CHILDREN AND THE SEA

The sea, like all very large things, can only be intimately understood by children.  If we can conceive a sensible grown-up person looking at the sea for the first time, we feel that he should either yawn or wish to drown himself.  But a child would take a sample of it in a bucket, and consider that in all its aspects; and then it would know that the sea is a great many bucketfuls of water, and further that by an odd freak of destiny this water is not fit to drink.  Storms and ships and sand-castles and lighthouses and all the other side-shows would follow later; but in the meantime the child would have seen the sea in a bucket, as it had previously¹ seen the moon in a looking-glass, so would know all about it.  The moon is a variable and interesting kind of lamp; the sea is buckets and buckets and buckets full p. 131of water.  I think the stars are holes in a sort of black curtain or ceiling, and the sun is a piece of brightness, except at sunset or in a mist, when it is a whole Dutch cheese.  The world is streets and fields and the seaside and our house.

I doubt whether a child has any sense of what I may call the appeal of breadth.  If it is confronted with a fine view, it will concentrate its interest on a windmill or a doll’s house, and the seaside is no more than a place where one wears no shoes or stockings, and the manufacture of mud pies becomes suddenly licit.  The child does not share the torments² of the adult Londoner, who feels that there is no room in the world to stretch his arms and legs, and therefore wins a pathetic sense of freedom in seeing the long yellow sands and the green wastes of the sea.  Nor is it at all excited by the consideration that there is a lot more sea beyond the horizon; the extent of its interest in the water is the limit to which it may paddle.

Yet in some dim, strange way the child realises ?sthetic values more here than elsewhere.  I am quite sure it can see no real p. 132beauty in its normal surroundings.  Sunsets and small houses lit for evening, the shining streets after rain, and even flowers and pictures and dolls, are never beautiful to a child in the sense that a story or an idea may be beautiful.   But tacitly, for a child has no language to express such things, something of the blueness of the sea seems to seek expression in its eyes, something of the sparkle of the sand seems to be tangled³ in its hair, something of the sunshine burns in its rounded calves⁴ that glow like brown eggs.  A child is always a thing of wonder.  But on the edge of the sea this wonder deepens until the artificial observer is abashed⁵.  A seaside child is no creature to be petted and laughed over; it were as easy to pet the tireless waters, and to laugh over the grave of a little cat; children whom one has known very well indeed in town will find new playing fields by the sea into which it is impossible to follow them.  Dorothy weighs five stone four pounds at Maida Vale; at Littlehampton the sea wind blows her along like a feather; she is become a wispy⁶, spiritual thing, a p. 133faint, fair creature a-dance on light feet that would make the fairy-girl of a poet’s dream seem clumsy by comparison.  She is nearer to us when she paddles.  The warm sand creeping up through her toes, the silver thread of coolness about her legs, these things are within our comprehension though they fall no more within our experience.  But when she flings herself along the beach with the wild hair and loose limbs and the song of an innocent Bacchante, when she bids the gold sands heave up and support her body, tired with play, when she stoops to gather diamonds and pearls from the shore made wet and smooth by the retreating waves, she is as far from us and our human qualities as a new-awakened butterfly.  There have been sea-washed moments when I should not have been astonished if she had flung out a pair of mother-of-pearl wings and stood in the blue sky, like a child saint in a stained-glass window.  There have been other moments when she has approached me with a number of impossible questions in wanton parody⁷ of her simple London self.  Between these two extremes her moods vary p. 134from second to second, and she plays upon them as Pan upon his pipes, and to much the same tune⁸.  She loves the long tresses of seaweed and the pink shells like the nails of her own little hands; and her coloured pail, when she is not the architect of sea-girt palaces, is a treasury⁹ of salty wonders.  To climb the rough rocks and call them mountains, to drive back the waves with a chiding¹⁰ foot, and to alter the face of Nature with a wooden spade, these were not tasks for the domesticated¹¹ creature who shares the hearth-rug with the cat at home.  But the spirit of the sea has changed Dorothy; she is now a little more and a little less than child; and she recognises no comrades but those other nymphs of the sea, who hold the beach with the sparkle of wet feet and careless petticoats, who run hither and thither¹² in search of the big adventure, while their parents and guardians¹³ sleep in the sun.  It is hard that age should deprive us of so many privileges, and least of all can we spare the glamour¹⁴ of the sands of the sea.  Yet to the adult mind Brighton beach, sprinkled with newspapers and washed by p. 135a sea whose surface is black with smuts, brings little but disgust.  We insist on having our fairy-lands clean and end, too often, by finding no fairy-land at all.  The sea, after all, is no more than water that may be caught in a bucket; the sand may glitter on a child’s spade, and we who believe that the essential knowledge of the thing is ours are no wiser than the children.  For me the sea is a restless and immeasurable waste of greens and blues¹⁵ and greys, and I know that its strength lies in its monotony.  It is not the noisy turbulence¹⁶ of storms that moves me to fear, but the dull precision of the tides and the tireless succession of waves.  And my impression is no truer than the children’s and lends itself less readily to a sympathetic manner of living.  I feel that if I could once more hold the ocean in my bucket, if the whole earth might be uprooted¹⁷ by my spade, I should be nearer to a sense of the value of life than I am now.  I see the children go trooping by with their calm eyes, not, as is sometimes said, curious, but rather tolerant of life, and I know that for them the universe is merely an aggregate¹⁸ of details, p. 136some agreeable and some stupid, while I must needs depress myself by regarding it as a whole.  And this is the proved distinction between juvenile¹⁹ and adult philosophies, if we may be permitted to regard a child’s very definite point of view as the effect of a philosophy.  Life is a collection of little bits of experience; the seaside bits are pleasant, and there is nothing more to be said.

1 previously   

adv.以前，先前（地）

参考例句：

• The bicycle tyre blew out at a previously damaged point.自行车胎在以前损坏过的地方又爆开了。
• Let me digress for a moment and explain what had happened previously.让我岔开一会儿，解释原先发生了什么。

2 torments   

（肉体或精神上的）折磨，痛苦( torment的名词复数 )； 造成痛苦的事物[人]

参考例句：

• He released me from my torments. 他解除了我的痛苦。
• He suffered torments from his aching teeth. 他牙痛得难受。

3 tangled   

adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• Your hair's so tangled that I can't comb it. 你的头发太乱了，我梳不动。
• A movement caught his eye in the tangled undergrowth. 乱灌木丛里的晃动引起了他的注意。

4 calves   

n.(calf的复数)笨拙的男子，腓；腿肚子( calf的名词复数 )；牛犊；腓；小腿肚v.生小牛( calve的第三人称单数 )；（冰川）崩解；生（小牛等），产（犊）；使（冰川）崩解

参考例句：

• a cow suckling her calves 给小牛吃奶的母牛
• The calves are grazed intensively during their first season. 小牛在生长的第一季里集中喂养。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 abashed   

adj.窘迫的，尴尬的v.使羞愧，使局促，使窘迫( abash的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He glanced at Juliet accusingly and she looked suitably abashed. 他怪罪的一瞥，朱丽叶自然显得很窘。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The girl was abashed by the laughter of her classmates. 那小姑娘因同学的哄笑而局促不安。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 wispy   

adj.模糊的；纤细的

参考例句：

• Grey wispy hair straggled down to her shoulders.稀疏的灰白头发披散在她肩头。
• The half moon is hidden behind some wispy clouds.半轮月亮躲在淡淡的云彩之后。

7 parody   

n.打油诗文，诙谐的改编诗文，拙劣的模仿；v.拙劣模仿，作模仿诗文

参考例句：

• The parody was just a form of teasing.那个拙劣的模仿只是一种揶揄。
• North Korea looks like a grotesque parody of Mao's centrally controlled China,precisely the sort of system that Beijing has left behind.朝鲜看上去像是毛时代中央集权的中国的怪诞模仿，其体制恰恰是北京方面已经抛弃的。

8 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。

9 treasury   

n.宝库；国库，金库；文库

参考例句：

• The Treasury was opposed in principle to the proposals.财政部原则上反对这些提案。
• This book is a treasury of useful information.这本书是有价值的信息宝库。

10 chiding   

v.责骂，责备( chide的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• She was chiding her son for not being more dutiful to her. 她在责骂她儿子对她不够孝尽。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She called back her scattered maidens, chiding their alarm. 她把受惊的少女们召唤回来，对她们的惊惶之状加以指责。 来自辞典例句

11 domesticated   

adj.喜欢家庭生活的；（指动物）被驯养了的v.驯化( domesticate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He is thoroughly domesticated and cooks a delicious chicken casserole. 他精于家务，烹制的砂锅炖小鸡非常可口。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The donkey is a domesticated form of the African wild ass. 驴是非洲野驴的一种已驯化的品种。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 thither   

adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的

参考例句：

• He wandered hither and thither looking for a playmate.他逛来逛去找玩伴。
• He tramped hither and thither.他到处流浪。

13 guardians   

监护人( guardian的名词复数 )； 保护者，维护者

参考例句：

• Farmers should be guardians of the countryside. 农民应是乡村的保卫者。
• The police are guardians of law and order. 警察是法律和秩序的护卫者。

14 glamour   

n.魔力，魅力；vt.迷住

参考例句：

• Foreign travel has lost its glamour for her.到国外旅行对她已失去吸引力了。
• The moonlight cast a glamour over the scene.月光给景色增添了魅力。

15 blues   

n.抑郁，沮丧；布鲁斯音乐

参考例句：

• She was in the back of a smoky bar singing the blues.她在烟雾弥漫的酒吧深处唱着布鲁斯歌曲。
• He was in the blues on account of his failure in business.他因事业失败而意志消沉。

16 turbulence   

n.喧嚣，狂暴，骚乱，湍流

参考例句：

• The turbulence caused the plane to turn over.空气的激流导致飞机翻转。
• The world advances amidst turbulence.世界在动荡中前进。

17 uprooted   

v.把（某物）连根拔起( uproot的过去式和过去分词 )；根除；赶走；把…赶出家园

参考例句：

• Many people were uprooted from their homes by the flood. 水灾令许多人背井离乡。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The hurricane blew with such force that trees were uprooted. 飓风强烈地刮着，树都被连根拔起了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

18 aggregate   

adj.总计的，集合的；n.总数；v.合计；集合

参考例句：

• The football team had a low goal aggregate last season.这支足球队上个赛季的进球总数很少。
• The money collected will aggregate a thousand dollars.进帐总额将达一千美元。

19 juvenile   

n.青少年，少年读物；adj.青少年的，幼稚的

参考例句：

• For a grown man he acted in a very juvenile manner.身为成年人，他的行为举止显得十分幼稚。
• Juvenile crime is increasing at a terrifying rate.青少年犯罪正在以惊人的速度增长。