Denizen

“ At last it seems to him that the heavens, the water, his rock, the tower, the golden sand-banks, and the swollen sails, the sea-mews, the ebb and flow of the tide,—all form a mighty unity, one enormous mysterious soul; that he is sinking in that mystery, and feels that soul which lives and lulls itself. ”

“ For were it not for those effulgent Lights that shine above the horizon of His Essence, the people would know not their left hand from their right, how much less could they scale the heights of the inner realities or probe the depths of their subtleties! We beseech God therefore to immerse us in these surging seas, to grace us with the presence of these life-bearing breezes, and to cause us to abide in these divine and lofty precincts. ”

“ All water seems attractive to us, but certainly, more than the blue and virgin sea, this appeals to that in us which is between the flesh and the soul,—our human current charged with virtue and with spirit, the deep and burning blood. ”

“ Gently, silently, the love of a great people bore the pale sufferer to the longed-for healing of the sea, to live or to die, as God should will, within sight of its heaving billows, within sound of its manifold voices. With wan, fevered face tenderly lifted to the cooling breeze he looked out wistfully upon the ocean's changing wonders—on its far sails whitening in the morning light ”

“ The fish of the sea are the knowledges in the memory, the fowl of the air the thoughts which float through the atmosphere of the mind, the cattle the affections of the heart, all the earth the entire realm of mind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, the instincts and ideas that lay close to the earth in the very natural duties and pleasures which a life in the world compel us to perform and enjoy. These are the things over which the man, the regenerated manhood, are to have and hold dominion. ”

“ The emotions created in the mind by the vast extent of the ocean, the ever-moving surface, the broken outlines of land and sea, the richness and luxuriance of the vegetable clothing of the earth, the never-ceasing transformation of the clouds as they float overhead, the large serenity of nature at rest, and the overwhelming violence of her convulsions, are, even though not consciously, the source of many psychological attitudes. ”

“ And his Soul gave a great cry of joy and ran to meet him, and entered into him, and the young Fisherman saw stretched before him upon the sand that shadow of the body that is the body of the Soul.
And his Soul said to him, ‘Let us not tarry, but get hence at once, for the Sea-gods are jealous, and have monsters that do their bidding.’
So they made haste, and all that night they journeyed beneath the moon, and all the next day they journeyed beneath the sun, and on the evening of the day they came to a city. ”

“ Ever thing can be found at sea, according to the spirit of your quest--strife, peace, romance, naturalism of the most pronounced kind, ideals, boredom, disgust, inspiration--and every conceivable opportunity, including the opportunity to make a fool of yourself, exactly as in the pursuit of literature. ”

“ I prayed aloud in the roar of the waves—my soul was strong as the sea and prayed with the sea’s might. Give me fulness of life like to the sea and the sun, to the earth and the air; give me fulness of physical life, mind equal and beyond their fulness; give me a greatness and perfection of soul higher than all things; give me my inexpressible desire which swells in me like a tide—give it to me with all the force of the sea. ”

“ And born with the instinct of soul is the instinct that leads the soul from the seen to the unseen, from time to eternity, from the torrent that foams towards the Ocean of Death, to the source of its stream, far aloft from the Ocean. ”

“ I taste the glory of the ocean of the Supreme Eternal, filled full of the ambrosial bliss of the Self. My mind, enjoying delight, like a watercourse, that had dried up, when the multitude of waters come, is full of happiness, even from the slightest portion of the honey-sweet bliss of the Self. ”

“ But the Soul feeling its nature and its affinity with God, through love, makes answer boldly: "The fish cannot drown in the water, nor the bird sink in the air, nor gold perish in the flame, where it gains its bright clarity and colour. ”

“ IT WAS written that there, in the nursery of our navigating ancestors, I should learn to walk in the ways of my craft and grow in the love of the sea, blind as young love often is, but absorbing and disinterested as all true love must be. I demanded nothing from it—not even adventure. In this I showed, perhaps, more intuitive wisdom than high self-denial. No adventure ever came to one for the asking. ”

“ I have been for the last hour on the seashore, not dreaming, but thinking deeply and strongly, and forming determinations which are to affect my destiny through time and through eternity. Before the sleeping earth, and the sleepless sea and stars, I have devoted myself to God ”

“ What matter whether we call the great ocean in which we move and live and have our being, God, soul, energy, force or thought, we are its offspring or manifestation, and can never for one instant be separated from it. ”

“ By and by the bundle of life stirred, took shape, raised itself, and was changed into a man again, a thinking, conscious being, who now understood the meaning of this sound coming up from the earth below—or was it the sea? ”

“ I am consciousness. It was my thirst for living that was my bondage.
23 Truly it is in the limitless ocean of myself, that stimulated by the colourful waves of the worlds everything suddenly arises in the wind of consciousness.
24 It is in the limitless ocean of myself, that the wind of thought subsides, and the trader-like living beings' world bark is wrecked by lack of goods.
25 How wonderful it is that in the limitless ocean of myself the waves of living beings arise, collide, play and disappear, according to their natures. ”

“ Others rush together with the ever elusive, infinitesimally small, transparent creatures of the air and penetrate into the mysteries of their existence and into the purposes of their life. Others slip into the depths of the seas and observe the kingdom of the wise creatures of the water, who transport and spread genial warmth all over the earth, ruling the winds, waves and storms. ”

“ We are all familiar with the feelings that might lead to the attempt. Many of us, gazing on the boundless blue ocean, sparkling in the sunlight, have felt that to have this sight before our eyes every day would widen the soul and cleanse it of all its little meannesses; and we have turned away unwillingly and with the conscious desire to preserve the impression so as to be able to renew its effect. ”

“ Their manner of life upon the ocean of deserts and pastures gave breadth and freedom to their minds; the vault of heaven, under which they dwelt, with all its nightly stars, elevated their feelings; and they, more than the active, skilful huntsman, or the secure, careful, householding husbandman, had need of the immovable faith that a God walked beside them, visited them, cared for them, guided and saved them. ”

“ After I had eaten I tried to walk, but found myself so weak that I could hardly carry a gun, for I never went out without that; so I went but a little way, and sat down upon the ground, looking out upon the sea, which was just before me, and very calm and smooth. As I sat here some such thoughts as these occurred to me: What is this earth and sea, of which I have seen so much? Whence is it produced? And what am I, and all the other creatures wild and tame, human and brutal? Whence are we? Sure we are all made by some secret Power, who formed the earth and sea, the air and sky. ”

“ While enjoying the delightful scene, the passions are hushed. The sea seems the blest abode of tranquillity. We are alive only to its beauty, its grace, its magnitude, its power to interest and charm, to benefit mankind and beautify the world. ”

“ Afloat upon the black waste of waters, at the mercy of wind and sea, with vast depths and strange creatures below them, a belief in the supernatural is easier than ashore, under the cheerful gas-lamps. ”

“ As when a man descends with a light in his diving-bell into the heaving sea, the strange monsters of the deep, attracted by the unknown glimmer, throng and wallow terribly around him, so did uncouth thoughts and forgotten sins welter in fearful multitudes round this light of memory in the deep sea of that poor human soul. ”

“ And we alone—we three— alone—alone—sole dwellers on the sea and on the earth, we three must perish! The vast universe, its myriad worlds, and the plains of boundless earth which we had left—the extent of shoreless sea around—contracted to my view—they and all that they contained, shrunk up to one point, even to our tossing bark, freighted with glorious humanity. ”

“ A small divine instinct, following ignorantly in the wake of that great celestial love that hundreds of years ago stooped to the sorrow of life, urged her to renounce the ample strengths and joys of the sea, and to satisfy a piteous want, were it by repression of energies, by eschewing full flavours of sense, by the draining of her young life. ”

“ For the universal Life was in the straw. The life in that slender ear is one with the mighty pulsations of the ocean, the growth of the forest, and of the world of men, and the illimitable stars beyond. ”

“ Or stir our senses, no, not if earth with sea
In ruin shall be mingled, and sea with sky.
And even though the powers of mind and soul
After they have been severed from the body
Were still to feel, yet that to us is nothing,
Who by the binding marriage tie between
Body and soul are formed into one being. ”

“ They could ascribe to kind or hostile spirits all good and evil of their own lives, and all striking operations of nature; they lived in familiar intercourse with the living and powerful souls of their dead ancestors, with the spirits of the stream and grove, plain and mountain, they knew well the living mighty Sun pouring his beams of light and heat upon them, the living mighty Sea dashing her fierce billows on the shore, the great personal Heaven and Earth protecting and producing all things. ”

“ Here, amongst the waters,—that is, in the mirror of similitude, in those works where shines the brightness of divine goodness and splendour, which works are symbolized by the waters superior and inferior, which are above and below the firmament, he sees the most beautiful bust and face—that is, external power and operation, which it is possible to see, by the habit and act of contemplation and the application of mortal or divine mind, of man or any god. ”

“ He chooses elements and agents congenial to his mind, the dark and glittering ocean, the frail bark hurrying before the storm, pirates and men that ‘house on the wild sea with wild usages.’ He gives the tumultuous eagerness of action, and the fixed despair of thought. ”

“ Whosoever could recite the first of these formulas would become forthwith second only to the gods—for by its simple utterance the mountains and the valleys, the ocean and the clouds, the heights of heaven and the deeps of hell, would be made subject unto his will; while the birds of air, the reptiles of darkness, and the fishes of the waters, would be thereby compelled to appear, and to make manifest the thoughts secreted within their hearts. ”

“ The confusion between things which are explicable, and things which are not, gradually brings the mind of the mariner to a state in which any exciting and unnatural sentiment is welcome, if it be or no other reason than that, like the vast element on which he passes his life, it bears the impression of what is thought a supernatural, because it is an incomprehensible, power. ”

“ He sees in all the phenomena of nature the presence of personal beings,—beings who act and suffer and enjoy and love and hate as he does himself. The sky, the sun, the wind, the ocean, represent each a separate deity. ”

“ Of all kinds of existence, none seemed to me so enviable as that of those men who, regarding life as a vast ocean, hoisted sail, and set forth, not knowing nor caring whither, but trusting to their own manly spirit for extrication out of whatever difficulties might beset them. ”

“ What an inspired writer says of the innumerable animals which inhabit the ocean, may with equal propriety be said of the whole human race. “Thou sendest forth thy spirit, and they are created. Thou takest away their breath—they die, and return to their dust.” ”

“ In everyday life ordinary men require something much more material, effective, definite and symbolic on which to concentrate their love and their devotion. And then, what is it, this Spirit of the Sea? ”

“ And when the dockers break up through, fling themselves upon their God, what is it, after all, but another way of saying, "I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God...." ”

“ Above all they believe in an Evil Spirit of the sea, who delights to bring harm to mariners, send adverse winds and waves, and drag them down into the depths of the ocean. This Spirit, they say, can change a gentle breeze to a terrific gale in an instant. ”

“ True, there is a chart, and precepts for the right way are clear, but my craving is for a living Spirit within which shall point me to the peaceful shore by an attraction powerful and unerring, though unseen, and, like that of the needle, incomprehensible. ”

“ And if the mackerel will not bite at all we invent a score of reasons and blame a dozen people and things. But there we are—ourselves, the sea, and the heavenly dawn—the sea heaving up to us, and ourselves ever heaving higher, up and over the lop. ”