Punch, or the London Charivari, May 6, 1914Various
General
Punch, or the London Charivari, May 6, 1914
Various
English wit and humor -- Periodicals
Dearest Daphne,--I've been doing Easter with the Clackmannans and
helping them with an idea they're carrying out. There's a little coast
town on their Southshire property (Shrimpington it's been called up to
now), and they're turning it into a seaside place _that people can go
to_! _Isn't_ that dilly? Of course, our coasts quite _bristle_ with
seaside towns, but they're places people _can't_ go to because
_everybody_ goes there. And so the Clackmannans are going to supply a
long-felt want, as old-fashioned people say, and give us a _ville de
bains_ of our very _very_ own. Its name is to be changed from
Shrimpington to Week-End-on-Sea. It has no railway station, which, of
course, is a great merit; it's not to have any big blatant hotels or
pensions--nothing but charming bungalow-cottages; there'll be no pier,
no band, none of those banal winter-gardens and impossible pleasure
palaces that _ces autres_ delight in, and, _of course_, none of those
immensely fearful concert parties and pierrots. But we shall have a
troupe of mermen and mermaids who will do classic gambols by the marge
of the sea and play on pipes or shells or whatever it is that
sea-creatures play on. There'll be bathing parties, when the last
syllable of the last word in bathing-kit will be seen; paddling parties,
in carefully thought out _toilettes pour marcher dans l'eau_, and
shell-gathering parties. Stella Clackmannan, who has such an active
brain that everyone's quite anxious about her, is going to have tons of
really pretty shells laid along a part of the beach (above high water),
and people will go shell-gathering _en habit coquilleux_.
The only feature Week-End-on-Sea will have in common with other seaside
places is a parade. At first Stella wouldn't hear of having one; but
Norty told her there's "a deep-seated primal instinct in human nature
for sitting on benches and watching one's fellow-creatures walk up and
down, and it would not be wise to thwart this instinct." He's an
enormously clever boy, and, when it was put to her like that, Stella
gave in. So there's to be a parade on the sea front, and Ray Rymington,
whose sense of the beautiful is _absolutely_, will see after it.
There'll be none of those ghastly glass shelters, but just darling
Sheraton benches at intervals, and the paraders will be carefully
_censored_. Nobody who hasn't _something_ of a profile will be allowed
to walk up and down--and no woman who takes more than 4's in slices or
who's wearing a last year's sleeve. So you see, dearest, it will be
quite a _cachet_, both of person and style, to be seen walking on the
parade at _our_ watering-place. The Bullyon-Boundermere woman met Stella
in town the other day and said, "My dear duchess, how can we thank you
for at last giving us a really _classy_ seaside place?" "What a
wonderful word, Mrs. Boundermere!" answered Stella. "'_Classy_'! Do tell
me what it means!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account