Footprints on the Sea-Shore (From Twice Told Tales) Read online

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  TWICE TOLD TALES

  FOOTPRINTS ON THE SEA-SHORE

  By Nathaniel Hawthorne

  It must be a spirit much unlike my own, which can keep itself inhealth and vigor without sometimes stealing from the sultry sunshineof the world, to plunge into the cool bath of solitude. At intervals,and not infrequent ones, the forest and the ocean summon me--one withthe roar of its waves, the other with the murmur of its boughs--forthfrom the haunts of men. But I must wander many a mile, ere I couldstand beneath the shadow of even one primeval tree, much less be lostamong the multitude of hoary trunks, and hidden from earth and sky bythe mystery of darksome foliage. Nothing is within my daily reachmore like a forest than the acre or two of woodland near some suburbanfarm-house. When, therefore, the yearning for seclusion becomes anecessity within me, I am drawn to the sea-shore, which extends itsline of rude rocks and seldom-trodden sands, for leagues around ourbay. Setting forth at my last ramble, on a September morning, Ibound myself with a hermit's vow, to interchange no thoughts with manor woman, to share no social pleasure, but to derive all that day'senjoyment from shore, and sea, and sky,--from my soul's communion withthese, and from fantasies, and recollections, or anticipatedrealities. Surely here is enough to feed a human spirit for a singleday. Farewell, then, busy world! Till your evening lights shallshine along the street,--till they gleam upon my sea-flushed face, asI tread homeward,--free me from your ties, and let me be a peacefuloutlaw.

  Highways and cross-paths are hastily traversed, and, clambering down acrag, I find myself at the extremity of a long beach. How gladly doesthe spirit leap forth, and suddenly enlarge its sense of being to thefull extent of the broad, blue, sunny deep! A greeting and a homageto the Sea! I descend over its margin, and dip my hand into the wavethat meets me, and bathe my brow. That far-resounding roar is Ocean'svoice of welcome. His salt breath brings a blessing along with it.Now let us pace together--the reader's fancy arm in arm withmine--this noble beach, which extends a mile or more from that craggypromontory to yonder rampart of broken rocks. In front, the sea; inthe rear, a precipitous bank, the grassy verge of which is breakingaway, year after year, and flings down its tufts of verdure upon thebarrenness below. The beach itself is a broad space of sand, brownand sparkling, with hardly any pebbles intermixed. Near the water'sedge there is a wet margin, which glistens brightly in the sunshine,and reflects objects like a mirror; and as we tread along theglistening border, a dry spot flashes around each footstep, but growsmoist again, as we lift our feet. In some spots, the sand receives acomplete impression of the sole, square toe and all; elsewhere it isof such marble firmness, that we must stamp heavily to leave a printeven of the iron-shod heel. Along the whole of this extensive beachgambols the surf wave: now it makes a feint of dashing onward in afury, yet dies away with a meek murmur, and does but kiss the strand;now, after many such abortive efforts, it rears itself up in anunbroken line, heightening as it advances, without a speck of foam onits green crest. With how fierce a roar it flings itself forward, andrushes far up the beach!

  As I threw my eyes along the edge of the surf, I remember that I wasstartled, as Robinson Crusoe might have been, by the sense that humanlife was within the magic circle of my solitude. Afar off in theremote distance of the beach, appearing like sea-nymphs, or someairier things, such as might tread upon the feathery spray, was agroup of girls. Hardly had I beheld them, when they passed into theshadow of the rocks and vanished. To comfort myself--for truly Iwould fain have gazed a while longer--I made acquaintance with a flockof beach birds. These little citizens of the sea and air preceded meby about a stone's-throw along the strand, seeking, I suppose, forfood upon its margin. Yet, with a philosophy which mankind would dowell to imitate, they drew a continual pleasure from their toil for asubsistence. The sea was each little bird's great playmate. Theychased it downward as it swept back, and again ran up swiftly beforethe impending wave, which sometimes overtook them and bore them offtheir feet. But they floated as lightly as one of their own featherson the breaking crest. In their airy flutterings, they seemed to reston the evanescent spray. Their images--long-legged little figures,with gray backs and snowy bosoms--were seen as distinctly as therealities in the mirror of the glistening strand. As I advanced, theyflew a score or two of yards, and, again alighting, recommenced theirdalliance with the surf wave; and thus they bore me company along thebeach, the types of pleasant fantasies, till, at its extremity, theytook wing over the ocean, and were gone. After forming a friendshipwith these small surf-spirits, it is really worth a sigh, to find nomemorial of them, save their multitudinous little tracks in the sand.

  When we have paced the length of the beach, it is pleasant, and notunprofitable, to retrace our steps, and recall the whole mood andoccupation of the mind during the former passage. Our tracks, beingall discernible, will guide us with an observing consciousness throughevery unconscious wandering of thought and fancy. Here we followedthe surf in its reflux, to pick up a shell which the sea seemed loathto relinquish. Here we found a sea-weed, with an immense brown leaf,and trailed it behind us by its long snake-like stalk. Here we seizeda live horseshoe by the tail, and counted the many claws of the queermonster. Here we dug into the sand for pebbles, and skipped them uponthe surface of the water. Here we wet our feet while examining ajelly-fish, which the waves, having just tossed it up, now sought tosnatch away again. Here we trod along the brink of a fresh-waterbrooklet, which flows across the beach, becoming shallower and moreshallow, till at last it sinks into the sand, and perishes in theeffort to bear its little tribute to the main. Here some vagaryappears to have bewildered us; for our tracks go round and round, andare confusedly intermingled, as if we had found a labyrinth upon thelevel beach. And here, amid our idle pastime, we sat down upon almostthe only stone that breaks the surface of the sand, and were lost inan unlooked-for and overpowering conception of the majesty andawfulness of the great deep. Thus, by tracking our footprints in thesand, we track our own nature in its wayward course, and steal aglance upon it, when it never dreams of being so observed. Suchglances always make us wiser.

  This extensive beach affords room for another pleasant pastime. Withyour staff you may write verses--love-verses, if they please you best--andconsecrate them with a woman's name. Here, too, may be inscribedthoughts, feelings, desires, warm out-gushings from the heart's secretplaces, which you would not pour upon the sand without the certaintythat, almost ere the sky has looked upon them, the sea will wash themout. Stir not hence till the record be effaced. Now--for there isroom enough on your canvas--draw huge faces,--huge as that of theSphinx on Egyptian sands,--and fit them with bodies of correspondingimmensity, and legs which might stride half-way to yonder island.Child's play becomes magnificent on so grand a scale. But, after all,the most fascinating employment is simply to write your name in thesand. Draw the letters gigantic, so that two strides may barelymeasure them, and three for the long strokes! Cut deep, that therecord may be permanent! Statesmen, and warriors, and poets havespent their strength in no better cause than this. Is itaccomplished? Return, then, in an hour or two, and seek for thismighty record of a name. The sea will have swept over it, even astime rolls its effacing waves over the names of statesmen, andwarriors, and poets. Hark, the surf wave laughs at you!

  Passing from the beach, I begin to clamber over the crags, making mydifficult way among the ruins of a rampart, shattered and broken bythe assaults of a fierce enemy. The rocks rise in every variety ofattitude; some of th
em have their feet in the foam, and are shaggedhalf-way upward with sea-weed; some have been hollowed almost intocaverns by the unwearied toil of the sea, which can afford to spendcenturies in wearing away a rock, or even polishing a pebble. Onehuge rock ascends in monumental shape, with a face like a giant'stombstone, on which the veins resemble inscriptions, but in an unknowntongue. We will fancy them the forgotten characters of anantediluvian race; or else that Nature's own hand has here recorded amystery, which, could I read her language, would make mankind thewiser and the happier. How many a thing has troubled me with thatsame idea! Pass on, and leave it unexplained. Here is a narrowavenue, which might seem to have been hewn through the very heart ofan enormous crag, affording passage for the rising sea to thunder backand forth, filling it with tumultuous foam, and then leaving its floorof black pebbles bare and glistening. In this chasm there was once anintersecting vein of softer