magine how human beings who
have drifted down streams, and watched the brown fish in the shallows,
and peered through the tall sedges at the forget-me-nots, and fought
with the ropes of the water-lilies, and heard the ripple under the bows,
can ever think of going to and fro, pitching spasmodically, in front of
a watering-place. And as for fishing--they catch fish at sea, indeed,
but it is not fishing at all; neither rods nor flies have they, and
there is an end to that matter.

An Eastbourne meditative man returning to where he stays, with his daily
ounce of tobacco already afire, sees in the streets what are called by
the natives "cherry-bangs," crowded with people, and, further,
cabriolets and such vehicles holding parties and families. The good
folks are driving away from the sea for the better part of the day,
going to Battle and other places inland. The puzzle of what to do with
their sea is too much for them, and they are going away for a little to
rest their minds. Regarded as a centre of drives one might think an
inland place would be preferable to a seaside town, which at best
commands but a half-circle. However that may be, the fact remains that
one of the chief occupations of your common visitor to the seaside is
going away from it. Than this fact there can be nothing more conclusive
in support of my argument that ordinary people are absolutely ignorant
and incapable of staying by the seaside.

CONCERNING CHESS

The passion for playing chess is one of the most unaccountable in the
world. It slaps the theory of natural selection in the face. It is the
most absorbing of occupations, the least satisfying of desires, an
aimless excrescence upon life. It annihilates a man. You have, let us
say, a promising politician, a rising artist, that you wish to destroy.
Dagger or bomb are archaic, clumsy, and unreliable--but teach him,
inoculate him with chess! It is well, perhaps, that the right way of
teaching chess is so little known, that consequently in most cases the
plot fails in the performance, the dagger turns aside. Else we should
all be chess-players--there would be none left to do the business of the
world. Our statesmen would sit with pocket boards while the country went
to the devil, our army would bury itself in chequered contemplation, our
bread-winners would forget their wives in seeking after impossible
mates. The whole world would be disorganised. I can fancy this
abominable hypnotism so wrou