What the vast majority of our migratory flocks of summer and autumnal idlers generally do and think at the sea-side, cannot be better exemplified than by reference to the clever sketches which are found occupying entire pages of our illustrated periodicals and newspapers, during the season of marine migration. But the habits and customs of the annual shoal of visitors to our watering-places, may be still more intimately comprehended through the medium of the sprightly essays which generally accompany those truly artistic delineations.

And is there really nothing better to do—no better regime to go through, than the daily repetition of the monotonous programme of entertainment thus playfully described and ridiculed?

Surely the visitor at the sea-side is in reach of something more pleasant and profitable than such a routine!

Do not the sublime aspects of the ocean—the sound of its deep, ceaseless voice—the eternal on-coming of its waves, now in calm undulations, and now in hurtling wildness against the base of those cliffs whose white brows are wreathed with perennial flowers—suggest other matters both for reflection and amusement? Surely the very whispering of the breeze that has travelled so far over that vast moving surface of the fathomless deep, and which seems muttering of its mysteries, while laden with its sweet saline odour—“ce parfum acre de la mer,” as Dumas has termed it—might lead us towards other and higher trains of thought. Surely those voices in the wind, mingling with the strange murmur of the waves as they break in cadenced regularity upon the shore, rouse, in the feelings of those who hear them for the first time, or after a long absence, strange sensations of admiration, and curiosity, and wonder. But no; to most of the idle crowd those sights and sounds are invisible and unheard. Their ears have not been tutored to understand the word-music of Nature’s language, nor to read the brightly-written signs on its mighty page.

To appreciate Nature, as well as Art, the mind requires a special education, without which the eye and the ear perceive but little of the miracles passing before them. To the eye of the common observer, the farthest field in the landscape is as green as the nearest, in the scene outspread before him; while to the practised glance of the accomplished artist, every yard of distance lends its new tone of colour to the tints of the herbage, till, through a thousand delicate gradations, the brightest verdure at last mingles with the atmospheric hue, and is eventually lost in the pervading azure. If, then, the ordinary aspects of Nature may not be fully interpreted by the untutored eye, how should her more hidden mysteries be felt or understood, or even guessed at? And, in fact, they are not, or the visitor to the sea-side, looking over that wide tremulous expanse of water that covers so many mysteries, would feel, like the child taken for the first time within the walls of a theatre, an intense anxiety to raise the dark-green curtain which conceals the scene of fairy wonders he is greedily longing to behold and enjoy. But the lounger at the sea-side does not guess at the wonders concealed by the dark-green curtain of the ocean, and, consequently, never dreams of wishing to peep beneath its waving folds, to gratify a curiosity which, in fact, does not exist.

When, however, the language of Nature is learnt, and her voice is no longer a confused murmur to the ear, but becomes a brilliant series of eloquent words, full of deep and exquisite meaning, then the student will see as well as hear; but till then, in his intercourse with Nature, he is both deaf and blind. “Speak,” said Socrates to a youth; “say something, that I may see you.” Socrates saw not a silent man; and those who do not hear and understand Nature’s language, cannot see her wondrous beauty.

The mill-like repetition of worldly affairs brings on a torpor of mind, in regard to all without the narrow circle of selfish interests and easily purchased pleasures, which it is very difficult to wake up from. But I would warn the suffering victims of that baneful, though secret, presence; for when the consciousness of its existence is aroused, the first step will have been taken towards its eradication.

I would remind all those suffering from inactivity of mind, of the wholesome dread of that kind of mental torpor entertained by the Gymnosophists; who, as Apuleus tells us, when they met at meals, required that each should be able to narrate the particulars of some discovery, or original thought, or good action, or it was deemed that he did not exhibit a sufficient reason for being allowed to consume a share of the viands, and he was consequently excluded from the repast. Were each of our most idle sea-side loungers to impose upon himself the necessity of a discovery, or an original thought, before he considered himself entitled to dine, that torpor, so deadening to the natural capacities of his mind, would soon give way to a state of mental activity, which, were it only from the brightness of the contrast, would be found highly agreeable, to say nothing of its advantages, or of the elevating and refining trains of thought to which it would necessarily give rise.

I know of nothing more likely to stimulate the mind to healthy exertion, and take it out of the immediate track of common interests and pleasures, the monotony of which is so oppressive, than the study of natural history in some of its least explored fields, especially its extraordinary development in connection with the waters of the ocean. And yet, how few there are who seek that charming mode of dissipating the dreary monotony of social life, such as it is made by the routine of fashion or habit! A popular love of natural history, even in its best known divisions, is, in fact, of quite recent growth. Indeed, the very existence of such a science has been, till recently, altogether ignored by our great national seats of learning. The earnest investigators, who have done so much to lay bare its wonders, were either openly ridiculed, or treated with but small respect—as useless dreamers upon very small and insignificant matters. The very names of such true labourers in the mine of science as our glorious old naturalist Ray, or his follower Pulteney, or the indefatigable Ellis, the first detector of the true nature of ZoÖphytes, who measured pens with the giant LinnÆus, received no academic honour; and those of their undiscouraged successors have been rarely heard, either in our universities or among our general public, till the vast discoveries of geology and other allied branches of science, in our own times, have at last aroused attention to their importance.

Any popular knowledge of that branch of natural history which especially concerns our seas and shores, is indeed of still more recent date. The subject, in fact, is but even now beginning to develop itself beneath the pens of an enterprising band of marine naturalists, with such leaders as Johnston, Harvey, John Edward Gray, the indefatigable Gosse, and the revered shade of the lamented Forbes at their head.

A truly popular knowledge even of those more accessible regions of our woods and fields, is but little more ancient; for, till Gilbert White had made the story of such knowledge as attractive as romance, in his “Natural History of Selborne,” few guessed what an arena of ever new interests and discoveries it presented.

Through the fascinating interpretation of the good Gilbert, many now understand the attraction of those branches of natural history which he so curiously investigated; but few are willing to admit that it is as easy to make the natural features of some obscure fishing-village, with no herbage on its bare rocks, and no bush, no blade of grass, no bird to be seen or heard, equally interesting; yet I can assure them, that by lifting even the mere border of that green curtain of the ocean, or by awaiting its unveilings, as the retiring tide bears back its folds, a host of wonders will be revealed, sufficient to rouse the most torpid mind of the most inactive idler to their earnest and deeply-inquiring contemplation, and arouse him to their devout admiration, as among the most exquisite miracles of that creative and sustaining Power which is the source of their existence.