The surge of
water rolled in--a long, low, white, creeping line that softly roared on
the beach and dragged the pebbles gratingly back. There was neither boat
nor living creature in sight.
Carley felt the scene ease a clutching hand within her breast. Here was
loneliness and solitude vastly different from that of Oak Creek Canyon, yet
it held the same intangible power to soothe. The swish of the surf, the
moan of the wind in the evergreens, were voices that called to her. How
many more miles of lonely land than peopled cities! Then the sea--how vast!
And over that the illimitable and infinite sky, and beyond, the endless
realms of space. It helped her somehow to see and hear and feel the eternal
presence of nature. In communion with nature the significance of life might
be realized. She remembered Glenn quoting: "The world is too much with us.
. . . Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers." What were our powers?
What did God intend men to do with hands and bodies and gifts and souls?
She gazed back over the bleak land and then out across the broad sea. Only
a millionth part of the surface of the unsubmerged earth knew the populous
abodes of man. And the lonely sea, inhospitable to stable homes of men, was
thrice the area of the land.
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