As I threw my eyes along the edge of the surf, I remember that I was
startled, as Robinson Crusoe might have been, by the sense that human
life was within the magic circle of my solitude. Afar off in the
remote distance of the beach, appearing like sea-nymphs, or some
airier things, such as might tread upon the feathery spray, was a
group of girls. Hardly had I beheld them, when they passed into the
shadow of the rocks and vanished. To comfort myself--for truly I
would fain have gazed a while longer--I made acquaintance with a flock
of beach birds. These little citizens of the sea and air preceded me
by about a stone's-throw along the strand, seeking, I suppose, for
food upon its margin. Yet, with a philosophy which mankind would do
well to imitate, they drew a continual pleasure from their toil for a
subsistence. The sea was each little bird's great playmate. They
chased it downward as it swept back, and again ran up swiftly before
the impending wave, which sometimes overtook them and bore them off
their feet. But they floated as lightly as one of their own feathers
on the breaking crest. In their airy flutterings, they seemed to rest
on the evanescent spray. Their images--longlegged little figures,
with gray backs and snowy bosoms--were seen as distinctly as the
realities in the mirror of the glistening strand. As I advanced, they
flew a score or two of yards, and, again alighting, recommenced their
dalliance with the surf wave; and thus they bore me company along the
beach, the types of pleasant fantasies, till, at its extremity, they
took wing over the ocean, and were gone. After forming a friendship
with these small surf-spirits, it is really worth a sigh, to find no
memorial of them, save their multitudinous little tracks in the sand.

When we have paced the length of the beach, it is pleasant, and not
unprofitable, to retrace our steps, and recall the whole mood and
occupation of the mind during the former passage. Our tracks, being