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164
Glaucus; Or, The Wonders of the Shore
·
Charles Kingsley
101
Such
a
rhapsody
may
be
somewhat
out
of
order,
even
in
a
popular
scientific
book;
and
yet
one
cannot
help
at
moments
envying
the
old
Greek
imagination,
which
could
inform
the
soulless
sea-world
with
a
human
life
and
beauty.
For,
after
all,
star-fishes
and
sea-anemones
are
dull
substitutes
for
Sirens
and
Tritons;
the
lamps
of
the
sea-nymphs,
those
glorious
phosphorescent
medusæ
whose
beauty
Mr.
Gosse
sets
forth
so
well
with
pen
and
pencil,
are
not
as
attractive
as
the
sea-nymphs
themselves
would
be;
and
who
would
not,
like
Menelaus,
take
the
grey
old
man
of
the
sea
himself
asleep
upon
the
rocks,
rather
than
one
of
his
seal-herd,
probably
too
with
the
same
result
as
the
world-famous
combat
in
the
Antiquary,
between
Hector
and
Phoca?
And
yet—
is
there
no
human
interest
in
these
pursuits,
more
humanity
and
more
divine,
than
there
would
be
even
in
those
Triton
and
Nereid
dreams,
if
realized
to
sight
and
sense?
Heaven
forbid
that
those
should
say
so,
whose
wanderings
among
rock
and
pool
have
been
mixed
up
with
holiest
passages
of
friendship
and
of
love,
and
the
intercommunion
of
equal
minds
and
sympathetic
hearts,
and
the
laugh
of
children
drinking
in
health
from
every
breeze
and
instruction
at
every
step,
running
ever
and
anon
with
proud
delight
to
add
their
little
treasure
to
their
parents’
stock,
and
of
happy
friendly
evenings
spent
over
the
microscope
and
the
vase,
in
examining,
arranging,
preserving,
noting
down
in
the
diary
the
wonders
and
the
labours
of
the
happy,
busy
day.
No;
such
short
glimpses
of
the
water-world
as
our
present
appliances
afford
us
are
full
enough
of
pleasure;
and
we
will
not
envy
Glaucus:
we
will
not
even
be
over-anxious
for
the
success
of
his
only
modern
imitator,
the
French
naturalist
who
is
reported
to
have
fitted
himself
with
a
waterproof
dress
and
breathing
apparatus,
in
order
to
walk
the
bottom
of
the
Mediterranean,
and
see
for
himself
how
the
world
goes
on
at
the
fifty-fathom
line:
we
will
be
content
with
the
wonders
of
the
shore
and
of
the
sea-floor,
as
far
as
the
dredge
will
discover
them
to
us.
We
shall
even
thus
find
enough
to
occupy
(if
we
choose)
our
lifetime.
For
we
must
recollect
that
this
hasty
sketch
has
hardly
touched
on
that
vegetable
water-world,
which
is
as
wonderful
and
as
various
as
the
animal
one.
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