Of its early mountainous shore,
Yet a solemn peace of its own.

"And the width of the waters, the hush
Of the gray expanse where he floats,
Freshening its current and spotted with foam
As it draws to the Ocean, may strike
Peace to the soul of the man on its breast--
As the pale waste widens around him,
As the banks fade dinner away,
As the stars come out, and the night-wind
Brings up the stream
Murmurs and scents of the infinite sea."

We cannot easily see the large measure and abiding purpose of the
novel age in which we stand young and confused. The view that
shall clear our minds and quicken us to act as those who know
their task and its distant consummation will come with better
knowledge and completer self-possession. It shall not be a
night-wind, but an air that shall blow out of the widening east
and with the coming of the light, and shall bring us, with the
morning, "murmurs and scents of the infinite sea." Who can doubt
that man has grown more and more human with each step of that
slow process which has brought him knowledge, self-restraint,
the arts of intercourse, and the revelations of real joy? Man has
more and more lived with his fellow-men, and it is society that
has humanized him--the development of society into a infinitely
various school of discipline and ordered skill. He has been made
more human by schooling, by growing more self-possessed--less
violent, less tumultuous; holding himself in hand, and moving