The sailor has nothing but his mast, indeed.
And but for his mast he would be isolated in
as small a world as that of a traveller through
the plains.

Round the plains the horizon lies with folded
wings. It keeps them so perpetually for man,
and opens them only for the bird, replying to
flight with flight.

A close circlet of waves is the sailor's famous
offing. His offing hardly deserves the name of
horizon. To hear him you might think some-
thing of his offing, but you do not so when you
sit down in the centre of it.

As the upspringing of all things at your
going up the heights, so steady, so swift, is the
subsidence at your descent. The further sea
lies away, hill folds down behind hill. The
whole upstanding world, with its looks serene
and alert, its distant replies, its signals of many
miles, its signs and communications of light,
gathers down and pauses. This flock of birds
which is the mobile landscape wheels and
goes to earth. The Cardinal weighs down the
audience with his downward hands. Farewell
to the most delicate horizon.

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