[Gutenberg 23279] • La mer

The Sea (La Mer) by Jules Michelet

THE SEA From the French of M. J. MICHELET,

Of the Faculty of Letters, Author of "A History of France," "Love," "Woman," "The Child," "The Insect,"

"The Bird," "Women of the French Revolution," etc., etc., etc.

TRANSLATED FROM THE LATEST PARIS EDITION.

EXTRACT FROM THE LONDON ATHENÆUM, Feb. 9. 1861.

'The Sea' is another of M. Michelet's dreamy volumes,—half science, half fancy, with a blending in both of sensuous suggestion. M. Michelet takes the seas of the world in his hands, manipulates them, invokes their monsters, assembles all their finny droves, gossips with the sirens, sails among the Hyperborean waters with Behemoth, and is on intimate terms with Tennyson's little shell-king, who lives in a palace with doors of diamond, and wears a rainbow frill, for the admiration of the nations that dwell in his dim, sunken wildernesses. * *** * He discourses upon marine terrors and beauties, and tells the reader, as a sublime Peter Parley might, that the salt of all the seas, if piled upon America, would spread over the continent a solid, cliff-edged mass, 4,500 feet high. There are chapters on Sands, Cliffs and Beaches; on Waves; on the anatomy of the Sea itself, which resembles "a gigantic animal arrested in the earliest stage of its organization;" on Tempests; on the sympathy between Air and Water; on the Fecundity of the Sea, which, were it not self-devouring, would putrefy, according to M. Michelet into one solid mass of herring; on Fish of every species, and especially on Pearls. The Queens of the East, he says, dislike the gleams of the diamond. They will allow nothing to touch their skins except pearls. A necklace and two bracelets of pearls constitute the perfection of ornament. The pearls silently say to the woman, "Love us! hush!" In the North, too, dainty Countesses love their pearls,—wearing them beneath their clothes by night and by day, concealing them, caressing them, only now and then exposing them. So do the Odalisques of Asia prize the soft linen vestment that just covers their limbs, never taking it off until worn out, which says little for Oriental baths.

CONTENTS.

Extract from The London Atheneum,

BOOK FIRST. A GLANCE UPON THE SEAS.

1\. The Sea as seen from the Shore.

2\. The Beach, the Sands, and the Iron Bound Coast.

3\. The Same, (Continued)

4\. The Same, (Continued)

5\. The Fiery and the Watery Circle. The Currents of the Sea.

6\. Tempests.

7\. Tempests, (Continued)

8\. The Storm of October, 1859

9\. The Beacons.

BOOK SECOND. THE GENESIS OF THE SEA.

1\. Fecundity.

2\. The Milky Sea.

3\. The Atom.

4\. Blood-Flower.

5\. The World Makers.

6\. Daughter of the Seas.

7\. The Stone Picker.

8\. Shells, Mother of Pearl, and Pearl.

9\. The Sea Rovers (Poulpe, &c.)

10\. Crustaceæ. Battle and Intrigue,

11\. The Fish.

12\. The Whale.

13\. The Syrens.

BOOK THIRD. CONQUEST OF THE SEA.

1\. The Harpoon.

2\. Discovery of the Three Oceans.

3\. The Law of Storms.

4\. The Polar Seas.

5\. Man's War upon the Races of the Sea.

6\. The Law of the Ocean.

BOOK FOURTH. THE RESTORATION OF THE SEA.

1\. Origin of Sea Bathing.

2\. Choice of Coast.

3\. The House.

4\. First Aspiration of the Sea.

5\. Baths. Restoration of Beauty.

6\. The Restoration of Heart and Brotherhood.

7\. The New Life of the Nations.