"Is it not enough to have glimpsed a panoramic illusion of the material universe in all its perfection without thus idling after eternal participations ? It is foolish as well as unseemly to be so grasping. The damp white cliffs above the deserted sea-washed beaches are set with small images, images of satanic saints, each in its Parian niche. They are cormorants roosting, cormorants dozing in the twilight, cormorants dreaming of diving feats through dark waters in the wake of white flickering fish. The earnest night is fast closing in upon the forlorn beautiful landscape, and flying gulls are scattered far and wide over the dim sky. They float backwards and forwards as uncertainly as the large goose-feather flakes of a snow flurry. High above the wave-resisting shingle, above the dreaming sea-fowl, above the shoulders of the eternal hills, in a clear dizzy ether under haggard storm clouds these birds call to each other in the dolorous tones of their lost language."
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