Seawall

CHAPTER VIII.

Series Runway and Other Essays by Alice Maynall Chapter 8 The Sea Wall A singular love of walls is mine.

Perhaps because of childish association with mountain-climbing roads narrow in the bright shadows of grey stone, hiding olive trees whereof the topmost leaves prick above into the blue, or perhaps because of subsequent living in London, with its too many windows and too few walls, the city which of all capitals takes least visible hold upon the ground.

or for the sake of some other attraction or aversion walls blank and strong reaching outward at the base are a satisfaction to the eyes teased by the inexpressive peering of windows by that weak lapse and shuffling which is the london area and by the helpless hollows of shop fronts I would rather have a wall than any rail, but a very good one of wrought iron.

It lays a long, level line among the indefinite chances of the landscape.

But never more majestic than in the face of the wild sea, the wall, steadying its slanting foot upon the rock, builds in the serried illex wood and builds out of the wave.

The sea wall is the wall at its best, and fine as it is on the strong coast, it is beautiful on the weak littoral and the imperiled levels of a northern beach.

That seawall is low and long.