PEBBLES PICKED UP AT THE SEA-SHORE.
BY A SENTIMENTAL OLD YOUNG LADY.
One's existence down here is divided between donkey-riding and novel-reading—pretty exercises for the mind and body! It would be difficult to say which were the slowest—the donkeys or the novels. It's very strange, but how extremely rare it is you come across a donkey or a novel that's in the least moving!
Youth writes its hopes upon the sand, and Age advances, like the sea, and washes them all out.
We raffle, and raffle our best affections away, like shillings at the Library, and Man looks coldly on, and smilingly says, "Better luck, Miss, next time."
I am sure that the sand, with which Time has filled his hour-glass, must have been picked up at a watering-place, for nowhere else does the time run on so slowly, or the hours succeed one another with such provoking similarity.
It is very curious that the sea, which brings the colour back to our cheeks, generally takes it from our ribbons!
It is the same with dispositions as with bonnets; it is not every one that can stand the sea-side.
Scandal is a rank weed which is generally found in great profusion near the sea-coast.
A watering-place is a harbour of refuge, that we, poor weak vessels, after having been tossed about for nine months in the year, are obliged, during the other three, to put into for repairs.
I am frequently reminded, when I see a party about to start in a pleasure boat, of the effect of a London season. Every one is so gay and blooming, so full of health and spirits at the starting, but how pale, dejected, dragged, drenched, and fairly sickened they look, if you chance to see them returning at the end of it!