lay athwart it. Looking up
to the crags above me, I missed the church: it was in heaven or in the
clouds. A great wind blew, and ceased, and came no more--the one gust
that I felt of a whole day's storm on the coast. Night chose to be
calm, and though all the waves called in chorus upon the rocks, there
was a silence and a peace within the evening that is beyond all words.

I walked with the night. I walked to find an inn, and yet cared not
that the way was far and that men dwelt not in these parts. For
something had entered into me from Nature, and I had lived an extra
life after the day was done. It was not one person alone that, pack on
back, walked that dark and quiet Crimean road. And the new spirit
that was with me whispered promises and lingered over secrets
half-revealed. I came to know that I should really enter into it, and
be one with it, that I should be part of a description of night and
part of night itself.

At one of the many turnings of the road I came upon five dreamy
waggons, and Tartar waggoners walked by the horses, for their loads
were heavy. I made friends with the third waggoner, and he asked me
to carry his whip and take his place whilst he talked with one of his
mates. For eight miles I walked by the side of the plodding horses,
and encouraged them or whipped them, coaxed or scolded them, as they
slowly dragged their lumberous merchandise along the dark and heavy
roads.

I almost fell asleep, but at an inn half-way I drank tea with the
waggoners "cheek by jowl and knee by knee," and they saw me as one of
themselves.

Once more on the road--we went nearly all the way to Aloopka. The
Tartars sang songs, the beasts of burden toiled; on one side the
cliffs overwhelmed us, and on the other lay the dark sea on which the
stars were peeping. The still night held us all.

IX

THE MEANING OF THE SEA

I

It is good to live ever in the sight of the sea. I have been tramping
two months along seashores, and living a daily life in the presence
of the Infinite. From Novorossisk to Batoum, eight hundred and fifty
versts, I have explored all that coast of the Black Sea that lies at
the feet of the Caucasus--to left of me the snow-peaked mountains
shoulder to shoulder under heaven, to right the resplendent,
magnificent sea.

"The sea cannot be described," wrote Chekhov; "I once read in
a child's copy-book an essay on the sea, four words and a full
stop--'The sea is large'--and whenever I at