When I was a child I lived in a small sea-coast town, with wide, flat
sands. The only beautiful thing in the place--a town of no
distinction--were the sunsets over this vast, level expanse. I remember
them at intervals, as one recalls things seen passing in a train through
a solitary landscape. I seem to see myself, a child with a child's
imagination, standing on those wet sands, looking out over their purple
immensity to the glittering line of the tide on the horizon, and to see
again the sun in such a wide heaven that it seemed to have the world to
itself, and to watch the changes in the sky as it sank, drawing with it
the light. These great sands were dangerous at times, shifting in
whirling and irresistible rushes of water, and changing the course of
the channel, which was unaltered by the tide and which always lay out a
gleaming artery from the almost invisible sea.

It was Sunday morning--a day observed with such precision in that little
town that I was almost alone out of doors. A string of cart-horses,
their day of rest well-earned, were being led across the sands from the
level tide. The sand, uncovered by the sea for weeks, was bleached to an
intolerable whiteness, but there was no wind to lift it, and the sea was
tranquil, its little waves all hastening in one direction, like a shoal
of fish making for a haven. The sun was already changing its early glory
to heat. All the erections for amusement on the shore looked a little
foolish in that solitude. I returned to the town along the empty asphalt
roads and went with my companions to church. It was a church whose
pretensions were high and genteel. Nothing of a personal nature was ever
heard from its well-bred pulpit. The hymns were discreetly chosen to
avoid excitement, and a conversion would have given offence. The
minister for that day was a young man from the poorer end of the town,
and I remember, even as a child, being disturbed by the announcement of