away
than the horizon would have done."

In each of these seascapes, the same essential features find a
place--the calm expanse without any defined boundary--the
silence--the play of delicate colour--the suggestions of rest after
toil, of peace after storm--and chiefest of all, the strangely
moving contrast of power and gentleness, the suggestion of
hidden strength. Doubtless we have in these the secret of much
of the mystic influence of the mighty ocean in its serenest
moods; doubtless we have in these the manifestations of
immanent ideas which have subtle power to subdue the human
soul to pensive thought and unwonted restfulness.

Not unlike them in general character and function, save for the
element of vastness, are the influences immanent in the calm of
evening or night landscapes. Goethe has an exquisite fragment
which is a fitting pendent to his Meeresstille:

Ueber alien Gipfeln
Ist Ruh,
In allen Wipfeln
Spuerest du
Kaum einen Hauch;
Die Voegelein schweigen im Walde.
Warte nur, balde
Ruhest du auch.

Thus translated by Bowring:

"Hush'd on the hill
Is the breeze;
Scarce by the zephyr
The trees
Softly are pressed;
The woodbird's asleep