them up. Then the South Foreland lights begin to hiccup at us in a way
that bodes no good.

It is at about this period that my detestation of Calais knows no
bounds. Inwardly I resolve afresh that I never will forgive that hateful
town. I have done so before, many times, but that is past. Let me
register a vow. Implacable animosity to Calais everm--that was an
awkward sea, and the funnel seems of my opinion, for it gives a
complaining roar.

The wind blows stiffly from the nor'-east, the sea runs high, we ship a
deal of water, the night is dark and cold, and the shapeless passengers
lie about in melancholy bundles, as if they were sorted out for the
laundress; but, for my own uncommercial part, I cannot pretend that I
am much inconvenienced by any of these things. A general howling,
whistling, flopping, gurgling, and scooping, I am aware of, and a
general knocking about of Nature; but the impressions I receive are very
vague. In a sweet, faint temper, something like the smell of damaged
oranges, I think I should feel languidly benevolent if I had time. I
have not time, because I am under a curious compulsion to occupy myself
with Irish melodies. "Rich and rare were the gems she wore," is the
particular melody to which I find myself devoted. I sing it to myself in
the most charming manner and with the greatest expression. Now and then
I raise my head (I am sitting on the hardest of wet seats, in the most
uncomfortable of wet attitudes, but I don't mind it) and notice that I
am a whirling shuttle-cock between a fiery battledore of a lighthouse on
the French coast and a fiery battledore of a lighthouse on the English
coast; but I don't notice it particularly, except to feel envenomed in
my hatred of Calais. Then I go on again, "Rich and rare were the ge-ems
she-e-e-e wore, And a bright gold ring on her wa-and she bo-ore, But O