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The only improvement made in this lighthouse since the twelfth century
was a pair of forge-bellows worked by an indented pendulum and a stone
weight, which had been added to the light chamber in 1610.
The fate of the sea-birds who chanced to fly against these old
lighthouses was more tragic than those of our days. The birds dashed
against them, attracted by the light, and fell into the brazier, where
they could be seen struggling like black spirits in a hell, and at times
they would fall back again between the railings upon the rock, red hot,
smoking, lame, blind, like half-burnt flies out of a lamp.
To a full-rigged ship in good trim, answering readily to the pilot's
handling, the Caskets light is useful; it cries, "Look out;" it warns
her of the shoal. To a disabled ship it is simply terrible. The hull,
paralyzed and inert, without resistance, without defence against the
impulse of the storm or the mad heaving of the waves, a fish without
fins, a bird without wings, can but go where the wind wills. The
lighthouse shows the end--points out the spot where it is doomed to
disappear--throws light upon the burial. It is the torch of the
sepulchre.
To light up the inexorable chasm, to warn against the inevitable, what
more tragic mockery!
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