In such moments it is possible to go beyond even the
most advanced of the modern physicists who hold that force
alone exists, that matter is but a disguise, a shadow and
delusion; for we may add that force itself--that which we call
force or energy--is but a semblance and shadow of the
universal soul.
The change in the weather was not sudden; the furious winds
dropped gradually; the clouds floated higher in the heavens,
and were of a lighter grey; there were wider breaks in them,
showing the lucid blue beyond; and the sea grew quieter. It
had raved and roared too long, beating against the iron walls
that held it back, and was now spent and fallen into an uneasy
sleep, but still moved uneasily and moaned a little. Then all
at once summer returned, coming like a thief in the night, for
when it was morning the sun rose in splendour and power in a
sky without a cloud on its vast azure expanse, on a calm sea
with no motion but that scarcely perceptible rise and fall as
of one that sleeps. As the sun rose higher the air grew
warmer until it was full summer heat, but although a "visible
heat," it was never oppressive; for all that day we were
abroad, and as the tide ebbed a new country that was neither
earth nor sea was disclosed, an infinite expanse of pale
yellow sand stretching away on either side, and further and
further out until it mingled and melted into the sparkling
water and faintly seen line of foam on the horizon.
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