As I threw my eyes along the edge of the surf I remember that I was startled, as Robinson Crusoe might have been, by the sense that human life was within the magic circle of my solitude.  Afar off in the remote distance of the beach, appearing like sea-nymphs, or some airier things such as might tread upon the feathery spray, was a group of girls.  Hardly had I beheld them, when they passed into the shadow of the rocks and vanished.  To comfort myself—­for truly I would fain have gazed a while longer—­I made acquaintance with a flock of beach-birds.  These little citizens of the sea and air preceded me by about a stone’s-throw along the strand, seeking, I suppose, for food upon its margin.  Yet, with a philosophy which mankind would do well to imitate, they drew a continual pleasure from their toil for a subsistence.  The sea was each little bird’s great playmate.  They chased it downward as it swept back, and again ran up swiftly before the impending wave, which sometimes overtook them and bore them off their feet.  But they floated as lightly as one of their own feathers on the breaking crest.  In their airy flutterings they seemed to rest on the evanescent spray.  Their images—­long-legged little figures with gray backs and snowy bosoms—­were seen as distinctly as the realities in the mirror of the glistening strand.  As I advanced they flew a score or two of yards, and, again alighting, recommenced their dalliance with the surf-wave; and thus they bore me company along the beach, the types of pleasant fantasies, till at its extremity they took wing over the ocean and were gone.  After forming a friendship with these small surf-spirits, it is really worth a sigh to find no memorial of them save their multitudinous little tracks in the sand.

When we have paced the length of the beach, it is pleasant and not unprofitable to retrace our steps and recall the whole mood and occupation of the mind during the former passage.  Our tracks, being all discernible, will guide us with an observing consciousness through every unconscious wandering of thought and fancy.  Here we followed the surf in its reflux to pick up a shell which the sea seemed loth to relinquish.  Here we found a seaweed with an immense brown leaf, and trailed it behind us by its long snake-like stalk.  Here we seized a live horseshoe by the tail, and counted the many claws of that queer monster.  Here we dug into the sand for pebbles, and skipped them upon the surface of the water.  Here we wet our feet while examining a jelly-fish which the waves, having just tossed it up, now sought to snatch away again.  Here we trod along the brink of a fresh-water brooklet which flows across the beach, becoming shallower and more shallow, till at last it sinks into the sand and perishes in the effort to bear its little tribute to the main.  Here some vagary appears to have bewildered us, for our tracks go round and round and are confusedly intermingled, as if we had found a labyrinth