FIRST ASPIRATION OF THE SEA.
It is a great and sudden transition to leave Paris in the beautiful month of June when the great city is resplendent with its magnificent gardens and its chestnut trees in bloom. June would be delightful on the coast if one had a single companion and the crowd had not arrived. But when one is alone on the deserted, with the great sea, we are touched with a sort of melancholy.
On a first visit to the coast the impression made is not very favorable. There is aridity, there is wildness, and yet there is a certain monotony. The novel grandeur of the spectacle makes us feel, by contrast, how weak and small we are, and that thought thrills the heart. The delicate chest that so lately was confined in a chamber, and now finds itself suddenly removed to this vast open chamber of the universe, with the sun shining so brightly and the sea breeze blowing so strongly, feels oppressed. The child comes, goes, and the mother sits down, shivering in the free fresh breeze. The warmth of the home she has but just left comes to her mind and she saddens. But her boy frolics gaily and that soon consoles her.
All this will soon pass away Madame. Be resolute; your impressions will be very different when you become better acquainted with the Sea and think of its myriads of inhabitants. And that painful constriction of the lungs will pass away too, when you become accustomed to the free atmosphere of the sea. You require time to accustom yourself to it, by and by, not thinking about it, as your boy plays with you in sheltered nooks, you will breathe freely and your chest will dilate without pain and without conscious effort. But, just at first, I advise you not to stay too long at a time on the beach, but rather to take your walk inland.
The land, your accustomed friend, recalls you. The pine woods rival the sea in healthful emanations; and theirs have less of harshness. They penetrate all our being, enter by every pore, modify and purify the blood, and perfume us with their subtle aroma. In the Landes behind the pine woods, the herbs and even the coarse grass on which you tread, yield perfumes not enervating or intoxicating as the dangerous roses, but agreeably bitter. Seat yourself among them and you, like them, will be sheltered by this slight slope of land. Might you not, now that you are thus sheltered, fancy yourself a hundred leagues from the sea? Drink in the sweet breathings, the pure spirits, the very soul of these wild flowers—that, in purity, are your very sisters. Gather them if you will, Madame; they ask for nothing better. Somewhat rude, perhaps, and yet so beautiful; and in their virginal perfume they have that singular mystery of calming and strengthening. Do not fear to hide them in your fair bosom and upon your beating heart.
Let us not forget that these sheltered landes are, at certain hours, burning hot. They so absorb and concentrate the rays of the sun. The weak woman is wilted there. The young girl, full of vigorous life, feels her pulses boiling and has redoubled power; her brain swims and she has strange and dangerous day dreams. If you wish to go there let it be on some moist and rather cloudy day; or, still better, rise at a very early hour when all is cool, when the wild thyme still keeps somewhat of its dew, and while the Hare is still abroad.
But let us return to the Ocean. At ebb-tide he manifests, and, in some sort, presents to you, the rich life that he nourishes. You must follow, step by step, the retiring waves, though the wet sand will sink some little beneath your feet. Fear not. The gentle wave will, at the most, kiss your feet. If you look closely you will perceive that the sand is not, as you at first thought it, dead, but is here and there moved by numerous lingerers that the ebb-tide has left behind. On certain beaches, small fish are thus hidden in the sand. At the mouth of the rivers the Eel's writhing movement, throws up the sand in mimic earthquakes. The Crab, too eagerly engaged in feeding, or fighting, has now to hasten back to the sea, and in his flight he leaves an odd mosaic, a zigzag line marking his oblique travel, and at the end of that line you will find him lying in wait for the coming in of the tide. The Solen (Manche de Couteau), that razor-shaped shell fish, has plunged deep into the sand, but betrays himself to you by the breathing holes that he has left. The Venus you can just as certainly trace by the fucus attached to its shell, but floating on the surface; and the undulations of the soil betray to you the covered ways of the warlike annelides, and viewing them with the aid of your microscope you will be charmed with the rainbows of their changing colors.
But the finest sights are caused at the first low ebb, which always follows the high Spring tide. At such ebbs, immense and unexplored spaces are left bare, and we can survey that mysterious bottom of the sea, on which we have so often speculated and dreamed. There you discover, in motion, in life, in all the secrecy of their retreats, astonished populations, which fancied themselves secure, and which rarely, if ever before, had been looked upon by the sun, and still more rarely by the eye of man. Be not alarmed, swarming populations of minute creatures, you are seen only by the inquisitive but compassionate eye of a woman; it is not the cruel and coarse hand of a fisherman that invades your retreat. But you ask, what does she want with you? Nothing but to see you, salute you, show you to her boy, and leave you in your natural element, and with every kindly wish for your health and prosperity. At times we need not wander far; at such times in a cleft of the rock, we may find every minute species, old Ocean having diverted himself with lodging a whole world of minute creatures within the space of a few square feet. We sit and we watch, and the longer and the more closely we watch, the more do we see of life, at first imperceptible. And so interested are we that we should sit there for an indefinite time, were we not chased to shore by that imperious master of the beach, the flood Tide.