brown cloud that seemed about to unloose a furious gale. There was a
smothered murmur of the sea, a moaning sound that seemed to come from
the depths, a low warning growl, such as a dog gives when he only
means mischief as yet. After all, Ostend was not far away. Perhaps
painting, like poetry, could not prolong the existence of the picture
presented by sea and sky at that moment beyond the time of its actual
duration. Art demands vehement contrasts, wherefore artists usually
seek out Nature's most striking effects, doubtless because they
despair of rendering the great and glorious charm of her daily moods;
yet the human soul is often stirred as deeply by her calm as by her
emotion, and by silence as by storm.

For a moment no one spoke on board the boat. Every one watched that
sea and sky, either with some presentiment of danger, or because they
felt the influence of the religious melancholy that takes possession
of nearly all of us at the close of the day, the hour of prayer, when
all nature is hushed save for the voices of the bells. The sea gleamed
pale and wan, but its hues changed, and the surface took all the
colors of steel. The sky was almost overspread with livid gray, but
down in the west there were long narrow bars like streaks of blood;
while lines of bright light in the eastern sky, sharp and clean as if
drawn by the tip of a brush, were separated by folds of cloud, like
the wrinkles on an old man's brow. The whole scene made a background
of ashen grays and half-tints, in strong contrast to the bale-fires of
the sunset. If written language might borrow of spoken language some
of the bold figures of speech invented by the people, it might be said
with the soldier that "the weather has been routed," or, as the
peasant would say, "the sky glowered like an executioner." Suddenly a
wind arose from the quarter of the sunset, and the skipper, who never
took his eyes off the sea, saw the swell on the horizon line, and