Brighton

“ Every one knows Brighton and its neighbourhood to be places where trees are rare enough to be curiosities, but in this generally treeless land there are hollows and shallow valleys amid the dry chalky hillsides where little boscages form places for the eye, tired of much bright dazzling sunlight, to rest. ”

“ But Brighton itself is eternal. It suffers change, it grows continually; but while the sea remains and the air is clean and the sun shines, it, and the road to it, will be the most popular resorts in England. ”

“ This route to Brighton is singularly rural and lovely, and particularly beautiful in the way of copses and wooded hollows, whence streamlets trickle away to join the river Adur. Villages lie shyly just off its course, and must be sought, only an occasional inn or smithy, or the lodge-gates of modern estates called into existence since the making of the road in 1813, breaking the solitude. ”

“ But it is interesting no more,—with the Pavilion a show place, the Dome a concert hall, the Steyne an enclosure, Martha Gunn in her grave, the Chain Pier a memory, Mrs. Fitzherbert's house the headquarters of the Young Men's Christian Association, and the Brighton road a racing track for cyclists, motor cars and walking stockbrokers. Brighton is entertaining, salubrious, fashionable, what you will. ”

“ Of late years, however, Brighton has assumed an extent and importance which may be referred to a spirit of speculative enterprise unparalleled in the fortunes of any other town in the United Kingdom. Not only has a palace, but squares of palatial mansions, terraces, crescents, and streets, nay, very towns of splendid houses, have sprung up with fairy-like rapidity; and Brighton has thus become, not merely a fashionable resort for the season, but a place of permanent residence for a very large proportion of wealthy individuals. ”

“ To a man who needs rest there is something at first sight truly frightful in the townish gregariousness of Brighton proper, with its pretentious common-place architecture, and its ceaseless bustle and rolling of wheels. ”

“ It takes a Frenchman to give the splendid line of buildings which forms the finest front in the world the admiration that is certainly its due. When one has had time to dissect the great town, appreciation is keener; there are several Brightons; there is a town built on a cliff, another with spacious lawns on the sea level, and a third, the old Brighton, bounded by the limits of the original fishing village, and, with all its brilliance, having a distinctly briny smell as of fish markets and tarred rope and sun-baked seaweed when you are near the shingle. ”

“ In short, when a man is sick of the world, or a maiden of forty-five has been so often crossed in love as to be obliged to leave off hoping against hope, Brighton is an excellent place to prepare him or her for a final retirement from life—whether that is contemplated in the Queen’s Bench, a convent, a residence among the Welsh mountains, or the monastery of La Trappe, a month’s probation in Brighton, at the height of the season, being well calculated to make any such change not only endurable, but agreeable. ”

“ One of the best of physicians our city has ever known, is kind, cheerful, merry Doctor Brighton. Hail, thou purveyor of shrimps and honest prescriber of Southdown mutton! There is no mutton so good as Brighton mutton; no flys so pleasant as Brighton flys; nor any cliff so pleasant to ride on; no shops so beautiful to look at as the Brighton gimcrack shops, and the fruit shops, and the market. I fancy myself in Mrs. Honeyman’s lodgings in Steyne Gardens, and in enjoyment of all these things. ”

“ I arrived at Brighton late at night, only to learn that a gentleman had got out at the Pavilion, and had not left it since.
“I do not believe that all I have ever suffered in my life equalled what I went through in the two weary hours that I passed walking up and down outside that low paling that skirts the Palace garden. The poor fellow, in all his misery, came before me in so many shapes; sometimes wandering in intellect—sometimes awake and conscious of his sufferings—now trying to comport himself as became the presence he was in—now reckless of all the world and everything. ”

“ It has very justly been remarked that Brighton is treeless, but that complaint by no means holds good respecting the approach to it through Withdean and Preston Park, which is exceptionally well wooded, the tall elms forming an archway infinitely more lovable than the gigantic brick arch of the railway viaduct that poses as a triumphal entry into the town. ”

“ He suddenly saw Brighton in its autumnal pride, Brighton beginning one of its fine week-ends, and he had to admit that the number of rich and idle people in the world surpassed his provincial notions. For miles westwards and miles eastwards, against a formidable background of high, yellow and brown architecture, persons the luxuriousness of any one of whom would have drawn remarks in Bursley, walked or drove or rode in thronging multitudes. Edwin could comprehend lolling by the sea in August, but in late October it seemed unnatural, fantastic. ”

“ The bright light of Brighton brings all things into clear relief, giving them an edge and outline; as steel burns with a flame like wood in oxygen, so the minute particles of iron in the atmosphere seem to burn and glow in the sunbeams, and a twofold illumination fills the air. Coming back to the place after a journey this brilliant light is very striking, and most new visitors notice it. Even a room with a northern aspect is full of light, too strong for some eyes, till accustomed to it. ”

“ Looking southward, Brighton is seen—a pillar of smoke by day, a glowing, twinkling light at evening: but for all it is so near, it has very little affected the old pastoral country life of the downland villages. The shepherds, carrying as of yore their Pyecombe crooks, still tend huge flocks of sheep, and the dull and hollow music of the sheep-bells remains as ever the characteristic sound of the district. ”

“ To persons who care little for new towns the value of Brighton lies in its position as the key to good country. In a few minutes one can travel by train to the Dyke, and leaving booths and swings behind, be free of miles of turfed Down or cultivated Weald; in a few minutes one can reach Hassocks, the station for Wolstonbury and Ditchling Beacon; in a few minutes one can gain Falmer and plunge into Stanmer Park; or, travelling to the next station, correct the effect of Brighton's hard brilliance amid the soothing sleepinesses of Lewes ”

“ This last is nearly an ever-present scent, for the sun is seldom absent summer or winter; in fact it is when the days are shortest that Brighton is at its best; The clear brilliance of the air when the Capital is full of fog and even the Weald between is covered with a cold pall of mist, makes the south side of the Downs another climate. Richard Jeffries, almost as great a town hater as Cobbet, has a good word for Brighton. "Let nothing cloud the descent of those glorious beams of sunlight which fall at Brighton" (referring to its treelessness) . ”

“ See Tomkins with a telescope and marine jacket; young Nathan and young Abrams, already bedizened in jewellery, and rivalling the sun in oriental splendour; yonder poor invalid crawling along in her chair; yonder jolly fat lady examining the Brighton pebbles (I actually once saw a lady buy one) , and her children wondering at the sticking-plaister portraits with gold hair, and gold stocks, and prodigious high-heeled boots, miracles of art, and cheap at seven-and-sixpence! It is the fashion to run down George IV., but what myriads of Londoners ought to thank him for inventing Brighton! ”

“ The principal inland attraction of Brighton is still the Pavilion, which is indeed the town's symbol. On passing through its very numerous and fantastic rooms one is struck by their incredible smallness. ”

“ This was not the time of Brighton's influx of visitors, but the city was far from dull. The houses are very large, and have the grand air, as if meant for princes; the shops are well supplied; the salt breeze comes in fresh and wholesome, and the noble esplanade is lively with promenaders and Bath chairs, some of them occupied by people evidently ill or presumably lame, some, I suspect, employed by healthy invalids who are too lazy to walk. ”

“ When I had thrown a great many pebbles into the sea I began to nerve myself for the struggle of returning. Over that struggle I prefer, as the saying is, to draw a veil. Suffice it to say that it is harder to run up to Brighton than it is to run down. But whilst I was running up I made a curious and interesting discovery. I found that the spell of Brighton had cured my cold. ”

“ Around Brighton itself a lot of legends have crystallized, some more or less true, others grossly exaggerated. There is an idea, for instance, that all the inhabitants of this town or, at any rate, all the visitors who frequent it, are exceedingly smart in their dress. Almost the first man whom I met in Brighton was wearing plus 4 breeches and a bowler hat. It is possible, of course, that this is the correct costume for walking to Brighton in. ”

“ Brighton is a brick and iron built town, exceedingly unlovely, but habitable. Its two great towering sea-front hotels look American, but they are a great deal more substantially built. There are two rivals for popular favour, the Grand and the Metropole. ”

“ We did not reach the hotel in Brighton until after ten o'clock.
Brighton is probably the most noted seaside resort in England—a counterpart of our American Atlantic City. It is fifty miles south of London, within easyPg 278 reach of the metropolis, and many London business men live here, making the trip every day. The town has a modern appearance, having been built within the past hundred years, and is more regularly laid out than the average English city. ”

“ It was just the delicacy, however, that in Paris—which, suggestively, was Brighton at a hundredfold higher pitch—made, between him and his companion, the tension, made the suspense, made what he would have consented perhaps to call the provisional peculiarity, of present conditions. These elements acted in a manner of their own, imposing and involving, under one head, many abstentions and precautions, twenty anxieties and reminders—things, verily, he would scarce have known how to express; and yet creating for them at every step an acceptance of their reality. ”

“ The town's rise from Brighthelmstone (pronounced Brighton) a fishing village, to Brighton, the marine resort of all that was most dashing in English society, was brought about by a Lewes doctor in the days when Lewes was to Brighton what Brighton now is to Lewes. This doctor was Richard Russell, born in 1687, who, having published in 1750 a book on the remedial effects of sea water, in 1754 removed to Brighton to be able to attend to the many patients that were flocking thither. That book was the beginning of Brighton's greatness. ”

“ The coast-line, when one has got out of Newhaven and has laid a course for Shoreham eleven miles distant, is first a series of lofty chalk cliffs, with breezy uplands stretching inland, and then three or four miles of Brighton and Hove shore and sea-front. A long line of houses, hotels and mansions of so distinct a character that, so far as we know, Brighton is never, at least by seamen, mistaken for any other south-coast town. ”

“ Basking in the bright sunshine it looked quite cheerful to me; indeed I thought I should much prefer to stay there than at fashionable and familiar Brighton, which seems like a town where the sea is but an accident and the shops on the front are the real attraction—Bond Street at second-hand. Hear what Richard Jefferies says: "All fashionable Brighton parades the King's Road [Pg 374] twice a day, morning and afternoon, always on the side of the shops.... These people never look at the sea.... ”

“ She heard about her place at Brighton from some "Western friends." But how can I go and ask them?'
'The Western friends?' said Chilver.
'No, the people of the house—about the other people. The place is rather beastly, but it seems all right. At any rate she likes it. If there's an awful hole on earth it's Brighton, but she thinks it "perfectly fascinating." ”

“ There are more handsome women in Brighton than anywhere else in the world. They are so common that gradually the standard of taste in the mind rises, and good-looking women who would be admired in other places pass by without notice. Where all the flowers are roses, you do not see a rose. They are all plump, not to say fat, which would be rude; very plump, and have the glow and bloom of youth upon the cheeks. ”

“ He found nothing better than a query as to the connection between New Haven and Brighton.
“In this little book,” he explained, “there is a time for New Haven and for London, but I cannot find a mention of Brighton, yet I am expected there this evening, or perhaps, early to-morrow morning.”
“I am sure I cannot tell you,’” she answered. “However, the places are not far apart. I should say there would certainly be trains.” ”

“ The vast mediocre respectability of the district weighed on her heart. She had been a mistress-drudge in Brighton during a long portion of her adult life; she knew the very depths of domesticity; but at Brighton the eye could find large, rich, luxurious, and sometimes beautiful things for its distraction; and there was the sea. In the Five Towns there was nothing. You might walk from one end of the Five Towns to the other, and not see one object that gave a thrill--unless it was a pair of lovers. ”