Page:In ghostly Japan (IA cu31924014202687).pdf/260

 And probably no mortal ever watched the ocean-roll or heard its thunder without feeling serious. I have noticed that even animals,—horses and cows,—become meditative in the presence of the sea: they stand and stare and listen as if the sight and sound of that immensity made them forget all else in the world.

There is a folk-saying of the coast:—“The Sea has a soul and hears.” And the meaning is thus explained: Never speak of your fear when you feel afraid at sea;—if you say that you are afraid, the waves will suddenly rise higher. … Now this imagining seems to me absolutely natural. I must confess that when I am either in the sea, or upon it, I cannot fully persuade myself that it is not alive,—a conscious and a hostile power. Reason, for the time being, avails nothing against this fancy. In order to be able to think of the sea as a mere body of water, I must be upon some height from whence its heaviest billowing appears but a lazy creeping of tiny ripples.

But the primitive fancy may be roused even more strongly in darkness than by daylight. How living seem the smoulderings and the