Malignant Calais! Low-lying alligator, evading the eye-sight and
discouraging hope! Dodging flat streak, now on this bow, now on that,
now anywhere, now everywhere, now nowhere! In vain Cape Grinez, coming
frankly forth into the sea, exhorts the failing to be stout of heart and
stomach; sneaking Calais, prone behind its bar, invites emetically to
despair. Even when it can no longer quite conceal itself in its muddy
dock, it has an evil way of falling off, has Calais, which is more
hopeless than its invisibility. The pier is all but on the bowsprit and
you think you are there--roll, roar, wash!--Calais has retired miles
inland, and Dover has burst out to look for it. It has a last dip and
slide in its character, has Calais, to be specially commended to the
infernal gods. Thrice accursed be that garrison-town, when it dives
under the boat's keel, and comes up a league or two to the right, with
the packet shivering and spluttering and staring about for it!

Not but what I have my animosities towards Dover. I particularly detest
Dover for the self-complacency with which it goes to bed. It always goes
to bed (when I am going to Calais) with a more brilliant display of lamp
and candle than any other town. Mr. and Mrs. Birmingham, host and
hostess of the Lord Warden Hotel, are my much-esteemed friends, but they
are too conceited about the comforts of that establishment when the
Night Mail is starting. I know it is a good house to stay at, and I
don't want the fact insisted upon in all its warm bright windows at such
an hour. I know the Warden is a stationary edifice that never rolls or
pitches, and I object to its big outline seeming to insist upon that
circumstance, and, as it were, to come over me with it, when I am
reeling on the deck of the boat. Beshrew the Warden likewise for
obstructing that corner, and making the wind so angry as it rushes
round. Shall I not know that it blows quite soon enough, without the
officious Warden's interference?

As I wait here on board the night-packet, for the South-Eastern train to
come down with the mail, Dover appears to me to be illuminated for some
intensely aggravating festivity in my personal dishonour. All its noises
smack of taunting praises of the land, and dispraises of the gloomy sea,
and of me for going on it. The drums upon the heights have gone to bed,
or I know they would rattle taunts against me for having my unsteady
footing on this slippery deck. The many gas-eyes of