Footprints on the Sea-Shore (From Twice Told Tales), Page 3

This is a dismal place in some moods of themind. Climb we, therefore, the precipice, and pause a moment on thebrink, gazing down into that hollow chamber by the deep where we havebeen, what few can be, sufficient to our own pastime,-yes, say theword outright!--self-sufficient to our own happiness. How lonesomelooks the recess now, and dreary, too,--like all other spots wherehappiness has been! There lies my shadow in the departing sunshinewith its head upon the sea. I will pelt it with pebbles. A hit! ahit! I clap my hands in triumph, and see! my shadow clapping itsunreal hands, and claiming the triumph for itself. What a simpletonmust I have been all day,--since my own shadow makes a mock of myfooleries!

  Homeward! homeward! It is time to hasten home. It is time; it istime; for as the sun sinks over the western wave, the sea growsmelancholy, and the surf has a saddened tone. The distant sailsappear astray, and not of earth, in their remoteness amid the desolatewaste. My spirit wanders forth afar, but finds no resting-place, andcomes shivering back. It is time that I were hence. But grudge menot the day that has been spent in seclusion, which yet was notsolitude, since the great sea has been my companion, and the littlesea-birds my friends, and the wind has told me his secrets, and airyshapes have flitted around me in my hermitage. Such companionshipworks an effect upon a man's character, as if he had been admitted tothe society of creatures that are not mortal. And when, at noontide,I tread the crowded streets, the influence of this day will still befelt; so that I shall walk among men kindly and as a brother, withaffection and sympathy, but yet shall not melt into theindistinguishable mass of humankind. I shall think my own thoughts,and feel my own emotions, and possess my individuality unviolated.

  But it is good, at the eve of such a day, to feel and know that thereare men and women in the world. That feeling and that knowledge aremine, at this moment; for, on the shore, far below me, the fishing-partyhave landed from their skiff, and are cooking their scaly preyby a fire of drift-wood, kindled in the angle of two rude rocks. Thethree visionary girls are likewise there. In the deepening twilight,while the surf is dashed near their hearth, the ruddy gleam of thefire throws a strange air of comfort over the wild cove, bestrewn asit is with pebbles and sea-weed, and exposed to the "melancholy main."Moreover, as the smoke climbs up the precipice, it brings with it asavory smell from a pan of fried fish, and a black kettle of chowder,and reminds me that my dinner was nothing but bread and water, and atuft of samphire, and an apple. Methinks the party night find roomfor another guest, at that flat rock which serves them for a table;and if spoons be scarce, I could pick up a clamshell on the beach.They see me now; and--the blessing of a hungry man upon him!--one ofthem sends up a hospitable shout,--halloo, Sir Solitary! come down andsup with us! The ladies wave their handkerchiefs. Can I decline?No; and be it owned, after all my solitary joys, that this is thesweetest moment of a Day by the Sea-shore.