The Sea (La Mer). Jules Michelet
earth, by great and secondary tides, speaks to the planets, her sisters. Do they reply to her? We must think so. From their fluid elements they also must rise, sensible to the rise of the waters of the earth. The mutual attraction, the tendency of each star to emerge from egotism, must cause sublime dialogues to be heard in the skies. Unfortunately the human ear can hear but the least part of them. There is another point to be considered. It is not at the very moment of the passing of the influential planet that the sea yields to its influence. She is in no such servile haste to obey; she must have time to feel and obey the attraction. She has to call the idle waters to herself, to vanquish their inert force, to attract, to draw to her the most distant. The rotation of the world, too, so terribly rapid, is incessantly displacing the points subjected to the attractive power. To this we must add that the great army of waves in its combined motion has to encounter all the opposition of natural obstacles—islands, capes, straits, the various curvings of shores, and the no less potent obstacles of winds, currents, and the rapid descent of mountain torrents, swelled by the melted snows;—these, and a thousand other unforseen accidents occur, to alter the regular movement into terrible strife. The ocean yields not. The display of strength which is made by broad and swift rivers cannot intimidate him. The waters, that the rivers pour down upon him, he heaps them up into mountainous masses and drives them back so violently that he seems bent on forcing them to the summits of the mountains from whence they have descended.
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