The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1903-10-06
A MORAL FROM THE SEA.

To watch from the shore at Waikiki
| the restless and wrinkled face of the
| ocean, on a calm evening, when the
| new moon spreads a film Of dazzling
| light upon it's moving surface that
also filters through the bordering ver-
/ dure fills the receptive soul with thrills
I of supernal beauty. over three
fourths of the globe, the enormous
body of water, christened with hum
dreds of expressive names, lines and
guards the islands and the continents
and, although there Is much apparent
| irregularity in its boundaries, there
! Is no break in its continuity. The
ship that drives its beak into the ght-
tering icebergs which reflect the Aurora
BorealLs, the fishing boat tossing upon
the Baltic or the Mediterranean or the
Bay of Biscay, the Chinese junk or
the smoking lev.athan whlrled around
in the typhoon of the Yellow Sea, the
packed liner, with it's large sails furled
or reefed as it buffets the great waves
off Cape Horn, and the canoe, with Its
b~onzed Polynesians, riding quietly in
the liquid music that surrounds Oahu,
are all afloat in the same vast ocean,
each drop of which, in all the parallels
of latitude, is blended into every other
drop from the Arctic to the Antarctic.
Towards the head and foot of the
world, zero raises its grand obellsks
of ice to tower and glitter under the
steel-cold sky on the rocky and
rugged coasts. the fury of the winds
unite with the swelling tides until their
wild exultation bursts in spray ana
foam. Again, under the eternal dome,
brilliant with frosted lines or lost in
starless night the surging pillows roar
amidst countless echoes. And, IN
equatorial heat or tropical glow, under
the life-giving sun or the majestic
considerations and the luminous track
in which perfect liveliness and cease
less order tread their noiseless way,
the tender sigh, the eloquent "his-
per. the lulling song, through which /
natural fraternity is brea:hed. spread
the sweet influences that melt the
rough edges of fate and soothe the tret-
ted soul to peace and bliss.
Who can hear the diversified voices .
of the seattle melody of its super
fetal tones, the bursting harmonieS
from beneath the waves, the resound-
ing symphonies from les depths-with-
OUT receiving the vibrating impress
sions of gentleness and sympathy such
as the heart of man has never con-
ceived, of perfect combinations IN
which creation itself becomes articu-
late. of power compared to which the
intricate inventions and adaptations
of human genius are weak and nerve
less, of that spiritual aspiration and
striving that never cease to endure
and to labor for escape from the thral-
dom of the material and the palpable.
All these scenes and sounds, all
these suggestions and inspirations, pro-
coed from the sef-same ocean, made
for the use of man and richly contrib
lting to his bodily sustenance. curbed
and held in the grasp of Omnipotence,
and, with all it's differing powers and
exercised from its sunken
valleys to it's submerged peaks, seq
ment of the original design that is I'M
printed on the universe in imperish-
able lines and colors.
1t is the cruel sea, the bitter sea, the
boisterous sea, the remorseless sea-
the yearning sea, the tender sea, as
in their contradictory moods. in their
separated abodes and in the alterna-
ions of seasons and of conditions, 1t
has been depicted by the poets; and
vet the changeless sea that proves
and illustrates eternal and varying
aw. and teaches the philosophy of the
ages to the huctuating and disturbed
inhabitants of the land.