| When one first catches the smell
of the sea, his lungs seem to involuntarily to expand, the same as they
do when he steps into the open air after long confinement indoors.
On the beach he is simply emerging into a larger and more primitive out-of-doors.
There before him is aboriginal space, and the breath of it thrills and
dilates his body. He stands at the open door of a continent and eagerly
drinks the larger air. This breeze savors of the original element;
it is a breath out of the morning of the world --- bitter, but so fresh
and tonic! He has taken salt grossly and at second hand all his day;
now let him inhale it at the fountainhead, and let its impalpable crystals
penetrate his spirit and prick and chafe him into new actitivity.
---John Burroughs---
|
