The following are two different impressions of the Mediterranean,
dated on two different Mondays in January:--
Yes, I am much better; very much better I think I may say. Although it
is funny how I have ceased to be able to write with the improvement of
my health. Do you notice how for some time back you have had no
descriptions of anything? The reason is that I can't describe anything.
No words come to me when I see a thing. I want awfully to tell you
to-day about a little "_piece_" of green sea, and gulls, and clouded sky
with the usual golden mountain-breaks to the southward. It was
wonderful, the sea near at hand was living emerald; the white breasts
and wings of the gulls as they circled above--high above even--were dyed
bright green by the reflection. And if you could only have seen or if
any right word would only come to my pen to tell you how wonderfully
these illuminated birds floated hither and thither under the grey
purples of the sky!
* * * * *
To-day has been windy but not cold. The sea was troubled and had a fine
fresh saline smell like our own seas, and the sight of the breaking
waves, and above all the spray that drove now and again in my face,
carried me back to storms that I have enjoyed, O how much! in other
places. Still (as Madame Zassetsky justly remarked) there is something
irritating in a stormy sea whose waves come always to the same spot and
never farther: it looks like playing at passion: it reminds one of the
loathsome sham waves in a stage ocean.