Such, so deep, so permanent, was the impression made upon me by that
wild tumultuous scene on the scourged-shore where Granville--dear old
Granville!--keeps neutral watch between Normandy and Brittany. The
wealthy, kindly and hearty, though bluff, and somewhat vulgar Normandy
with its vast outspread of orchard and meadow suddenly disappears,
and, by Granville and by the frowning Saint Michel we pass all at once
into quite another world. For Granville, though Norman as to race, is
thoroughly Breton as to aspect. Sternly, solidly, invincibly, the
great Rock rears his defiant front, and looks down in a quite insolent
contempt upon the wild surges that incessantly assault, but never
harm, that passionless and mutely mocking Titan. Let the wild winds,
unpent from their northern caverns, sweep the rugged coast; borne on
the cross-currents from the angry West, let the wind sweep all things
else clear from its path and this stern unconquerable rock ever and
alway saith "thus far shalt thou come, but no farther. Strengthened
though you are by your mad trans-Atlantic leap of a thousand leagues,
against me your fury shall be spent in vain."
I loved that odd and somewhat dull little town, which owes its support
to the distant and most perilous fishery. Every family there, feels
that it is supported by a dread game in which human life is at stake;
and this feeling produces a certain harmonious gravity in the aspect
and tone of the dwellers hereabout, and of all their surroundings. A
touching and a hallowing melancholy, that, of which I have often felt
the influence, when, walking on the already darkening shore or gazing
from the upper town that crowns the great rock, I have seen the sun
sink below the far and misty horizon, harshly streaked by alternate
rays of luridness and gloom, and not pausing to tint the sky with
those glowing and fantastic brilliances which in other climes delight
us. Here it is already autumn in August, and twilight scarcely exists.
Scarcely has the sun set, when the shrewd winds freshen, and the dark
green waves sweep on with added force; below, you see a few spectral
forms hurrying along in their dark cloaks, and from afar you hear the
melancholy bleatings of the sheep already benighted on their scanty
pasturage.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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