disappears behind purple mountains gilding their outline, and the day is
done. Not a single dust-speck has soiled sky or earth; not the faintest
echo of noisy labours disturbed the silences; not an alien sight has
intruded. What can there be in such a scene to exhilarate? Must not the
inhabitants vegetate dully after the style of their own bananas?
Actually the day has been all too brief for the accomplishment of
inevitable duties and to the complete enjoyment of all too alluring
relaxations.

Here is opportunity to patronise the sun, to revel in the companionship
of the sea, to confirm the usage of beaches, to admonish winds to
seemliness and secrecy, to approve good-tempered trees, to exchange
confidences with flowering plants, to claim the perfumed air, to rejoice
in the silence--

"Not learning more than the fond eye doth teach,
Which pries not to th' interior."

How oft is the confession that the fullest moments of life are achieved
when I roam the beaches with little more in the way of raiment than
sunburn and naught in hand save the leaves of some strange, sand-loving
plant? Then is it that the individual is magnified. The sun salutes. The
wind fans. The sea sighs a love melody. The caressing sand takes print of
my foot alone. All the world might be mine, for none is present to
dispute possession. The sailless sea smiles in ripples, and strews its
verge with treasures for my acceptance. The sky's purity enriches my
soul. Shall I not joy therein?

Though he may be unable to attain those moments of irresistible intuition
which came to Amiel, when a man feels himself great like the universe and