'
'I never think, on principle, of things so painful, and yet so
irrelievable. Yet why does not your much-admired Trinity House erect
a light there?'
'So ask the sailors; for it is indeed one of the gateway-jambs of the
Channel, and the deep water and the line of coast tempt all craft to
pass as close to it as possible.'
'Look at that sheet of yellow sand below us now, banked to the inland
with sand-hills and sunny downs, and ending abruptly at the foot of
that sombre wall of slate-hill, which runs out like a huge pier into
the sea some two miles off.'
'That is Woollacombe: but here on our right is a sight worth seeing.
Every gully and creek there among the rocks is yellow, but not with
sand. Those are shells; the sweepings of the ocean bed for miles
around, piled there, millions upon millions, yards deep, in every
stage of destruction. There they lie grinding to dust; and every
gale brings in fresh myriads from the inexhaustible sea-world, as if
Death could be never tired of devouring, or God of making. The brain
grows dizzy and tired, as one's feet crunch over the endless variety
of their forms.
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