white paint on it, which obligingly informs
me that I am on my way to The Esplanade.
I am out of hearing of the organ at last, and
the happy result follows—London takes its
proper place, invisible and inaudible in the
far distance, and the joyous excursionist who
writes these lines feels gratefully that he is
at the sea-side again.

The Esplanade is long, and the Marine
Buildings beyond it are longer. The two
lead me on, as I dawdle forward mechanically,
to the Pier. What sounds are borne towards
me by the sea-breezes? The notes of a brass
band. What do I see as I advance? As I
live, London again! London, under another
musical form, following me to the sea-side!
There they are, the gentlemanly German
instrumentalists; the classical, orchestral,
strictly professional street band, which carries
its long-legged music-desks about with it, and
plays elaborate works by great masters, and
indulges in the luxury of a conductor to keep
it in perfect order. Only last week these
accomplished sons of Orpheus drove me from
my desk in London; and here they are now,
taking the free air itself into custody, and
making the atmosphere metropolitan even by
the sea-side!

Again I turn my back on the enemy;
again I fly from the sea-breeze with the
London smack. Retracing my steps, I get
out of the town altogether, ascend the cliff,
and walk on till I find a lonely gully descending
steeply to the beach. I follow the downward
path, and come out on the sands. The
tide is at the ebb; and the flat rocks near at
hand are richly brown and green with
seaweed. The long pools of water lie out beyond
them under the high sun, as still in their
blue brightness as if they were fragments of
the sky set for gems in the bosom of the earth.
Farther yet, the faint, idle sea shows its
white wave-edges thinly and wearily on the
moist brownness of the sand. Over the low
horizon hangs a mist of heat which veils the
hulls of distant ships, and lets the sails above
shine through softly, hanging cloud-like on
the sky. The sultry silence is so intense that
in the intervals of the sea-whispering along
the margin of the beach, I can hear the hum
of insects on a sunny spot of the cliff above
my head. Where the first shade offers, I lie
down on the dry sand, and give myself up
gratefully to the stillness of the hour and the
beauty of the scene.

My mind wanders insensibly towards a
certain train of familiar and favourite
thoughts, which may one day take form and
place, and go out from me into the world to
ask such welcome as they may deserve from
the minds of others. My stick traces strange
figures on the sand; my eyes look absently
out to sea; my attention to external things
dwindles and dwindles till nothing is left of
it. Although I am physically wide awake,
I am mentally fast asleep and dreaming—
dreaming happily, but not for long. Sudden
as a flash of lightning, a strange sound darts
into my ears, and startles me in one cruel
moment from my trance. Powers above! What
spectre appears before me as if it had risen
out of the sand? Have I taken leave of my
senses, or is this vagrant stranger who has
stolen on me suddenly, the sturdy old Frenchman
with the husky voice, the guitar, and
the dancing dog—the very same individual
who sang before my area railings in town
not three days since? It is— it is the
man. London again! London in the
loneliest sea-shore nook that I can find a
hundred miles away from the sound of Bow
bells!

Thus far, the town element has presented
itself to me in the character of a visitor like
myself. A very few days' experience,
however, of my new abode suffices to reveal it in
another form—in an unmistakeably settled
and resident aspect.

The shops, for example, are not the
characteristic offspring of the country and the
sea-side—they are the poor relations and
abject imitators of the shops in London. What
business has my marine butcher to be a copy
in miniature of my metropolitan butcher?
Why does he display nothing in the least
degree suggestive of his own peculiar locality?
I am disgusted with the man for not wearing
a Guernsey frock, for not having salt provisions
in his shop, for not chopping his meat
on a ship's barrel. I object to his London
awning when the sun shines—why is it not
a sail? How dare his young man who comes
for orders take me back to town by being
just as greasy of head and just as blue in
costume as the young man who comes in
London? Only yesterday, I distinctly saw
him bring us our joint in the usual wooden
tray. What does he mean by not reminding
me that I am at the sea-side by carrying it
in a net?

Last Wednesday, we had a cold dinner.
I sent for pickles—the local pickles, I said
distinctly, expecting to receive and eager to
relish, something brinily characteristic of the
coast. There arrived instead, the familiar
London bottle from Soho Square, with the
familiar London label, informing me that
what my pickles had lost in attractiveness of
colour they had gained in genuineness of
composition. Vainly the waves murmured,
vainly the salt breeze blew. Soho Square
asserted itself against both, in the middle of
the table; and made our dinner a London
meal. Our first breakfast was spoilt in a
similar manner. I came down-stairs in high
spirits, characteristically dressed in a monkey
jacket, characteristically humming The Bay
of Biscay. The very first object that met
my view on the breakfast table was a half-
quartern loaf that might have come out of
Saint Giles's.

The postman again—I am so angry with
the postman that I feel inclined to hit him
every time he hands me a letter. I put it to