It is an unsettled question with me whether I shall leave Calais something handsome in
my will, or whether I shall leave it my malediction. I hate it so much, and yet I am always
so very glad to see it, that I am in a state of constant indecision on this subject. When I
first made acquaintance with Calais, it was as a maundering young wretch in a clammy
perspiration and dripping saline particles, who was conscious of no extremities but the
one great extremity, sea-sickness - who was a mere bilious torso, with a mislaid headache
somewhere in its stomach - who had been put into a horrible swing in Dover Harbour,
and had tumbled giddily out of it on the French coast, or the Isle of Man, or anywhere.
Times have changed, and now I enter Calais self-reliant and rational. I know where it is
beforehand, I keep a look out for it, I recognise its landmarks when I see any of them, I
am acquainted with its ways, and I know - and I can bear - its worst behaviour.
Malignant Calais! Low-lying alligator, evading the eyesight 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 especially commanded 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 the Marine Parade twinkle in an
