Steadfast, serene, immovable, the same
Year after year.
Directly we see the coast, or even a ship, the case is altered. Boats may remain the same for centuries, but ships are continually being changed. The wooden walls of old England are things of the past, and the ironclads of to-day will soon be themselves improved off the face of the ocean.
The great characteristic of Lakes is peace, that of the Sea is energy, somewhat restless, perhaps, but still movement without fatigue.
The Earth lies quiet like a child asleep,
The deep heart of the Heaven is calm and still,
Must thou alone a restless vigil keep,
And with thy sobbing all the silence fill.[59]
A Lake in a storm rather gives us the impression of a beautiful Water Spirit tormented by some Evil Demon; but a storm at Sea is one of the grandest manifestations of Nature.
Yet more; the billows and the depths have more;
High hearts and brave are gathered to thy breast;
They hear not now the booming waters roar,
The battle thunders will not break their rest.
Keep thy red gold and gems, thou stormy grave;
Give back the true and brave.[60]
The most vivid description of a storm at sea is, I think, the following passage from Ruskin's Modern Painters:
"Few people, comparatively, have ever seen the effect on the sea of a powerful gale continued without intermission for three or four days and nights; and to those who have not, I believe it must be unimaginable, not from the mere force or size of the surge, but from the complete annihilation of the limit between sea and air. The water from its prolonged agitation is beaten, not into mere creaming foam, but into masses of accumulated yeast, which hangs in ropes and wreaths from wave to wave, and, where one curls over to break, form a festoon like a drapery from its edge; these are taken up by the wind, not in dissipating dust, but bodily, in writhing, hanging, coiling masses, which make the air white and thick as with snow, only the flakes are a foot or two long each: the surges themselves are full of foam in their very bodies underneath, making them white all through, as the water is under a great cataract; and their masses, being thus half water and half air, are torn to pieces by the wind whenever they rise, and carried away in roaring smoke, which chokes and strangles like actual water. Add to this, that when the air has been exhausted of its moisture by long rain, the spray of the sea is caught by it as described above, and covers its surface not merely with the smoke of finely divided water, but with boiling mist; imagine also the low rain-clouds brought down to the very level of the sea, as I have often seen them, whirling and flying in rags and fragments from wave to wave; and finally, conceive the surges themselves in their utmost pitch of power, velocity, vastness, and madness, lifting themselves in precipices and peaks, furrowed with their whirl of ascent, through all this chaos, and you will understand that there is indeed no distinction left between the sea and air; that no object, nor horizon, nor any landmark or natural evidence of position is left; and the heaven is all spray, and the ocean all cloud, and that you can see no further in any direction than you see through a cataract."