|
A train on the Admiralty Pier in a storm.
‘The Uncommercial Traveller’ started life
as a series of articles Dickens
wrote between 1860 and 1869 for the journal ‘All the Year
Round'. The first edition in volume form was published in
December 1860, comprising 17 pieces. A subsequent edition.
In 1865, added eleven more essays, and the posthumous edition
of 1875 was enlarged by eight more.
In the extract below from Chapter XVIII ‘The
Calais Night Mail’, Dickens is drawing on his own experiences
of cross-Channel travel
from Dover:
“Not but what I have my animosities towards
Dover. I particularly detest Dover for the self-complacency
with which it goes to bed. It always goes to bed (when I am
going to Calais) with a more brilliant display of lamp and
candle than any other town. Mr.
and Mrs. Birmingham, host and hostess of the Lord
Warden Hotel, are my much esteemed friends, but they are
too conceited about the comforts of that establishment when
the Night Mail is starting. I know it is a good house to stay
at, and I don't want the fact insisted upon in all its warm
bright windows at such an hour. I know the Warden is a stationary
edifice that never rolls or pitches, and I object to its big
outline seeming to insist upon that circumstance, and, as
it were, to come over me with it, when I am reeling on the
deck of the boat. Beshrew the Warden likewise, for obstructing
that corner, and making the wind so angry as it rushes round.
Shall I not know that it blows quite soon enough, without
the officious Warden's interference?
As I wait here on board the night packet,
for the South-Eastern
Train to come down with the Mail, Dover appears to me to be
illuminated for some intensely aggravating festivity in my
personal dishonour. All its noises smack of taunting praises
of the land, and dispraises of the gloomy sea, and of me for
going on it. The drums upon the heights
have gone to bed, or I know they would rattle taunts against
me for having my unsteady footing on this slippery deck. The
many gas eyes of the Marine
Parade twinkle in an offensive manner, as if with derision.
The distant dogs of Dover bark at me in my misshapen wrappers,
as if I were Richard the Third.
A screech, a bell, and two red eyes come
gliding down the Admiralty
Pier with a smoothness of motion rendered more smooth
by the heaving of the boat. The sea makes noises against the
pier, as if several hippopotami were lapping at it, and were
prevented by circumstances over which they had no control
from drinking peaceably. We, the boat, become violently agitated
- rumble, hum, scream, roar, and establish an immense family
washing-day at each paddle-box. Bright patches break out in
the train as the doors of the post-office vans are opened,
and instantly stooping figures with sacks upon their backs
begin to be beheld among the piles, descending as it would
seem in ghostly procession to Davy Jones's Locker. The passengers
come on board; a few shadowy Frenchmen, with hatboxes shaped
like the stoppers of gigantic case-bottles; a few shadowy
Germans in immense fur coats and boots; a few shadowy Englishmen
prepared for the worst and pretending not to expect it. I
cannot disguise from my uncommercial mind the miserable fact
that we are a body of outcasts; that the attendants on us
are as scant in number as may serve to get rid of us with
the least possible delay; that there are no night-loungers
interested in us; that the unwilling lamps shiver and shudder
at us; that the sole object is to commit us to the deep and
abandon us. Lo, the two red eyes glaring in increasing distance,
and then the very train itself has gone to bed before we are
off!”
|
