Transcribed from the 1889 Agas H. Goose edition by DavidPrice,
GO TO CROMER.
BY
A RURAL RECTOR.
Norwich:
AGAS H. GOOSE,
RAMPANT HORSE STREET.
1889.
p. 3GO TOCROMER.
“You should have gone to Cromer, my dear, ifyou went anywhere. Dr. Perry was a week at Cromer once, andhe holds it to be the best of all sea-bathing places. Afine open sea, he says, and very pureair.”—Emma, by Jane Austen, page 72.
When do the dog-days begin? “Francis Moore, Physician,” and other authorities,ancient and modern, tell us on the 3rd of July. But thepuzzling star, Sirius, in its gradual recession from our world,has not only changed its complexion from the ruddy hue of youthto the pallor of age, but owing either to the parsimonious habitsof increasing years, or, perhaps, bodily infirmity, it has oftenwithheld of late years the full downpour of its (supposed)heat-raising rays until the end of the month.
p. 4As soon, however, as the historic period ofits influence returns, the crave for change and relief from theties and worries of business of every kind, and town lifegenerally, becomes well-nigh irresistible.
Now, as one who has for many a year resolutely sought, or madeopportunity, to obey the annual prompting of nature to change hisheaven—a feeling akin to the periodical impulse of wingedbipeds to migrate—thus, and thus only, perhaps, maintainingin healthy vigour such power of mind and body as he has beenendowed with, to a time of life when many shrink from theactivities of muscular exertion, if they have not long agoabandoned pedestrian exploration and cycle tours, which thewriter has not, let me back up the opinion of the faculty, asrepresented by Mr. Woodhouse’s family doctor, in thequotation at the head of this paper, and recommend a visit offair length to Cromer, combined with such mild expeditions in itsneighbourhood, by sea and land, as may be possible andconvenient.
Far back in the pleasant past, I spent a holiday week at theLand’s End, with a Cornish coast-painter of some fame andsuccess. While I splashed my block in rough representationof the yellow sands, the many-hued rocks, bearded with apatriarchal growth of hoary lichen, the pea-green fore sea andpurple distance, he was p. 5composing close by two or three largepictures of the same scenes, putting in a stranded vessel here,or making the sea alive there with fishers and their nets andboats—the latter almost on the move beneath the leverage ofthe long oars, or the force on the bulging sails of the unseenwind blowing where it listed.
These objects and actors on other but similar scenes, thatboth eye and hand had kept copies of, perhaps for years, were nowtransferred by the painter to his canvas “to improve theoccasion” by giving life and interest to aspot—beautiful always, though at the time barren ofincident—which in the process of years most often presentsuch stirring aspects as he then depicted.
I recalled the admirable pictures of my, alas! deceasedfriend, when my e