These islands are mere dead rocks pushed up from
below the sea--not living land; and there's nothing really alive on
them. Even the sea, this tideless, brackish sea, neither salt water nor
fresh, is dead. It's all a pretty image of life without the real heart
and soul of life. To a man with too strong desires who came here and
lived close to nature, strange things might happen."
"Let her out a bit," I shouted to Sangree, who was coming aft. "The
wind's gusty and we've got hardly any ballast."
He went back to the bows, and Dr. Silence continued--
"Here, I mean, a long sojourn would lead to deterioration, to
degeneration. The place is utterly unsoftened by human influences, by
any humanising associations of history, good or bad. This landscape has
never awakened into life; it's still dreaming in its primitive sleep."
"In time," I put in, "you mean a man living here might become brutal?"
"The passions would run wild, selfishness become supreme, the instincts
coarsen and turn savage probably.
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