rals, town-halls, streets, etc.? It would be like some wild,
fitful dream. And on the Friday I would draw my head, as it were, out
of the tub. But it would need the nicest balancing and calculation,
not a minute to be lost, everything to be measured and jointed
together beforehand.

There was something piquant in this notion. Was not life short? and
precious hours were too often wasted carelessly and dawdled away. It
might even be worth while to see how much could be seen in these few
hours. In a few moments the resolution was taken, and I was walking
down to Victoria, and in two hours was in Snargate Street, Dover.

II.

_DOVER._

Dover has an old-fashioned dignity of its own; the town, harbour,
ports, and people seem, as it were, consecrated to packets. There is
an antique and reverend grayness in its old inns, old streets, old
houses, all clustered and huddled into the little sheltered
amphitheatre, as if trying to get down close by their pride, the
packets. For centuries it has been the threshold, the _hall-door_, of
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 thei