about two o'clock
Often when life looked dreary about me , from some real or fancied injustice or indignity , has a thought of truth been flashed into my mind from a flower , a shape of frost , or even a lingering shadow -- not to mention such glories as angel-winged clouds , rainbows , stars , and sunrises . Therefore I hope that in my loving delay over such aspects of Nature as impressed themselves upon me in this most memorable part of my history I shall not prove wearisome to my reader , for therein I should utterly contravene my hope and intent in the recording of them . This day there was to be an unusually low tide , and we had reckoned on enlarging our acquaintance with the bed of the ocean -- of knowing a few yards more of the millions of miles lapt in the mystery of waters . It was to be low water about two o'clock , and we resolved to dine upon the sands . But all the morning the children were out playing on the threshold of old Neptune 's palace ; for in his quieter mood he will , like a fierce mastiff , let children do with him what they will . I gave myself a whole holiday -- sometimes the most precious part of my life both for myself and those for whom I labour -- and wandered about on the shore , now passing the children , and assailed with a volley of cries and entreaties to look at this one 's castle and that one 's ditch , now leaving them behind , with what in its ungraduated flatness might well enough personate an endless desert of sand between , over the expanse of which I could imagine them disappearing on a far horizon , whence however a faint occasional cry of excitement and pleasure would reach my ears . The sea was so calm , and the shore so gently sloping , that you could hardly tell where the sand ceased and the sea began -- the water sloped to such a thin pellicle , thinner than any knife-edge , upon the shining brown sand , and you saw the sand underneath the water to such a distance out .