various, and of a highly intellectual character: the chief of them being a
walk from the esplanade to the east cliff, and a promenade back again from
the east cliff to the esplanade. Donkey-races are in full vogue, insomuch
that the highways are thronged with interesting animals, decorated with
serge-trappings and safety-saddles, and interspersed with goat-carts and
hired flys. There is a library, where the visiters do everything but read;
and a theatre, where--as Charles Kean is now playing there--they do
anything but act. The ladies seem to take great delight in the sea-bath,
and that they may enjoy the luxury in the most secluded privacy, the
machines are placed as near to the pier as possible. This is always
crowded with men, who, by the aid of opera glasses, find it a pleasing
pastime to watch the movements of the delicate Naiads who crowd the
waters.

Those to whom Brighton is recommended for change of air and of scene get
sadly taken in, for here the air--like that of a barrel-organ--never
changes, as the wind is always high. In sunshine, Brighton always looks
hot; in moonshine, eternally dreary; the men are yawning all day long, and
the women sitting smirking in bay-windows, or walking with puppy-dogs and
parasols, which last they are continually opening and shutting. In short,
when a man is sick of the world, or a maiden of forty-five has been so
often crossed in love as to be obliged to leave off hoping against hope,
Brighton is an excellent place to prepare him or her for a final
retirement from life--whether that is contemplated in the Queen's Bench, a
convent, a residence among the Welsh mountains, or the monastery of La
Trappe, a month's probation in Brighton, at the height of the season,
being well calculated to make any such change not only endurable, but
agreeable.

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