But--we have money. People who don't seem to know anything or to do anything always have. And they that have to wrest sustenance from the churlish sea at Gorleston, are disposed to do much for money--even to tolerate inquisitive, pompously patronising, incessantly cackling Cockneys. I went down to the sea thinking to mend my tired body with the blow of the lusty spray, but I am judging 'twas perhaps my mind most needed change of air. They are not so much our lungs that get stifled in the cities as our brains and hearts. We are so hemmed in with glittering shams and lies that we forget Truth's features. What do we know of work and trade, we that scramble for gold dust in London? What do we know of Life, we that seek it in the perfumed mire and corruption of the West End? They are not the usurers and money-changers that make the wealth of nations, nor the painted splendours of Babylon that ripen our harvests, nor the swinish orgies of Sodom and Gomorrah that make the pulses beat with healthy joy of life. One stews in London's vitiated atmosphere, and one forgets. One's perceptions grow numb, and dull and blunted; one's knowledge twisted, warped, awry. We are made dizzy by the rush and whirl, and cheated by specious shows and make-believes. Our days and nights are passed in fever, our thoughts are as the babbling of a grim delirium, and there is no health in us. Contango? The odds for the Leger? The new ballet? "We went out twice that night," said the lifeboatman; "one of our men broke his arm th' first trip, and he wur main wild when he couldn't go th' second time." "And did you save them all?" "Ay, we got 'em all off--both lots; though they'd give up hope. They couldn't see us till we came close up to them, for it was a dirty night, and the sea was running high, but they heard the cheers we give them when we got within calling distance, poor things." That makes a better picture than the Stock Exchange or Piccadilly Circus. The thought of the ships that sink, of the men and women and children that go down into the cold depths, "their eyes and mouths to be filled with the brown sea sand"--that is not good to think of. But the picture of the rescue, is not that glorious? The sound of the human cheer across the roar of Nature's battle--think of it in the ears of the crew that had "given up hope"! The thrill, the gladness, the doubt, the eager lookout. The cheer again, clearer, huskier, certain now, and full of brave comfort. A chance then for life? A chance for the wailing women and the weeping bairns? Then a glimpse, deep down in the great trough of the sea, of a boat staggering and rolling amidst the waves, manfully propelled, perceptibly approaching, despite wind and sleet and drenching wave, with rough men's voices giving promise of life through the darkness of the storm!