Seen from the west, the Wight is beautiful beyond all laws of beauty. And behind the fragment lies Southampton, hostess to the nations, and Portsmouth, a latent fire, and all around it, with double and treble collision of tides, swirls the sea. So Frieda Mosebach, now Frau Architect Liesecke, and mother to her husband's baby, was brought up to these heights to be impressed, and, after a prolonged gaze, she said that the hills were more swelling here than in Pomerania, which was true, but did not seem to Mrs. Munt apposite. Poole Harbour was dry, which led her to praise the absence of muddy foreshore at Friedrich Wilhelms Bad, Rugen, where beech-trees hang over the tideless Baltic, and cows may contemplate the brine. Rather unhealthy Mrs. Munt thought this would be, water being safer when it moved about.
Salt water ought to have tides, and go up and down a great deal, or else it smells.
Look, for instance, at an aquarium. The rivers bring it down, and a most valuable oyster-fishery depends upon it. A tiny puff of smoke had been circling the harbour, and now was bearing southwards towards them over the black and the gold. I should think it would. Trust Mr. Wilcox for doing himself proud.