And so we are tempted to believe that she must needs repent of so perilous a search after liberty; and desires to be back in the inferior state, the security of the common life. The polypier made the Medusa, she in turn makes the polypier, and returns to the life of community. But this vegetating state wearies her, and in the next generation she again emancipates herself and goes forth again to the perils of her vain navigation. Strange alternation, in which she floats incessantly; moving, she dreams of repose; in rest, she sighs for movement.
These strange metamorphoses, which by turns raise and abase the undecided creature, keeping her alternating between two lives so different, are apparently the case of the inferior species, of the Medusa which have not been able to enter decidedly into the irrevocable career of emancipation. For the others, we can easily suppose that their charming varieties mark the interior progress of life, the degrees of development, the sports, the smiling graces of their new liberty. This latter class, admirably artistic, won this so simple theme of a disk or parasol which floats, of a light lustre of crystal which reflects the sun's glowing and coloring lights, has made an infinity of variations, a deluge of little marvels.
All these beauties floating on the green mirror of the sea in their gay and delicate colors, and in the thousand attractions of an infantine and unconscious coquetry, have puzzled Science, which to class and to name them, has been obliged to call to its aid both the Queens of History and the Goddesses of Mythology. Here we have the waving Berenice, whose rich hair floats another and brighter flood upon the flood; there we have the little Orithya, the fair spouse of Eölus, who, at the breathing of her husband, displays her pure, white urn, uncertain, and scarcely supported by her fine hair, which she often entangles beneath, or the weeping Dionea, looking like an alabaster cup, from which, in crystalline streamlets, flow splendid tears. Such, when in Switzerland, I saw spreading themselves the wearied and idle cascades, which, having made too many turnings, seemed dropping with drowsiness and languor.
In the great faëry of the illumination of the sea on stormy nights, the Medusa has her separate part. Bathed, like so many other beings, in the phosphoric fluid with which they are all penetrated, she returns it in her manner, with a peculiar charm.
How dark is the night at sea when we do not see that phosphoric gleam or a fitful flashing! How vast and formidable are those dark depths, on such gloomy nights. On land, the shadows are less dense and impenetrable, we see, if dimly, and make out forms, if imperfectly, so that we get so many directing marks. But at sea, how vast, unbroken, infinitely dense is the darkness of the dark nights. Nothing, still nothing; a thousand dangers to be imagined, but not one to be seen and avoided!
We feel all this, even when living on the coast. It is a great gladness, an exciting pleasure, when, the air becoming electric, we see in the distance, a slight line of pale fire. What is it? We see it even at home, on the dead fish, the Herring, for instance. But, living in his great sea, he is still more luminous in the long trains that he leaves behind him. That phosphoric brilliancy is by no means the exclusive privilege of Death. Is it an effect of Heat? No, for you find it at both poles, in the Antarctic Seas, in the Siberian Seas, in ours—in all.
It is the common electricity which the half-living waters throw off in stormy weather; the innocent and pacific lightning of which all marine creatures are then so many conductors. They inhale it, and they exhale it, and they restore it largely when they die. The sea gives it, and the sea takes it back again. Along the coasts and in the straits, the currents and the collisions, cause it to circulate the more powerfully, and each creature, according to its waters, takes more or less of it. Here, immense surfaces of peaceable infusoriæ appear, like a milky sea, of a mild, white light, which, when more animated, turns to the yellow of burning sulphur; there their conical lights pirouette upon their own bases, or roll in red balls. A great disc of fire (Pyrosome) commences with an opaline yellow, becomes for a moment greenish, then bursts into red and orange, and at last darkens down into blue. These changes occur with an approach to regularity that would indicate a natural function, the contraction and dilatation of some vast creature, breathing fire.
Then on the horizon, fiery serpents writhe and glide along an immense length—sometimes to the extent of twenty-five or thirty leagues. The Biphores and the Salpas, transparent alike to sea and sulphur, are the performers in this serpentine spectacle, an astonishing company which disport themselves in this frantic dance, and then separate. Separated, its free members produce free little ones, which, in their turn light up the horizon with their dancing and wild lights. Great fleets, more peaceful, float over the waves of lights. The Velelles, at night, light up their little craft. The Beroes are triumphant as flames. None more magical than those of our Medusæ. Is it in part a physical effect like that which gives their serpentine motion to the Salpas, injected with fire? Is it, as others think, and as some observations would lead us to believe, an act of aspiration? Is it a caprice, as with so many beings that throw out their sparkles and flashes of a vain and inconstant joy? No, the noble and beautiful Medusæ, such as the crowned Oceanique, and the lovely Idonea, seem to express gravest thoughts. Beneath them, their luminous hair, like some sombre watch-light, gives out mysterious lights of emerald and other colors, which, now flashing, anon growing pale, reveal a sentiment, and, I know not what of mystery; suggesting to us the spirit of the abyss, meditating its secrets; the soul that exists, or is to exist some day. Or should it not rather suggest to us some melancholy dream of an impossible destiny which is never to attain its end? Or an appeal to that rapture of love which alone consoles us here below?
We know that on land our fire flies, by their fire give the signal of the bashful yet eager lover who thus betrays her retreat, and decoys her mate. Have the Medusæ this same sense? We know not; but thus much is certain, that they yield at once their flame and their life. The fecund sap, their generative virtue, escapes and diminishes at every gleam. If we desire the cruel pleasure of redoubling this brilliant faëry, we have only to expose them to warmth. Then they become excited, flash, and become beautiful, oh, so exquisitely beautiful—and then the scene is at an end. Flame, love, and life, all are at an end—all evanish for ever.