by Filson Young

Alexander Bell, also known as Filson Young, (1876- 1938) was the author of The Relief of Mafeking (1900), Ireland at the Cross Roads (1903), The Sands of Pleasure (1906), Christopher Columbus and the New World of His Discovery (in eight volumes) (1906), Venus and Cupid (1906), and When the Tide Turns (1908). 'A man standing on the sea-shore is perhaps as ancient and as primitive a symbol of wonder as the mind can conceive. Beneath his feet are the stones and grasses of an element that is his own, natural to him, in some degree belonging to him, at any rate accepted by him. He has place and condition there. Above him arches a world of immense void, fleecy sailing clouds, infinite clear blueness, shapes that change and dissolve; his day comes out of it, his source of light and warmth marches across it, night falls from it; showers and dews also, and the quiet influence of stars.