I could excuse any man who became a pessimist after a long course of conversations in a sleepy old borough, for he would see that a mildew may attack the human intelligence, and that the manners of a puffy well-clad citizen may be worse than those of a Zulu Kaffir.  The indescribable coarseness and rudeness of the social intercourse, the detestable forms of humour which obtain applause, the low distrust and trickery are quite sufficient to make a sensitive man want to hide himself away.  If any one thinks I am too hard, he should try spending six whole weeks in any town which is called good and old; if he does not begin to agree with me about the end of the fifth week I am much in error.

XXII.

THE SEA.

Is there anything new to say about it?  Alas, have not all the poets done their uttermost; and how should a poor prose-writer fare when he enters a region where the monarchs of rhythm have proudly trodden?  It is audacious; and yet I must say that our beloved poets seem somehow to fail in strict accuracy.  Tennyson wanders and gazes and thinks; he strikes out some immortal word of love or despair when the awful influence of the ocean touches his soul; and yet he is not the poet that we want.  One or two of his phrases are pictorial and decisive—­no one can better them—­and the only fault which we find with them is that they are perhaps a little too exquisite.  When he says, “And white sails flying on the yellow sea,” he startles us; but his picture done in seven words is absolutely accurate.  When he writes of “the scream of the maddened beach,” he uses the pathetic fallacy; but his science is quite correct, for the swift whirling of myriads of pebbles does produce a clear shrill note as the backdraught streams from the shore.  But, when he writes the glorious passion beginning, “Is that enchanted moan only the swell Of the long waves that roll-in yonder bay?” we feel the note of falsity at once—­the swell does not moan, and the poet only wanted to lead up to the expression of a mysterious ecstasy of love.  Again, the most magnificent piece of word-weaving in English is an attempted description of the sea by a man whose command of a certain kind of verse is marvellous.  Here is the passage—­

                           “The sea shone
  And shivered like spread wings of angels blown
  By the sun’s breath before him, and a low
  Sweet gale shook all the foam-flowers of thin snow
  As into rainfall of sea-roses, shed
  Leaf by wild leaf in the green garden bed
  That tempests still and sea-winds turn and plough;
  For rosy and fiery round the running prow
  Fluttered the flakes and feathers of the spray
  And bloomed like blossoms cast by God away
  To waste on the ardent water; the wan moon
  Withered to westward as a face in swoon
  Death-stricken by glad tidings; and the height
  Throbbed and the centre quivered with delight
  And the deep quailed with passion as of love,
  Till, like the heart of a new-mated dove,
  Air, light, and wave seemed full of burning rest”—­