But I come around again to the ocean. There it is, wide, blue, level,-- a whole world out spread--- the counterpart of the vast blue sky above. It looks tranquil, but proof of its rolling is seen on some reefs, where the long white line of breakers fades and brightens as we watch it. Some vessels not far from land leave a faint track on the plain. One steamer, the Rockland, looks like a sea bug, and on watching it, like a clock finger, we can see it actually moves. But the broad plain is little spotted with these tiny works of man, and its great solemn face turns up with a sublime and heavenward gaze. Old as the world, and yet as fresh and living as if newly finished. The little excitements and contests and hopes and doubts of the human world, sink into nothing as we look out upon the mighty world of waters. Time, and showers, and frost, have scarred these old rocks, and turned the very granite into mud and sand; but the sea is unchanged. Heat, cold, storm, calm, sun, rain, in thousands of years, have wrought no alteration in its quality or looks; but the first eyes which looked out from this peak saw the ocean as we see it now; and the last that shall gaze here, wondering like us, will find it as it is today. ---- from "The Tracy Log Book 1855 A Month in Summer" Copyright 1997, Mount Desert Island Historical Society.
But I come around again to the ocean. There it is, wide, blue, level,-- a whole world out spread--- the counterpart of the vast blue sky above. It looks tranquil, but proof of its rolling is seen on some reefs, where the long white line of breakers fades and brightens as we watch it. Some vessels not far from land leave a faint track on the plain. One steamer, the Rockland, looks like a sea bug, and on watching it, like a clock finger, we can see it actually moves. But the broad plain is little spotted with these tiny works of man, and its great solemn face turns up with a sublime and heavenward gaze. Old as the world, and yet as fresh and living as if newly finished. The little excitements and contests and hopes and doubts of the human world, sink into nothing as we look out upon the mighty world of waters. Time, and showers, and frost, have scarred these old rocks, and turned the very granite into mud and sand; but the sea is unchanged. Heat, cold, storm, calm, sun, rain, in thousands of years, have wrought no alteration in its quality or looks; but the first eyes which looked out from this peak saw the ocean as we see it now; and the last that shall gaze here, wondering like us, will find it as it is today. ---- from "The Tracy Log Book 1855 A Month in Summer" Copyright 1997, Mount Desert Island Historical Society.
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