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⇒ Cover ⇒ Preface ⇒ Introduction ⇒ The visit ⇒ Weymouth map c.1930 ⇒ Portland map c.1930 ⇒ Works quoted ⇒ Postface |
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A visit to Weymouth with John Cowper Powys [ ⇒ continue... ] |
It is only by this feeling of loneliness, that we can annihilate the preposterous claims of a life of action, and return to the calm reservoirs of earth, air, water, and fire, from which, as our soul contemplates them, emerge those lovely essences, the constant enjoyment of which constitutes the only indestructible ecstasy of life. |
DRY SAND AND WET SAND |
 On the dry sand sat, in little groups, the older people, reading, sewing, sleeping, talking to one another, while on the wet sand the children, building their castles and digging their canals were far too absorbed and content to exchange more than spasmodic shouts to one another. The free play of so many radiant bare limbs against the sparkling foreground-water and the bluer water of the distance gave to the whole scene a marvellous heathen glamour, that seemed to take it out of Time altogether, and lift it into some ideal region of everlasting holiday, where the burden of human toil and the weight of human responsibility no more lay heavy upon the heart. (...) the wet sands of Weymouth were imprinted by the "printless" feet, light, immortal, bare, of what might easily have been the purer spirit of an eternal classical childhood, happy and free, in some divine limbo of unassailable play-time. |
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