... I read for an hour or two; fall asleep in the chair; wake up
suddenly; look at the sea,--and cry out! This sea is impossibly
blue! The painter who should try to paint it would be denounced
as a lunatic.... Yet it is transparent; the foam-clouds, as they
sink down, turn sky-blue,--a sky-blue which now looks white by
contrast with the strange and violent splendor of the sea color.
It seems as if one were looking into an immeasurable dyeing vat,
or as though the whole ocean had been thickened with indigo. To
say this is a mere reflection of the sky is nonsense!--the sky is
too pale by a hundred shades for that! This must be the natural
color of the water,--a blazing azure,--magnificent, impossible to
describe.

The French passenger from Guadeloupe observes that the sea is
"beginning to become blue."



IV.


And the fourth day. One awakens unspeakably lazy;--this must be
the West Indian languor. Same sky, with a few more bright clouds
than yesterday;--always the warm wind blowing. There is a long
swell. Under this trade-breeze, warm like a human breath, the
ocean seems to pulse,--to rise and fall as with a vast
inspiration and expiration. Alternately its blue circle lifts and
falls before us and behind us--we rise very high; we sink very
low,--but always with a slow long motion. Nevertheless, the water
looks smooth, perfectly smooth; the billowings which lift us