No one looks
back at the gradually extending beach and the fine curve of the shore. No
one lingers where the surf breaks--immediately above it--listening to the
remorseful sigh of the dying wave as it sobs back to the sea. There,
looking downwards, the white edge of the surf recedes in hollow
crescents, curve after curve for a mile or more, one succeeding before
the first can disappear and be replaced by a fresh wave. A faint
mistiness hangs above the beach at some distance, formed of the salt
particles dashed into the air and suspended. At night, if the tide
chances to be up, the white surf rushing in and returning immediately
beneath has a strange effect, especially in its pitiless regularity. If
one wave seems to break a little higher it is only in appearance, and
because you have not watched long enough. In a certain number of times
another will break there again; presently one will encroach the merest
trifle; after a while another encroaches again, and the apparent
irregularity is really sternly regular. The free wave has no liberty--it
does not act for itself,--no real generous wildness. "Thus far and no
farther," is not a merciful saying. Cold and dread and pitiless, the wave
claims its due--it stretches its arms to the fullest length, and does not
pause or hearken to the desire of any human heart.
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