"God bless you! God is blessing you," I said.

"Amen," returned Percivale devoutly; and we strolled away together in
silence towards the cliffs.

The recession of the tide allowed us to get far enough away from the face
of the rocks to see the general effect. With the lisping of the inch-deep
wavelets at our heels we stood and regarded the worn yet defiant, the
wasted and jagged yet reposeful face of the guardians of the shore.

"Who could imagine, in weather like this, and with this baby of a tide
lying behind us, low at our feet, and shallow as the water a schoolboy
pours upon his slate to wash it withal, that those grand cliffs before
us bear on their front the scars and dints of centuries, of chiliads of
stubborn resistance, of passionate contest with this same creature that is
at this moment unable to rock the cradle of an infant? Look behind you, at
your feet, Mr. Percivale; look before you at the chasms, rents, caves, and
hollows of those rocks."

"I wish you were a painter, Mr. Walton," he said.

"I wish I were," I returned. "At least I know I should rejoice in it, if it
had been given me to be one. But why do you say so now?"

"Because you have always some individual predominating idea, which
would give interpretation to Nature while it gave harmony, reality, and
individuality to your representation of her."

"I know what you mean," I answered; "but I have no gift whatever in that
direction. I have no idea of drawing, or of producing the effects of light