"But what need of other animals? We are within our own circle complete, harmonious and sufficing; with us the circle of creation might be closed. For as God crowns his isle on his old volcano of fire, he has created a volcano of life, and expansion of that living paradise. He has created all that he needs, and now He may repose."
Not yet, not yet. A creation must rise above yours, a thing which you do not fear. That rival is not the tempest, you would brave it; nor the fresh water, you would build beside it. It is not even the earth, which by degrees is invading your constructions. What, then, is that other power? In yourself, in Polypes, there is an ambition to cease to be one. In your Republic there is a certain creature who in constant anxiety and yearning, repeats that the perfection of this vegetating existence is not real life. It constantly dreams of a freer and more expanded life, navigating hither and thither, penetrating and viewing the unknown world even at the hazard of shipwreck;—that thing is—the Soul.
DAUGHTER OF THE SEAS.
I passed the early part of 1858 in the pleasant little town of Hyères which, from afar, gazes down on the sea, the islets and the peninsula by which its coast is sheltered. The sea, seen from this distance, is even more potently seductive than when one is on its very shore. The paths leading to it, whether we pass between gardens with their hedges of jasmin and myrtle, or, ascending some little, pass through the olive grounds and a little wood of pines and laurels, are exceedingly tempting. The wood by no means hinders us from catching, now and then, a glance of the bright sea. The place is, by no means unjustly, called Fair-Coast. Often in the fine days of its gentle winters we met there a most interesting invalid, a young foreign princess who had come thither from a distance of five hundred leagues, in the hope of adding some span to her fading and failing life. That life, short as it was, had been a hard and sad one. Scarcely had she become a glad wife when she found herself rudely threatened by Death. And now she dragged on from day to day of suffering, supported and most tenderly treated by him who lived only for her and hoped not to survive her. If wishes and prayers could have preserved her she would still live; for all prayed for her, especially the poor. But spring came, and bloomed and ended, and on one of those April days whose genial influence revives every thing we saw the two shadows pass, pale as the wandering Elysian spectres of Virgil.
Sad at heart with sympathy, we reached the gulf. Between the bold rocks, the pools left by the sea contained some little creatures that had not been able to accompany the retreating tide. Some shelled creatures were there, self-concentrated and suffering from want of water, and amongst them, unshelled, unsheltered, lay the living parasol, that for some, anything, rather than good reason, we call the Medusa. Why has that name of terror been given to a creature so charming? Never before had my attention been attracted to those wrecked beauties, which we so often see high and dry upon the sea shore at low ebb tide. This especial one was small, not larger than my hand, but singularly beautiful, in its delicate colors, passing so lightly from tint to tint. It was of an opal whiteness, into which passed, as in a light cloud, a crown of the most delicate lilac. The wind had turned it over, so that its lilac filaments floated above, while the umbrella, that is to say, its proper body, lay upon the rock. Much bruised in that tender body, it was also wounded and mutilated in its fine filaments, or hairs, which are its sensitive organs of respiration, absorption, and even love. And the whole creature thus thrown upside down was receiving in full force the rays of the Provençal sun, severe in its first awakening and rendered still more severe by the dryness of the occasional gusts of the south-westerly winds, the Mistral of our Provençal coasts. The transparent creature was thus doubly pierced, doubly tormented, accustomed as it was to the caressing sea, and unprovided with the resisting epidermis of land animals.
Close to her dried up lagune were other lagunes still full of water, and communicating with the sea. Within a few paces of her, then, was safety, but for her who had no organs of locomotion, excepting her undulating hairs, it was impossible to traverse even that petty distance, and it seemed that remaining under that fierce sun and exposed to the arid blasts of that wind she very speedily must faint, die, and be actually dissolved.
Nothing more ephemeral, more delicate than these daughters of the sea. Some of them are so fluid that they dissolve and disappear as soon as taken from the sea. Such is that slight band of azure called the Girdle of Venus. The Medusa, a little more solid has all the more trouble in dying. Was she dying or already dead? I do not readily believe in death, and believing that she still lived I resolved to convey her to a lagune of salt water. To say the truth I felt some repugnance to touching her. The delicious creature with her visible innocence, and rainbow of tender colors, looked like a trembling jelly which must slip from one's touch or dissolve in one's grasp. However, I conquered this repugnance, slid my hand gently beneath her and as I turned her over her hairs fell down into their natural position, when used in swimming. I thus carried her to the water, where she sank without giving the slightest sign of life. I walked about the shore, but in about ten minutes returned to look after my Medusa. She was swimming under water, her hairs undulating gracefully beneath her; and slowly, but safely, she had left the rock far behind her.