A DIP IN THE SEA.
Shakespeare has been fiercely mauled by the critics for confusion of
metaphor in speaking of taking up "arms against a sea of troubles." The
smart fellows say, How could a man take "arms against a sea?" In other
words, it is not possible to shoot the Pacific Ocean. But what Shakespeare
suggests is, this jocund morning, being done all around the coast from
Florida to Newfoundland, especial regiments going out from Cape May, Long
Branch, East Hampton, Newport and Nahant; ten thousand bathers, with hands
thrown into the air, "taking up arms against the sea." But the old giant
has only to roll over once on his bed of seaweed, and all this attacking
host are flung prostrate upon the beach.
The sensation of sea-bathing is about the same everywhere. First you have
the work of putting on the appropriate dress, sometimes wet and chill from
the previous bathing. You get into the garments cautiously, touching them
at as few points as possible, your face askew, and with a swift draft of
breath through your front teeth, punctuating the final lodgment of each
sleeve and fold with a spasmodic "Oh!" Then, having placed your watch where
no villainous straggler may be induced to examine it to see whether he can
get to the depot in time for the next train, you issue forth ingloriously,
your head down in consciousness that you are cutting a sorry figure before
the world. Barefoot as a mendicant, your hair disheveled in the wind, the
stripes of your clothes strongly suggestive of Sing Sing, your appearance
a caricature of humankind, you wander up and down the beach a creature that
the land is evidently trying to shake off and the sea is unwilling to take.
But you are consoled by the fact that all the rest are as mean and
forlorn-looking as yourself; and so you wade in, over foot-top, unto the
knee, and waist deep. The water is icy-cold, so that your teeth chatter and
your frame quakes, until you make a bold dive; and in a moment you and the
sea are good friends, and you are not certain whether you have surrendered
to the ocean or the ocean has surrendered to you.
At this point begin the raptures of bathing. You have left the world on the
beach, and are caught up in the arms of experiences that you never feel on
land. If you are far enough out, the breaking wave curves over you like a
roof inlaid and prismatic, bending down on the other side of you in layers
of chalk and drifts of snow, and the lightning flash of the foam ends in
the thunder of the falling wave. You fling aside from your arms, as
worthless, amethyst and emerald and chrysoprase. Your ears are filled with
the halo of sporting elements, and your eyes with all tints and tinges and
double-dyes and liquid emblazonment. You leap and shout and clap your
hands, and tell the billows to come on, and in excess of glee greet persons
that you never saw before and never will again, and never want to, and act
so wildly that others would think you demented but that they also are as
fully let loose; so that if there be one imbecile there is a whole asylum
of lunatics.
It is astonishing how many sounds mingle in the water: the faint squall of
the affrighted child, the shrill shriek of the lady just introduced to the
uproarious hilarities, the souse of the diver, the snort of the
half-strangled, the clear giggle of maidens, the hoarse bellow of swamped
obesity, the whine of the convalescent invalid, the yell of unmixed
delight, the te-hee and squeak of the city exquisite learning how to laugh
out loud, the splash of the brine, the cachinnation of a band of harmless
savages, the stun of the surge on your right ear, the hiss of the surf, the
saturnalia of the elements; while overpowering all other sounds are the
orchestral harmonics of the sea, which roll on through the ages, all
shells, all winds, all caverns, all billows heard in "the oratorio of the
creation."
But while bathing, the ludicrous will often break through the grand. Swept
hither and thither, you find, moving in reel and cotillon, saraband and
rigadoon and hornpipe, Quakers and Presbyterians who are down on the dance.
Your sparse clothing feels the stress of the waves, and you think what an
awful thing it would be if the girdle should burst or a button break, and
you should have, out of respect to the feelings of others, to go up the
beach sidewise or backward or on your hands and knees.
Close beside you, in the surf, is a judge of the Court of Appeals, with a
garment on that looks like his grandmother's night-gown just lifted from
the wash-tub and not yet wrung out. On the other side is a maiden with a
twenty-five-cent straw hat on a head that ordinarily sports a hundred
dollars' worth of millinery. Yonder is a doctor of divinity with his head
in the sand and his feet beating the air, traveling heavenward, while his
right hand clutches his wife's foot, as much as to say, "My feet are
useless in this emergency; give me the benefit of yours."
Now a stronger wave, for which none are ready, dashes in, and with it
tumble ashore, in one great wreck of humanity, small craft and large, stout
hulk and swift clipper, helm first, topsail down, forestay-sail in
tatters, keel up, everything gone to pieces in the swash of the surges.
Oh, the glee of sea-bathing! It rouses the apathetic. It upsets the
supercilious and pragmatical. It is balsamic for mental wounds. It is a
tonic for those who need strength, and an anodyne for those who require
soothing, and a febrifuge for those who want their blood cooled; a filling
up for minds pumped dry, a breviary for the superstitious with endless
matins and vespers, and to the Christian an apocalyptic vision where the
morning sun gilds the waters, and there is spread before him "a sea of
glass mingled with fire." "Thy way, O God, is in the sea, and thy path in
the great waters!"