And thus it is that the Sea opens the heart, and that even the hardest hearts are softened in presence of the great stern mother. In that presence, no matter what we may strive to think, we become humanized, sympathizing, tender. And Heaven knows how much need and how much occasion there are for sympathy there! Every kind of want and struggle is to be found among those brave, honest and intelligent marine populations who are incomparably the best of our country. I have lived a good deal on the coast. Every heroic virtue, which an inland population would praise so highly, is there an every day and very common-place matter. And, still more curious!--there is no pride among these hardy mariners. All our French pride is for the landsmen--the soldiery. But among our marine population the greatest dangers count for nothing; every one braves such every day, and no one ever thinks of boasting of them. I have never met with men who were milder or more modest (I had almost said more timid) than our Gironde pilots who, from Royan and from St. George's gallantly put out, to face all that Cordouan has of peril. There, as at Granville, and every where else on that coast, it is the women alone who have anything to say, or any business to do, on land. The brave pilots, when once on shore, never say a word in the way of command; peaceable as their valiant wives are superbly noisy, the men leave the women full authority to administer the poor income and to rule (occasionally with a pretty hard hand) the youngsters of the household. The husband, in fact, though he reads no Latin, literally and practically translates the Latin poet: "Happy, when in mine own house I am as nobody." Their wives, greatly interested about the foreigner, had, nevertheless, let it be boldly as truly said, a royal, a magnificent, a generous, kindly feeling. At St. Georges, they cut up, and scraped up, all their linen to make lint for the wounded at Solferino. At Entretat, three Englishmen being wrecked, and in awful danger, the whole population, men, women and children, rushed to the rescue, and dragged them to land with all the outward and visible signs of a real and a violent sensibility. And they were fed, and clothed, and tended, and relieved, even as though they had been compatriots, and very dear friends. This occurred in April, 1859.