‘Does it not raise strange longings in you,’ said Claude, ‘to gaze out yonder over the infinite calm, and then to remember that beyond it lies America!—the new world; the future world; the great Titan-baby, who will be teeming with new Athens and Londons, with new Bacons and Shakspeares, Newtons and Goethes, when this old worn-out island will be—what? Oh! when I look out here, like a bird from its cage, a captive from his dungeon, and remember what lies behind me, to what I must return to-morrow—the over-peopled Babylon of misery and misrule, puffery and covetousness—and there before me great countries untilled, uncivilized, unchristianized, crying aloud for man to come and be man indeed, and replenish the earth and subdue it. “Oh that I had wings as a dove, then would I flee away and be at rest!” Here, lead me away; my body is growing as dizzy as my mind. I feel coming over me that horrible longing of which I have heard, to leap out into empty space. How the blank air whispers, “Be free!” How the broad sea smiles, and calls, with its ten thousand waves, “Be free!”—As I live, if you do not take me away I shall throw myself over the cliff.’ I did take him away, for I knew the sensation and its danger well. It has nothing to do with physical giddiness. Those who are cliff-bred, and who never were giddy for an instant in their lives, have often felt themselves impelled to leap from masts, and tree-tops, and cliffs; and nothing but the most violent effort of will could break the fascination. I cannot but think, by the bye, that many a puzzling suicide might be traced to this same emotion acting on a weak and morbid brain. We returned to the little landing cove. The red-sailed cutter lay sleeping below us—‘floating double, ship and shadow.’ Shoals of innumerable mackerel broke up, making acres of water foam and sparkle round their silvery sides, with a soft roar (call it ‘a bull’ if you like, it is the only expression for that mysterious sound), while among them the black head of a huge seal was slowly and silently appearing and vanishing, as he got his dinner, in a quiet business-like way, among the unhappy wanderers.