The lines are
glorious, the sense of movement and swing is conveyed, and yet--and
yet it is not the sea. We fancy that only the prose-poets truly
succeed; and the chief of them all--the matchless Mr. Clark
Russell--gets his most moving effects by portraying the commonplace
aspects of the water in a way that reminds people of things which they
noticed but failed to admire promptly. Mr. Russell's gospel is plain
enough; he watches minutely, and there is not a flaw of wind or a
cross-drift of spray that does not offer some new emotion to his quick
and sensitive soul.
I want all those who are now dwelling amid the shrewd sweetness of the
sea-air to learn how to gain simple pleasure from gazing on the
incessant changes that mark the face of the sea. The entertainment is
so cheap, so fruitful of lovely thought, so exhilarating, that I can
hardly keep my patience when I see those wretched men who carry a
newspaper to the beach on a glad summer morning, and yawn in the face
of the Divine spectacle of wave and cloud and limpid sky. Let no one
think that I picture the sea as always gladsome. Ah, no! I have seen
too much of storm and stress for that.
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