THE BATHING SEASON 



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 gradully 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 imme- 

 diately 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 



