at once summer returned, coming like a thief in the night, for
when it was morning the sun rose in splendour and power in a
sky without a cloud on its vast azure expanse, on a calm sea
with no motion but that scarcely perceptible rise and fall as
of one that sleeps. As the sun rose higher the air grew
warmer until it was full summer heat, but although a "visible
heat," it was never oppressive; for all that day we were
abroad, and as the tide ebbed a new country that was neither
earth nor sea was disclosed, an infinite expanse of pale
yellow sand stretching away on either side, and further and
further out until it mingled and melted into the sparkling
water and faintly seen line of foam on the horizon. And over
all--the distant sea, the ridge of low dunes marking where the
earth ended and the flat, yellow expanse between--there
brooded a soft bluish silvery haze. A haze that blotted
nothing out, but blended and interfused them all until earth
and air and sea and sands were scarcely distinguishable. The
effect, delicate, mysterious, unearthly, cannot be described.

Ethereal gauze . . .
Visible heat, air-water, and dry sea,
Last conquest of the eye . . .

Sun dust,
Aerial surf upon the shores of earth,
Ethereal estuary, frith of light. . . .
Bird of the sun, transparent winged.

Do we not see that words fail as pigments do--that the effect
is too coarse, since in describing it we put it before the