The sky was grey and clouded. As we stood looking at a point about a hundred feet above the horizon, there was a parting.

The star of the east rose into and out of the sky, aflame glorious on wings of fire, separating archangel, spirit manifest, lightbringer. The light had a curious effect on us. And we dreamt of the silence and peace that permeates the being of the ocean diver.

I remember reading The Black Pearl as a boy. The character of Abe Sapien, in the writing, reflexively contains some of the attributes of the otherworld underwater . He is usually withdrawn, perhaps haunted by the desolation of open spaces stretching out to the horizon.

One of my earliest memories is of the texture of slate, the peculiar grate and swish you feel writing on one with chalk. Should I Include a photograph of a slate? Too prosaic? Let us look at some detail from Holbein's Ambassadors instead.

The entire painting can be explored in beautiful, unprecedented ultra-high resolution on Google's Art Project, here.