Portland, Dorset: from the Journal of Elizabeth Pearce, 1793-1801

What a wonderful piece of prose I discovered on Byegone Dorset (on Facebook), posted by Carole Dorran, taken from Dorset The County Magazine, 1983.

This extract is dated September, 1801:

"Yesterday afternoon, I took my needlework with the boy, to have an hour on the beach. I let him play among the rocks; for, young as he is, he loves the sight and sound of the sea. 'Tis in his blood, as 'tis in mine; which is scarce to be wondered at, considering how our lives here are bound up in all its moods; for places makes us, as much as people do: or as much as we are born to be. I love it on mild, sunny days, when it just laps, laps the shore, as though kissing the land; I love it when the fresh breeze is making the clouds scud across the blue heavens, causing strange lights and shadows on the shifting waters; I love it when the setting sun is making a glory path across our Bay, right up to Heaven itself; but, most of all, I love it when it thunders against the rocks, and the spray dashes up the face of the great cliffs, while the angry billows roll ever more and more forward, every seventh wave towering grander than its fellows, and the seventh of every set of seven being grandest of all. I go as near as I dare after the receding waves, and rush madly back, lest the next incoming wash should sweep me off my feet, and suck me under; for the ground swell is very strong on our Beach, especially in stormy weather, and it is dangerous for even good swimmers, when fairly calm, to essay too much. I know, therefore, if the whirling onrush of waters should entrap me, it would be all up; and yet I cannot help it. Something wild and mad gets in my blood; something which must have filtered down the ages from my forefathers; and I sniff the breeze, and race with delirious joy, (the sweet, briny scent, the wind-tossed foam causing my veins to tingle with life; life pure and bright and beautiful) and I am one with the tossing waters, and they are one with me; one with the wide stretch of horizon beckoning me to the unknown beyond; one with even the frowning cliffs above, for I have known them all my conscious existence, as I feel sure they have known me - my possessions, part of myself, which none may gainsay - part of the heritage from the ages, when all Nature was alive to every man, spoke with no uncertain voice, just as all the Past speaks today, to those who care to listen. And men call it pagan! So it is, if to be Pagan is to feel the Spirit of Good, the Spirit of the eternal yet ever changing Universe, which pervades everything, is everywhere; itself transcendent.

I took the boy down Higher Lane [from Fortuneswell into Chiswell]; guiding his baby feet amongst the stones as we crossed Branscombe; and then carried him up the beach and down the other side, till we gained the fringe of rocks. My eyesight is strong and long, like most coast people's, but I can't come near our fishermen in this matter. It is really wonderful, the way they tell the rig of a distant ship, and distinguish objects in or near the surface of the water. Today, the mackerel were straying in great shoals, and the boats brought in a big catch. From my seat on the rocks, I could see them leaping and darting in the nets, as the boats were drawn ashore. Poor things, gasping and dying, no doubt, but looking for all the world like a beautiful picture to me, with the sunrays on their shiny skins, showing up all the colours of the rainbow. I have heard that salmon are even more beautiful than mackerel, and show up brightest when nearest dying. And we too, human beings; who is to know that our immortal souls are not most beautiful when nearest leaving this life for heaven above, and perhaps even radiate glory in the eyes of the angels, the ministering spirits always around us, which the fleshly eyes are too gross to see? And when my time comes, as come it must, may I go with the waters of our own West Bay in sight; may my last vision of an earthly landscape be that of this same bay, o'ertopped by its cliffs, and the long line of the Devonshire coast, just melting into the horizon, where earth and Heaven meet the waters, by way of which our freedom-loving royal forefathers came; and by which, maybe, in the old, old days, some of them set off on their last, long solitary journey to Valhalla.

I had to call back my wandering thoughts, and lay down my sewing, as the boy was tired of playing on the pebbles alone. And then I took him along the shore, and showed him the fisherfolk, every man of whom I knew, and who knows us; for we all know one another here. I told him to call them by name; which afforded them a mighty deal of amusement, and they showed him the crab and lobster pots, just drawn in. There was, too, a tremendous long-oyster [crayfish] trying its hardest to get away. Poor things! A sudden drop into boiling water: a shiver of agony: then all the dark, ugly, blackish-brown changed into brilliant scarlet, a fitting adornment for the table of a king.

Presently, I saw Jane, and my friend Jane G-, coming down over Lankridge, and crossing Killick's Hill: no doubt coming to look for me and the boy. Jane had not been very well for a few days, which had made a regular Peter Grievous of her; so I hoped that the harmony of sea, and sky and soft-lapping waters would not be disturbed, to mar my feelings of peace, which I ever get when out-of-doors. But I soon saw she was better, and in her brightest mood; and she can be very entertaining when she likes.

I walked back to meet them, and we all sat on the rocks together, little Boy well pleased to greet more faces he knew, and from whom he was like to get a sugar stick. Jane G- rarely came empty-handed, and soon drew out one of her own making. Having little fresh news on hand, we sat (I with my hemming, and they with their knitting - the small shell pattern pieces for quilts), and told tales of war, and shipwreck; of pixies and golden-haired heroes (such a one had been he, Jane thought, that had given his name to the hill behind); of smugglers and Bony [Napoleon]; of ghosts and visions (which last I like as well as anybody, when 'tis but tales); till 'twas time to go home for our dish of tea...

We came across some fine anemones, as we clambered over a rock, and found a large piece of pop-gun seaweed, which must have lain ever so long in the sun. We kept cracking the little air vessels to amuse the boy, whose tiny legs were tired with the rocks". 

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