caught enjoying it on the sly—says the latter is vulgar, as if he had not hit upon the very thing in it which, despite of his protest, is amusing his refined mind far more than the great race of the day. My dear sir, why not accept heartily a piece of vulgar play? Did you ever see two boys swallow respectively, in rival gulps, a tumbler of water and a bun—the water to be taken with a spoon? You set the boys on a table, in two chairs facing each other—One, two, three, off! That is vulgar, but highly ludicrous. Paterfamilias may look another way, but I choose to see it out with unaffected interest. Which do you think won? Try it, and be popular for an evening.
Another invariable feature of sea-side life is the arrival of the steamer. People living in Euston Square never go to see the Express from Liverpool unload in the terminus hard by, but while down at Ramsmouth will get up from their luncheons and hurry out, if the vessel should arrive before its time. There is no variety in the crowd of passengers—the same people seem to come every time, especially in rough weather, when they are all wretched alike, and are quite reckless whether their bonnets be tumbled or hats crushed, so long as they can join the mocking crowd upon the steady shore; but they are stared at like Esquimaux as they land. The people who enjoy the sea-side most are the real men of business and children, who come alike, to play. I cannot conceal my dislike of the prigs, both male and female, who come to dress and be admired. Their intention is an insult to the sensible shabby visitors. But the children, with inexhaustible wealth of sand, as good as gold, and suddenly discovered licence to wet their feet!—for there is a favourite myth current among even nervous mothers and nurses that “salt water does not give cold”—look at the children digging, where mischief is impossible, defying the recollection of sanitary advice with unfading ecstacy, by walking into the water simply to get their feet wet whenever they feel dry. See them all at their early dinner through the open parlour window of the lodgings—what a gust of healthy, tanned appetite comes out as you pass!
I don’t know which is best, shingle or sand. There is something in the freshness of the flat hard beach, which no rolled gravel or concrete can approach, though the sea break at your feet. There is a grateful sense of escape from the dull road, where your own footprints are the first upon the shore. It seems as if you were a discoverer; you are severed from the world of men; you have left it behind; no one has wandered there before. But you cannot sit down on sand—not comfortably, at least—much less can you lie down upon it on your back, and turn the world topsy-turvy by gazing into skies beneath you. You can’t lie flat down on the sand, and enjoy it. You look for a big stone, the stump of an old pile, or unfold a camp stool.
Now shingle, on the contrary, affords the most perfect rest you can enjoy. A bank of dry shingle, resolutely sat upon, makes a lounge which Messrs. Gillow would do well to measure and model. Be you lean or fat, short in the thigh, or long in the back, the shingle bank takes your shape. Then shingle is clean: you do not rise as gritty as if you had been knocked down on a turnpike-road. Moreover, you are lulled by the delicious drawl of the retiring wave, to me inexpressibly soothing. But you can’t walk upon shingle—not, at least, without great fatigue. On the whole, though, I think it is better than sand, as you can always get exercise on firm ground further ashore, if you want it, whereas nothing but shingle gives the seat and couch. In my tramp around the coast I confess to great disappointment at some of the most famous watering places. You see the sea, it is true, and there are beautiful walks made upon the cliffs and among the rocks, but very often, as in the north of Devon, for instance, the impression is that you can’t get down to the water. You can’t throw stones into it; you can’t get your feet wet; you behold it from afar, like a goat: and that is all, unless you repair to some small patch of beach, monopolised by a bathing machine.
Not that patches of beach are bad; give me a shore with hidden little bays, where you may wander alone if you like, and then go back to the beauty and fashion on the promenade. Nothing is worse than one public walk, where you cannot get away from people, and where a conspicuous figure, say some staring snob, with a white hat in half-mourning, meets you on every tack; even without him it is dreary work to be confined to the same pier, up and down, like the bubble in a spirit level.
There is one class of the population at most watering-places, which I pity with all my heart; I don’t mean the donkeys, who affect an expression of patience I am convinced they don’t feel; but the goats. Goats in harness, towed by young plebeians in front, and worried by young gentlemen passengers, from behind. I can’t conceive a more unhappy, inappropriate fortune befalling any animal. I wonder whether they derive any malicious satisfaction from the consciousness of being goats, and that a ride behind them must displace even the fresh smell of the sea. But I don’t believe they think of it themselves.
Let me say a word about bathing, and I will have done.
In many respects they manage this better abroad. If you have your dip in public there, you are obliged to wear a “costume;” and the machines are often not shoved into the water; but the arrangements are convenient and decorous. The bathing at many of our watering-places is anything but this last. Perhaps it is more outrageous at Margate than elsewhere. The first time I saw it I was reminded of some old picture of the landing of the Romans, when the beach was lined with naked natives, half in and half out of the water. There is, moreover, something inexpressibly dismal in the unrobing within a machine, in the flapping of the spray at the outer door, and the shivering station on the gritty ladder, before the leap. This and the treacherous recall of the machine to the beach while you are standing on one leg, tugging at a sticky boot, make the whole process intolerable. If I must bathe, give me a clear header from a rock, and sunshine to dress in. The young lady’s amusement in the water seems