_
And hark! Do you not hear in the distance the squeak of _Puncinello_? Ah!
why have we none of this happy carelessness in England?--we who take our
pleasures _moult tristement_--why have we not this lightheartedness, this
_camaraderie_ of enjoyment? Why cannot we throw aside our insular
stiffness, our British hauteur, and be natural?
I journeyed to Broadstairs, late at night, riding in a three-horsed brake
with many a jocund passenger. And then something happened. Something
ineffably trivial, and yet a matter of life and death. We were bowling
merrily along the country lanes in the fragrant air. It was a dark,
starless night, but so warm that the easterly sea-breeze fanned us like a
zephyr. And through the gloom a flash-light leaped and waned, flickered
and died and gleamed again with electric brilliance--"the Winnaker(?)
light from France," a garrulous inhabitant assured us; a rare phenomenon
to be seen only once in a decade, when an east wind clarifies the
atmosphere, and allows the rays to pierce through two dozen miles of
strait. It seemed like La Belle France winking amicably to us across the
waters. And a little to the left twinkled "The Green Man"--no friendly
public-house, but a danger-signal from behind the Goodwin Sands, likewise
visible but by miracle.
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