' He returned, altogether uncheered by the
bright example, 'Ah, Heaven, but I am always sick, even when it is
IMpossible to be so.'
The means of communication between the French capital and our
French watering-place are wholly changed since those days; but, the
Channel remains unbridged as yet, and the old floundering and
knocking about go on there. It must be confessed that saving in
reasonable (and therefore rare) sea-weather, the act of arrival at
our French watering-place from England is difficult to be achieved
with dignity. Several little circumstances combine to render the
visitor an object of humiliation. In the first place, the steamer
no sooner touches the port, than all the passengers fall into
captivity: being boarded by an overpowering force of Custom-house
officers, and marched into a gloomy dungeon. In the second place,
the road to this dungeon is fenced off with ropes breast-high, and
outside those ropes all the English in the place who have lately
been sea-sick and are now well, assemble in their best clothes to
enjoy the degradation of their dilapidated fellow-creatures. 'Oh,
my gracious! how ill this one has been!' 'Here's a damp one coming
next!' 'HERE'S a pale one!' 'Oh! Ain't he green in the face,
this next one!' Even we ourself (not deficient in natural dignity)
have a lively remembrance of staggering up this detested lane one
September day in a gale of wind, when we were received like an
irresistible comic actor, with a burst of laughter and applause,
occasioned by the extreme imbecility of our legs.
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