What use is one’s life widout chances? Ye’ve always a chance wid the tide;
For ye never can tell what ’twill take in its head to strew3 round on the shore;
Maybe driftwood, or grand bits of boards that come handy for splicing5 an oar4,
Or a crab6 skytin’ back o’er the shine o’ the wet; sure, whatever ye’ve found,
It’s a sort of diversion them whiles when ye’ve starvin’ and strelin’ around.
Absorbed in so delightful7 an occupation the passage of time escaped my attention, until suddenly 37I noticed that twilight9 was rapidly falling, and I thought of my return. Before retracing10 my steps, however, I sat down for a moment’s rest among the sand-dunes11. The possibility of making a discovery among those arid12 mounds13 did not occur to me. But, as I sat absent-mindedly poking14 the soft sand with my stick, I suddenly struck something hard. I proceeded to dig it out, and found a couple of human skulls15. They adorn16 the top shelf of my book-case before me at this moment. They always look down upon me as I write. I often catch myself leaning back in my chair, staring up at them, and trying to read their secret. Who were they, I wonder, these two bony companions of mine? Two Maoris finishing, among the lonely dunes, their last fierce fatal feud17? Two travellers, hopelessly lost, who threw themselves down here to die? A couple of sailors, whose ship had struck the cruel reefs out yonder, and whose bodies were tossed up here by the pitiless waves? A pair of lovers trapped by the treacherous18 tide? I cannot tell. What a tantalizing19 mystery they seem to hold, as they grin down at me from this high shelf of mine! It is part of the ghostly sense of mystery that always haunts the sea and its tragedies. On the land, when disaster occurs, all the wreckage20 is left to tell its own tale; but on the ocean Fate instantly obliterates21 all her tracks. The magnificent vessel22 38lurches over, plunges23 with a roar into the deep, and the waves close over the frightful24 ruin. Compared with the silence of the sea, the Sphinx is voluble. The deep, dark, icy ocean-bed guards its secrets, and guards them well.
Sometimes, however, it is more easy to read the riddle25. Here in Tasmania, within easy reach of this quiet study of mine, there is a battle-field that I love to visit. It extends for miles and miles, and the whole place is strewn with the wreckage that tells of the titanic26 conflict. I do not mean that the place is littered with dead men’s bones. It was a far finer and a far fiercer fight than men could have waged, and it lasted longer than any war recorded in the annals of history. It is the battle-field on which the land fought the sea. It is a rocky and precipitous coast. Sometimes I like to walk along the top of the cliff, and look down upon the pile of massive boulders27 that lie tumbled in picturesque28 and bewildering confusion about the beach below. Or, at low tide, I like to make my way among those monstrous29 piles of broken rock that lie, higgledy-piggledy, all along the shore. What a fight it was, day and night, summer and winter, year in and year out, age after age! Occasionally the attack slackened down, and the rippling30 waters merely lapped softly against the rocks. But there was no real truce31. The sea was only 39gathering up its forces in secret for the majestic32 assault that was to come. Then the great breakers came rushing in, like regiments33 of cavalry34 in full career, and each huge wave hurled35 itself upon the crags with such fury that the spray dashed up sky high.
It was a titanic struggle, and the waters won. That is the extraordinary thing—the waters won. The water seems so soft, so yielding, so fluid, and the rocks seem so impregnable, so adamantine, so immutable36. Yet the waters always win. The land makes no impression on the sea; but the sea grinds the land to powder. I know that the sea is often spoken of as the natural emblem37 of all that is fickle38 and changeful; but it is a pure illusion. There are, of course superficial variations of tone and tint39 and temper; but, as compared with the kaleidoscopic40 changes that overtake the land, the ocean is eternally and everywhere the same. It, and not the rocks, is the symbol of immutability41. ‘Look at the sea!’ exclaims Max Pemberton, in Red Morn. ‘How I love it! I like to think that those great rolling waves will go leaping by a thousand years from now. There is never any change about the sea. You never come back to it and say, “How it’s changed!” or “Who’s been building here?” or “Where’s the old place I loved?” No; it is always the same. I suppose if one stood here 40for a million years the sea would not be different. You’re quite sure of it, and it never disappoints you.’ The land, on the contrary, is for ever changing. Man is always working his transformations42, and Nature is toiling43 to the same end.
‘When the Romans came to England,’ says Frank Buckland, the naturalist45, ‘Julius Caesar probably looked upon an outline of cliff very different from that which holds our gaze to-day. First there comes a sun-crack along the edge of the cliff; the rain-water gets into the crack; then comes the frost. The rain-water in freezing expands, and by degrees wedges off a great slice of chalk cliff; down this tumbles into the water; and Neptune46 sets his great waves to work to tidy up the mess.’ No man can know the veriest rudiments47 of geology without recognizing that it is the land, and not the sea, that is constantly changing. We may visit some historic battle-field to-day, and, finding it a network of bustling48 streets and crowded alleys49, may hopelessly fail to repeople the scene with the battalions50 that wheeled and charged, wavered and rallied, there in the brave days of old. But when, from the deck of a steamer, I surveyed the blue and tossing waters off Cape8 Trafalgar, I knew that I was gazing upon the scene just as it presented itself to the eye of Nelson on the day of his immortal51 victory and glorious death more than a century ago.
41Now, beneath this triumph of the ocean—the triumph that leaves the land in fragments whilst the sea itself sustains no injury—there lies a deeper significance than at first appears. Job saw it. No elusive52 secret, lurking53 in the universe around him, escaped his restless eye. ‘The waters wear the stones!’ he cried, and it was a shout of victory that rose from his heart when he said it. ‘The waters wear the stones,’ he exclaimed, ‘and Thou washest away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth.’ It is the death-knell of the material. It is the triumph of the eternal. A little child looks upon the great granite54 cliffs, and it seems impossible that the lapping waves can ever pound them to pieces. But they do. And in the same way, Job says, man seems so impregnable, and the world so mighty55, that it appears a thing incredible that God can finally prevail. But He shall. The quiet waters conquer the frowning cliffs at length. The walls of Jericho fall down. This is the victory that overcometh the world.
And so here on this battle-field where the land and the sea fought for mastery, I find Job sitting, and he interprets for me the paean56 that the waves are singing. It is the laughter of their triumph. ‘The waters wear away the stones.’ That was the heartening message that gave to Spain one of her very greatest teachers. St. Isidore of Seville was 42only a boy at the time. He found his lessons hard to learn. Study was a drudgery57, and he was tempted58 to give up. The huge obstacles against which he, like the waves at the base of the cliff, was beating out his life seemed adamantine. So he ran away from school. But in the heat of the day he sat down to rest beside a little spring that trickled59 over a rock. He noticed that the water fell in drops, and only one drop at a time; yet those drops had worn away a large stone. It reminded him of the tasks he had forsaken60, and he returned to his desk. Diligent61 application overcame his dullness, and made him one of the first scholars of his time. He never forgot the drops of water, dripping, dripping, dripping on the rock that they were conquering. ‘Those drops of water,’ says his biographer, ‘gave to Spain a brilliant historian, and to the Church a famous doctor.’
It is always the gentle things of life that conquer us. ‘The moving waters’—to quote Keats’ beautiful phrase—
The moving waters at their priest-like task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores’
wear down the towering cliffs along the coast. It is Aesop’s fable62 of the North Wind and the sun over again. The North Wind, with its violence and bluster63, only makes the traveller button his 43coat the tighter. It is the genial64 warmth of the sun that makes him take it off. It is always by gentleness that the adamantine world is mastered. That is one of life’s most lovely secrets. We are not ruled as much as we think by parliaments and commandments and enactments65. The proportion of our lives that is governed by such things is very small. But the proportion that is dominated by gentler and more winsome66 forces is very great. The voices that sway us with a regal authority are soft and tender voices, the voices of those whose genial goodness compels us to love them. The imperial tones to which we capitulate unconditionally67 are very rarely stern official tones. Who does not remember how, in The Rosary, the Hon. Jane Champion asks Garth Dalmain why he does not marry? And Garth tells her of old Margery, his childhood’s friend and nurse, now his housekeeper68 and general mender and tender—old Margery, with her black satin apron69, lawn kerchief, and lavender ribbons. ‘No doubt, Miss Champion, it will seem absurd to you that I should sit here on the duchess’s lawn and confess that I have been held back from proposing marriage to the women I most admired because of what would have been my old nurse’s opinion of them.’ Yet so it invariably is. Our servants are often our masters. Life’s loftiest authorities never derive70 their sanctions 44from rank, office, or station. The soul has enthronements and coronations of its own. A little child often leads it. A Carpenter becomes its king. Out of Nazareth comes the Conqueror71 of the World. The pure and cleansing72 waters wear down the giant crags at the last.
But with purity and gentleness must go patience. The lapping waters do not reduce the rocky strata73 at a blow. It is always by means of patience that the finest conquests are won. Who that has read Jack74 London’s Call of the Wild will ever forget the great fight at the end of the book between Buck44, the dog hero, and the huge bull-moose? ‘Three hundredweight more than half a ton he weighed, the old bull; he had lived a long, strong life, full of fight and struggle, and at the end he faced death at the teeth of a creature whose head did not reach beyond his great knuckled75 knees!’ How was it done? ‘There is a patience in the wild,’ Jack London says, ‘a patience dogged, tireless, persistent76 as life itself’; and it was by means of this patience that Buck brought down his stately antlered prey77. ‘Night and day, Buck never left him, never gave him a moment’s rest, never permitted him to browse78 on the leaves of the trees or the shoots of the young birch or willow79. Nor did he give the old bull one single opportunity to slake80 his burning thirst in the slender, trickling81 streams they crossed.’ For four 45days Buck hung pitilessly at the huge beast’s heels, and at the end of the fourth day he pulled the bull-moose down. Buck looked so little, but he wore the monarch82 out. The waters seem so feeble, but they beat the rocks to powder. It is thus that the foolish things of this world always confound the wise; the weak things conquer the mighty; and the things that are not bring to naught83 the things that are.
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1
receding
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的现在分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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strew
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| vt.撒；使散落；撒在…上，散布于 | |
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oar
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| n.桨，橹，划手；v.划行 | |
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5
splicing
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| n.编接（绳）；插接；捻接；叠接v.绞接( splice的现在分词 )；捻接（两段绳子）；胶接；粘接（胶片、磁带等） | |
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6
crab
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| n.螃蟹，偏航，脾气乖戾的人，酸苹果；vi.捕蟹，偏航，发牢骚；vt.使偏航，发脾气 | |
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7
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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8
cape
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| n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风 | |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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10
retracing
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| v.折回( retrace的现在分词 )；回忆；回顾；追溯 | |
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11
dunes
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| 沙丘( dune的名词复数 ) | |
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12
arid
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| adj.干旱的；(土地)贫瘠的 | |
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mounds
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| 土堆，土丘( mound的名词复数 )； 一大堆 | |
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14
poking
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| n. 刺，戳，袋 vt. 拨开，刺，戳 vi. 戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢 | |
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15
skulls
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| 颅骨( skull的名词复数 )； 脑袋； 脑子； 脑瓜 | |
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adorn
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| vt.使美化，装饰 | |
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feud
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| n.长期不和；世仇；v.长期争斗；世代结仇 | |
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18
treacherous
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| adj.不可靠的，有暗藏的危险的；adj.背叛的，背信弃义的 | |
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19
tantalizing
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| adj.逗人的；惹弄人的；撩人的；煽情的v.逗弄，引诱，折磨( tantalize的现在分词 ) | |
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20
wreckage
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| n.（失事飞机等的）残骸，破坏，毁坏 | |
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21
obliterates
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| v.除去( obliterate的第三人称单数 )；涂去；擦掉；彻底破坏或毁灭 | |
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22
vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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23
plunges
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| n.跳进，投入vt.使投入，使插入，使陷入vi.投入，跳进，陷入v.颠簸( plunge的第三人称单数 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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24
frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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25
riddle
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| n.谜，谜语，粗筛；vt.解谜，给…出谜，筛，检查，鉴定，非难，充满于；vi.出谜 | |
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26
titanic
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| adj.巨人的，庞大的，强大的 | |
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27
boulders
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| n.卵石( boulder的名词复数 )；巨砾；（受水或天气侵蚀而成的）巨石；漂砾 | |
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28
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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29
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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30
rippling
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| 起涟漪的，潺潺流水般声音的 | |
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truce
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| n.休战，(争执，烦恼等的)缓和；v.以停战结束 | |
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32
majestic
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| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
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33
regiments
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| （军队的）团( regiment的名词复数 )； 大量的人或物 | |
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34
cavalry
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| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
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35
hurled
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| v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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36
immutable
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| adj.不可改变的，永恒的 | |
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37
emblem
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| n.象征，标志；徽章 | |
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38
fickle
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| adj.(爱情或友谊上)易变的，不坚定的 | |
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39
tint
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| n.淡色，浅色；染发剂；vt.着以淡淡的颜色 | |
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40
kaleidoscopic
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| adj.千变万化的 | |
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41
immutability
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| n.不变(性) | |
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42
transformations
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| n.变化( transformation的名词复数 )；转换；转换；变换 | |
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43
toiling
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的现在分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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44
buck
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| n.雄鹿，雄兔；v.马离地跳跃 | |
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45
naturalist
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| n.博物学家(尤指直接观察动植物者) | |
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46
Neptune
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| n.海王星 | |
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47
rudiments
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| n.基础知识，入门 | |
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48
bustling
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| adj.喧闹的 | |
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49
alleys
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| 胡同，小巷( alley的名词复数 )； 小径 | |
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50
battalions
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| n.（陆军的）一营（大约有一千兵士）( battalion的名词复数 )；协同作战的部队；军队；（组织在一起工作的）队伍 | |
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51
immortal
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| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
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52
elusive
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| adj.难以表达(捉摸)的；令人困惑的；逃避的 | |
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53
lurking
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| 潜在 | |
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54
granite
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| adj.花岗岩，花岗石 | |
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55
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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56
paean
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| n.赞美歌，欢乐歌 | |
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57
drudgery
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| n.苦工，重活，单调乏味的工作 | |
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58
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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59
trickled
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| v.滴( trickle的过去式和过去分词 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动 | |
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60
Forsaken
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| adj. 被遗忘的, 被抛弃的 动词forsake的过去分词 | |
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diligent
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| adj.勤勉的，勤奋的 | |
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62
fable
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| n.寓言；童话；神话 | |
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63
bluster
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| v.猛刮；怒冲冲的说；n.吓唬，怒号；狂风声 | |
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64
genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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enactments
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| n.演出( enactment的名词复数 )；展现；规定；通过 | |
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winsome
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| n.迷人的，漂亮的 | |
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unconditionally
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| adv.无条件地 | |
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housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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70
derive
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| v.取得；导出；引申；来自；源自；出自 | |
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conqueror
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| n.征服者，胜利者 | |
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72
cleansing
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| n. 净化(垃圾) adj. 清洁用的 动词cleanse的现在分词 | |
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strata
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| n.地层（复数）；社会阶层 | |
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74
jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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75
knuckled
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| v.（指人）指关节( knuckle的过去式和过去分词 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝 | |
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76
persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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77
prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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78
browse
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| vi.随意翻阅，浏览；(牛、羊等)吃草 | |
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willow
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| n.柳树 | |
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slake
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| v.解渴，使平息 | |
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trickling
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| n.油画底色含油太多而成泡沫状突起v.滴( trickle的现在分词 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动 | |
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monarch
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| n.帝王，君主，最高统治者 | |
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naught
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| n.无，零 [=nought] | |
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