England. It is the last inn, as it were, from which we depart to see
foreign lands. History, too, comes back on us: we think of 'expresses'
in fast sloops or fishing-boats; of landings at Dover, and taking post
for London in war-time; how kings have embarked, princesses
disembarked--all in that awkward, yet snug harbour. A most curious
element in this feeling is the faint French flavour reaching
across--by day the white hills yonder, by night the glimmering lights
on the opposite coast. The inns, too, have a nautical, seaport air,
running along the beach, as they should do, and some of the older ones
having a bulging stern-post look about their lower windows. Even the
frowning, fortress-like coloured pile, the Lord Warden, thrusts its
shoulders forward on the right, and advances well out into the sea, as
if to be the first to attract the arrivals. There is a quaint relish,
too, in the dingy, old-fashioned marine terrace of dirty tawny brick,
its green verandas and _jalousies_, which lend quite a tropical air.
Behind them, in shelter, are little dark squares, of a darker stone,
with glimpses of the sea and packets just at the corners. Indeed, at
every point wherever there is a slit or crevice, a mast or some
cordage is sure to show itself, reminding us how much we are of the
packet, packety. Ports of this kind, with all their people and
incidents, seem to be devised for travellers; with their flaring
lights, _up-all-night_ hotels, the railway winding through the narrow
streets, the piers, the stormy waters, the packets lying by all the
piers and filling every convenient space. The old Dover of Turner's
well-known picture, or indeed of twenty years ago, with its 'dumpy'
steamers, its little harbour, and rude appliances for travel, was a
very different Dover from what it is now. There was then no rolling
down in luxurious trains to an Admiralty Pier. The stoutest heart
might shrink, or at least feel dismally uncomfortable, as he found
himself discharged from the station near midnight of a blowy,