The visitor to the island of Catalina, off the coast of California, is
invited to go out in a glass-bottomed boat upon the sea. If he accepts
the invitation and looks about him with careless curiosity, he will
enjoy the blue of the summer sky and ocean wave, and the architectural
beauty of the island hills; but if he turns his gaze downward and looks
through the glass bottom of the boat in which he is sailing, he will
discover manifold phases of beauty in the life beneath the sea waves: in
goldfish darting hither and thither, in umbrella-shaped jellyfish lazily
swimming by, in starfish and anemones of infinite variety, in
sea-urchins brilliant in color, and in an endless forest of water-weeds
exquisitely delicate in their structure. Perhaps he will try to
photograph them; but in vain: his camera will render him no report of
the wealth of life which he has seen. So he who takes up such a volume
of poetry as this will find ample repayment in the successive pictures
which it presents to his imagination, and the transient emotions which
it will excite in him. But besides this there is a secret life which the
careless reader will fail to see, and which the critic cannot report,
but which will be revealed to the thoughtful, patient, meditative
student. In this power to reveal an otherwise unknown world, lies the
true glory of poetry. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear what the
poet has to say to him.

[Signature: Lyman Abbot]

* * * * *



TABLE OF CONTENTS