Most people who go on the West Pier at Brighton walk at once straight
to the farthest part. This is the order and custom of pier promenading;
you are to stalk along the deck till you reach the end, and there go
round and round the band in a circle like a horse tethered to an iron
pin, or else sit down and admire those who do go round and round. No
one looks back at the gradually extending beach and the fine curve of
the shore. No one lingers where the surf breaks--immediately above
it--listening to the remorseful sigh of the dying wave as it sobs back
to the sea. There, looking downwards, the white edge of the surf
recedes in hollow crescents, curve after curve for a mile or more, one
succeeding before the first can disappear and be replaced by a fresh
wave. A faint mistiness hangs above the beach at some distance, formed
of the salt particles dashed into the air and suspended. At night, if
the tide chances to be up, the white surf rushing in and returning
immediately beneath has a strange effect, especially in its pitiless
regularity. If one wave seems to break a little higher it is only in
appearance, and because you have not watched long enough. In a certain
number of times another will break there again; presently one will
encroach the merest trifle; after a while another encroaches again, and
the apparent irregularity is really sternly regular. The free wave has
no liberty--it does not act for itself,--no real generous wildness.
"Thus far and no farther," is not a merciful saying. Cold and dread and
pitiless, the wave claims its due--it stretches its arms to the fullest
length, and does not pause or hearken to the desire of any human heart.
Hopeless to appeal to is the unseen force that sends the white surge
underneath to darken the pebbles to a certain line. The wetted pebbles
are darker than the dry; even in the dusk they are easily
distinguished. Something merciless is there not in this conjunction of
restriction and impetus? Something outside human hope and
thought--indifferent--cold?
Considering in this way, I wandered about fifty yards along the pier,
and sat down in an abstracted way on the seat on the right side.
Beneath, the clear green sea rolled in crestless waves towards the
shore--they were moving "without the animation of the wind," which had
deserted them two days ago, and a hundred miles out at sea. Slower and
slower, with an indolent undulation, rising and sinking of mere weight
and devoid of impetus, the waves passed on, scarcely seeming to break
the smoothness of the surface. At a little distance it seemed level;
yet the boats every now and then sank deeply into the trough, and even
a large fishing-smack rolled heavily. For it is the nature of a
groundswell to be exceedingly deceptive. Sometimes the waves are so far
apart that the sea actually is level--smooth as the surface of a
polished dining-table--till presently there appears a darker line
slowly approaching, and a wave of considerable size comes in, advancing
exactly like the crease in the cloth which the housemaid spreads on the
table--the air rolling along underneath it forms a linen imitation of
the groundswell. These unexpected rollers are capital at upsetting
boats just touching the beach; the boat is broadside on and the
occupants in the water in a second. To-day the groundswell was more
active, the waves closer together, not having had time to forget the
force of the extinct gale. Yet the sea looked calm as a millpond--just
the morning for a bath.
Along the yellow line where sand and pebbles meet there stood a gallant
band, in gay uniforms, facing the water. Like the imperial legions who
were ordered to charge the ocean, and gather the shells as spoils of
war, the cohorts gleaming in purple and gold extended their front
rank--their fighting line one to a yard--along the strand. Some tall
and stately; some tall and slender; some well developed and firm on
their limbs; some gentle in attitude, even in their war dress; some
defiant; perhaps forty or fifty, perhaps more, ladies; a splendid
display of womanhood in the bright sunlight. Blue dresses, pink
dresses, purple dresses, trimmings of every colour; a gallant show. The
eye had but just time to receive these impressions as it were with a
blow of the camera--instantaneous photography--when, boom! the
groundswell was on them, and, heavens, what a change! They disappeared.
An arm projected here, possibly a foot yonder, tresses floated on the
surface like seaweed, but bodily they were gone. The whole rank from
end to end was overthrown--more than that, overwhelmed, buried,
interred in water like Pharaoh's army in the Red Sea. Crush! It had
come on them like a mountain. The wave so clear, so beautifully
coloured, so cool and refreshing, had struck their delicate bodies with
the force of a ton weight. Crestless and smooth to look at, in reality
that treacherous roller weighed at least a ton to a yard.
Down went each fair bather as if hit with shot from a Gatling gun. Down
she went, frantically, and vainly grasping at a useless rope; down with
water driven into her nostrils, with a fragment, a tiny blade, of
seaweed forced into her throat, choking her; crush on the hard pebbles,
no feather bed, with the pressure of a ton of water overhead, and the
strange rushing roar it makes in the ears. Down she went, and at the
same time was dragged head foremost, sideways, anyhow, but
dragged--_ground_ along on the bitter pebbles some yards higher up the
beach, each pebble leaving its own particular bruise, and the suspended
sand filling the eyes. Then the wave left her, and she awoke from the
watery nightmare to the bright sunlight, and the hissing foam as it
subsided, prone at full length, high and dry like a stranded wreck.
Perhaps her head had tapped the wheel of the machine in a friendly
way--a sort of genial battering ram. The defeat was a perfect rout; yet
they recovered position immediately. I fancy I did see one slip limply
to cover; but the main body rose manfully, and picked their way with
delicate feet on the hard, hard stones back again to the water, again
to meet their inevitable fate.
The white ankles of the blonde gleaming in the sunshine were
distinguishable, even at that distance, from the flesh tint of the
brunette beside her, and these again from the swarthiness of still
darker ankles, which did not gleam, but had a subdued colour like dead
gold. The foam of a lesser wave ran up and touched their feet
submissively. Three young girls in pink clustered together; one
crouched with her back to the sea and glanced over her timorous
shoulder. Another lesser wave ran up and left a fringe of foam before
them. I looked for a moment out to sea and saw the smack roll heavily,
the big wave was coming. By now the bathers had gathered confidence,
and stepped, a little way at a time, closer and closer down to the
water. Some even stood where each lesser wave rose to their knees.
Suddenly a few leant forwards, pulling their ropes taut, and others
turned sideways; these were the more experienced or observant. Boom!
The big roller broke near the pier and then ran along the shore; it did
not strike the whole length at once, it came in aslant and rushed
sideways. The three in pink went first--they were not far enough from
their machine to receive its full force, it barely reached to the
waist, and really I think it was worse for them. They were lifted off
their feet and shot forward with their heads under water; one appeared
to be under the two others, a confused mass of pink. Their white feet
emerged behind the roller, and as it sank it drew them back, grinding
them over the pebbles: every one knows how pebbles grate and grind
their teeth as a wave subsides. Left lying on their faces, I guessed
from their attitudes that they had dug their finger-nails into the
pebbles in an effort to seize something that would hold. Somehow they
got on their knees and crept up the slope of the beach. Beyond these
three some had been standing about up to their knees; these were simply
buried as before--quite concealed and thrown like beams of timber, head
first, feet first, high up on shore. Group after group went down as the
roller reached them, and the sea was dyed for a minute with blue
dresses, purple dresses, pink dresses; they coloured the wave which
submerged them. From end to end the whole rank was again overwhelmed,
nor did any position prove of advantage; those who sprang up as the
wave came were simply turned over and carried on their backs, those who
tried to dive under were swept back by the tremendous under-rush.
Sitting on the beach, lying at full length, on hands and knees, lying
on this side or that, doubled up--there they were, as the roller
receded, in every disconsolate attitude imaginable; the curtain rose
and disclosed the stage in disorder. Again I thought I saw one or two
limp to their machines, but the main body adjusted themselves and faced
the sea.
Was there ever such courage? National untaught courage--inbred, and not
built of gradual instruction as it were in hardihood. Yet some people
hesitate to give women the franchise! actually, a miserable privilege
which any poor fool of a man may exercise.
I was philosophising admirably in this strain when first a shadow came
and then the substance, that is, a gentleman sat down by me and wished
me good morning, in a slightly different accent to that we usually
hear. I looked wistfully at the immense length of empty seats; on both
sides of the pier for two hundred yards or more there extended an
endless empty seat. Why could not he have chosen a spot to himself? Why
must he place himself just here, so close as to touch me? Four hundred
yards of vacant seats, and he could not find room for himself.
It is a remarkable fact in natural history that one's elbow is sure to
be jogged. It does not matter what you do; suppose you paint in the
most secluded spot, and insert yourself, moreover, in the most
inconspicuous part of that spot, some vacant physiognomy is certain to
intrude, glaring at you with glassy eye. Suppose you do nothing (like
myself), no matter where you do it some inane humanity obtrudes itself.
I took out my note-book once in a great open space at the Tower of
London, a sort of court or place of arms, quite open and a gunshot
across; there was no one in sight, and if there had been half a
regiment they could have passed (and would have passed) without
interference. I had scarcely written three lines when the pencil flew
up the page, some hulking lout having brushed against me. He could not
find room for himself. A hundred yards of width was not room enough for
him to go by. He meant no harm; it did not occur to him that he could
be otherwise than welcome. He was the sort of man who calmly sleeps on
your shoulder in a train, and merely replaces his head if you wake him
twenty times. The very same thing has happened to me in the parks, and
in country fields; particularly it happens at the British Museum and
the picture galleries, there is room sufficient in all conscience; but
if you try to make a note or a rough memorandum sketch you get a jog.
There is a jogger everywhere, just as there is a buzzing fly everywhere
in summer. The jogger travels, too.
One day, while studying in the Louvre, I am certain three or four
hundred French people went by me, mostly provincials I fancy,
country-folks, in short, from their dress, which was not Parisian, and
their accent, which was not of the Boulevards. Of all these not one
interfered with me; they did not approach within four or five feet. How
grateful I felt towards them! One man and his sweetheart, a fine
southern girl with dark eyes and sun-browned cheeks, sat down near me
on one of the scanty seats provided. The man put his umbrella and his
hat on the seat beside him. What could be more natural? No one else was
there, and there was room for three more couples. Instantly an
official--an authority!--stepped hastily forward from the shadow of
some sculpture (beasts of prey abide in darkness), snatched up the
umbrella and hat, and rudely dashed them on the floor. In a flow of
speech he explained that nothing must be placed on the seats. The man,
who had his handkerchief in his hand, quietly dropped it into his hat
on the floor, and replied nothing. This was an official "jogger." I
felt indignant to see and hear people treated in this rough manner; but
the provincial was used to the jogger system and heeded it not. My own
jogger was coming. Three to four hundred country-folk had gone by
gently and in a gentlemanly way. Then came an English gentleman,
middle-aged, florid, not much tinctured with art or letters, but
garnished with huge gold watchchain and with wealth as it were bulging
out of his waistcoat pocket. This gentleman positively walked into me,
pushed me-literally pushed me aside and took my place, a place valuable
to me at that moment for one special aspect, and having shoved me
aside, gazed about him through his eyeglass, I suppose to discover what
it was interested me. He was a genuine, thoroughbred jogger. The vast
galleries of the Louvre had not room enough for him. He was one of the
most successful joggers in the world, I feel sure; any family might be
proud of him. While I am thus digressing, the bathers have gone over
thrice.
The individual who had sat himself down by me produced a little box and
offered me a lozenge. I did not accept it; he took one himself in token
that they were harmless. Then he took a second, and a third, and began
to tell me of their virtues; they cured this and they alleviated that,
they were the greatest discovery of the age; this universal lozenge was
health in the waistcoat pocket, a medicine-chest between finger and
thumb; the secret had been extracted at last, and nature had given up
the ghost as it were of her hidden physic. His eloquence conjured up in
my mind a vision of the rocks beside the Hudson river papered over with
acres of advertising posters. But no; by his further conversation I
found that I had mentally slandered him; he was not a proprietor of
patent medicine; he was a man of education and private means; he
belonged to a much higher profession, in fact he was a "jogger"
travelling about from place to place--"globetrotting" from capital city
to watering-place--all over the world in the exercise of his function.
I had wondered if his accent was American (petroleum-American), or
German, or Italian, or Russian, or what. Now I wondered no longer, for
the jogger is cosmopolitan. When he had exhausted his lozenge he told
me how many times the screw of the steamer revolved while carrying him
across the Pacific from Yokohama to San Francisco. I nearly suggested
that it was about equal to the number of times his tongue had vibrated
in the last ten minutes. The bathers went over twice more. I was
anxious to take note of their bravery, and turned aside, leaning over
the iron back of the seat. He went on just the same; a hint was no more
to him than a feather bed to an ironclad.
My rigid silence was of no avail; so long as my ears were open he did
not care. He was a very energetic jogger. However, it occurred to me to
try another plan: I turned towards him (he would much rather have had
my back) and began to talk in the most strident tones I could command.
I pointed out to him that the pier was decked like a vessel, that the
cliffs were white, that a lady passing had a dark blue dress on, which
did not suit with the green sea, not because it was blue, but because
it was the wrong tint of blue. I informed him that the Pavilion was
once the residence of royalty, and similar novelties; all in a string
without a semicolon. His eyes opened; he fumbled with his lozenge-box,
said "Good morning," and went on up the pier. I watched him
go--English-Americano-Germano-Franco-Prussian-Russian-Chinese-New
Zealander that he was. But he was not a man of genius; you could choke
him off by talking. Still he had effectually jogged me and spoiled my
contemplative enjoyment of the bathers' courage; upon the whole I
thought I would go down on the beach now and see them a little closer.
The truth is, I suppose, that it is people like myself who are in the
wrong, or are in the way. What business had I to make a note in the
Tower yard, or study in the Louvre? what business have I to think, or
indulge myself in an idea? What business has any man to paint, or
sketch, or do anything of the sort? I suppose the joggers are in the
right.
Dawdling down Whitehall one day a jogger nailed me--they come to me
like flies to honey--and got me to look at his pamphlet. He went about,
he said, all his time distributing them as a duty for the safety of the
nation. The pamphlet was printed in the smallest type, and consisted of
extracts from various prophetical authors, pointing out the enormity of
the Babylonian Woman, of the City of Scarlet, or some such thing; the
gist being the bitterest--almost scurrilous--attack on the Church of
Rome. The jogger told me, with tears of pride in his eyes and a
glorified countenance, that only a few days before, in the waiting-room
of a railway station, he had the pleasure to present his pamphlet to
Cardinal Manning. And the Cardinal bowed and put it in his pocket.
Just as everybody walks on the sunny side of Regent-street, so there
are certain spots on the beach where people crowd together. This is one
of them; just west of the West Pier there is a fair between eleven and
one every bright morning. Everybody goes because everybody else does.
Mamma goes down to bathe with her daughters and the little ones; they
take two machines at least; the pater comes to smoke his cigar; the
young fellows of the family-party come to look at "the women," as they
irreverently speak of the sex. So the story runs on _ad infinitum_,
down to the shoeless ones that turn up everywhere. Every seat is
occupied; the boats and small yachts are filled; some of the children
pour pebbles into the boats, some carefully throw them out; wooden
spades are busy; sometimes they knock each other on the head with them,
sometimes they empty pails of sea-water on a sister's frock. There is a
squealing, squalling, screaming, shouting, singing, bawling, howling,
whistling, tin-trumpeting, and every luxury of noise. Two or three
bands work away; niggers clatter their bones; a conjurer in red throws
his heels in the air; several harps strum merrily different strains;
fruit-sellers push baskets into folks' faces; sellers of wretched
needlework and singular baskets coated with shells thrust their rubbish
into people's laps. These shell baskets date from George IV. The
gingerbeer men and the newsboys cease not from troubling. Such a volume
of uproar, such a complete organ of discord I mean a whole organful
cannot be found anywhere else on the face of the earth in so
comparatively small a space. It is a sort of triangular plot of beach
crammed with everything that ordinarily annoys the ears and offends the
sight.
Yet you hear nothing and see nothing; it is perfectly comfortable,
perfectly jolly and exhilarating, a preferable spot to any other. A
sparkle of sunshine on the breakers, a dazzling gleam from the white
foam, a warm sweet air, light and brightness and champagniness;
altogether lovely. The way in which people lie about on the beach,
their legs this way, and their arms that, their hats over their eyes,
their utter give-themselves-up expression of attitude is enough in
itself to make a reasonable being contented. Nobody cares for anybody;
they drowned Mrs. Grundy long ago. The ancient philosopher (who had a
mind to eat a fig) held that a nail driven into wood could only support
a certain weight. After that weight was exceeded either the wood must
break or the nail come out. Yonder is a wooden seat put together with
nails--a flimsy contrivance, which defies all rules of gravity and
adhesion. One leg leans one way, the other in the opposite direction;
very lame legs indeed. Careful folk would warn you not to sit on it
lest it should come to pieces. The music, I suppose, charms it, for it
holds together in the most marvellous manner. Four people are sitting
on it, four big ones, middle-aged, careful people; every moment the
legs gape wide apart, the structure visibly stretches and yields and
sinks in the pebbles, yet it does not come down. The stoutest of all
sits actually over the lame legs, reading his paper quite oblivious of
the odd angle his plump person makes, quite unconscious of the
threatened crack--crash! It does not happen. A sort of magnetism sticks
it together; it is in the air; it makes things go right that ought to
go wrong. Awfully naughty place; no sort of idea of rightness here.
Humming and strumming, and singing and smoking, splashing, and
sparkling; a buzz of voices and booming of sea! If they could only be
happy like this always!
Mamma has a tremendous fight over the bathing-dresses, her own, of
course; the bathing woman cannot find them, and denies that she had
them, and by-and-by, after half an hour's exploration, finds them all
right, and claims commendation for having put them away so safely. Then
there is the battle for a machine. The nurse has been keeping guard on
the steps, to seize it the instant the occupant comes out. At last they
get it, and the wonder is how they pack themselves in it. Boom! The
bathers have gone over again, I know. The rope stretches as the men at
the capstan go round, and heave up the machines one by one before the
devouring tide.
As it is not at all rude, but the proper thing to do, I thought I would
venture a little nearer (not too obtrusively near) and see closer at
hand how brave womanhood faced the rollers. There was a young girl
lying at full length at the edge of the foam. She reclined parallel to
the beach, not with her feet towards the sea, but so that it came to
her side. She was clad in some material of a gauzy and yet opaque
texture, permitting the full outline and the least movement to be seen.
The colour I do not exactly know how to name; they could tell you at
the Magasin du Louvre, where men understand the hues of garments as
well as women. I presume it was one of the many tints that are called
at large "creamy." It suited her perfectly. Her complexion was in the
faintest degree swarthy, and yet not in the least like what a lady
would associate with that word. The difficulty in describing a colour
is that different people take different views of the terms employed;
ladies have one scale founded a good deal on dress, men another, and
painters have a special (and accurate) gamut which they use in the
studio. This was a clear swarthiness a translucent swarthiness clear as
the most delicate white. There was something in the hue of her neck as
freely shown by the loose bathing dress, of her bare arms and feet,
somewhat recalling to mind the kind of beauty attributed to the Queen
of Egypt. But it was more delicate. Her form was almost fully
developed, more so than usual at her age. Again and again the foam
rushed up deep enough to cover her limbs, but not sufficiently so to
hide her chest, as she was partly raised on one arm. Washed thus with
the purest whiteness of the sparkling foam, her beauty gathered
increase from the touch of the sea. She swayed slightly as the water
reached her, she was luxuriously recked to and fro. The waves, toyed
with her; they came and retired, happy in her presence; the breeze and
the sunshine were there.
Standing somewhat back, the machines hid the waves from me till they
reached the shore, so that I did not observe the heavy roller till it
came and broke. A ton of water fell on her, crush! The edge of the wave
curled and dropped over her, the arch bowed itself above her, the
keystone of the wave fell in. She was under the surge while it rushed
up and while it rushed back; it carried her up to the steps of the
machine and back again to her original position. When it subsided she
simply shook her head, raised herself on one arm, and adjusted herself
parallel to the beach as before.
Let any one try this, let any one lie for a few minutes just where the
surge bursts, and he will understand what it means. Men go out to the
length of their ropes--past and outside the line of the breakers, or
they swim still farther out and ride at ease where the wave, however
large, merely lifts them pleasantly as it rolls under. But the smashing
force of the wave is where it curls and breaks, and it is there that
the ladies wait for it. It is these breakers in a gale that tear to
pieces and destroy the best-built ships once they touch the shore,
scattering their timbers as the wind scatters leaves. The courage and
the endurance women must possess to face a groundswell like this!
All the year they live in luxury and ease, and are shielded from
everything that could hurt. A bruise--a lady to receive a bruise; it is
not be to thought of! If a ruffian struck a lady in Hyde Park the world
would rise from its armchair in a fury of indignation. These waves and
pebbles bruise them as they list. They do not even flinch. There must,
then, be a natural power of endurance in them.
It is unnecessary, and yet I was proud to see it. An English lady could
do it; but could any other?--unless, indeed, an American of English
descent. Still, it is a barbarous thing, for bathing could be easily
rendered pleasant. The cruel roller receded, the soft breeze blew, the
sunshine sparkled, the gleaming foam rushed up and gently rocked her.
The Infanta Cleopatra lifted her arm gleaming wet with spray, and
extended it indolently; the sun had only given her a more seductive
loveliness. How much more enjoyable the sea and breeze and sunshine
when one is gazing at something so beautiful. That arm, rounded and
soft----
"Excuse me, sir, but your immortal soul"--a hand was placed on my
elbow. I turned, and saw a beaming face; a young lady, elegantly
dressed, placed a fly-sheet of good intentions in my fingers. The fair
jogger beamed yet more sweetly as I took it, and went on among the
crowd. When I looked back the Infanta Cleopatra had ascended into her
machine. I had lost the last few moments of loveliness.