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ys before the date! Would it develop into something too serious to travel upon? Surely, never did so simple an ailment command so careful a treatment or portend so formidable, or possibly formidable, a catastrophe! Breakfast in bed was the order of the last two mornings, and two visits from a doctor, who won golden opinions from the two jolly bachelors for prescribing change as the best medicine. He is a wise doctor, that Scotchman, and we will seek his counsel on other occasions--though not just at present, we trust. We left Victoria Station on an April morning, being "seen off" by three kind friends, one of whom nearly lost his life by foolishly standing on the carriage step while the train steamed to the full extent of the platform. The risk our friend underwent only made us love him the more for his devotion to his chums; and, really, we would prefer to see no possible danger in such a friendly desire to prolong the last glimpse of such interesting worthies as ourselves. We found the sea at Dover very blue, as usual, and very smooth, so that it was a very short passage to Calais, and we found considerable pleasure in re-reading Ruskin's reference to the fine old church tower. He says:-- "I cannot find words to express the intense pleasure I have always in first finding myself, after some prolonged stay in England, at the foot of the old tower of Calais church. The large neglect, the noble unsightliness of it; the record of its years written so visibly, yet without sign of weakness or decay; its stern wasteness and gloom, eaten away by the Channel winds, and overgrown with the bitter sea grasses; its slates and tiles all shaken and rent, and yet not falling; its desert of brickwork, full of bolts, and holes, and ugly fissures, and yet strong, like a bare brown rock; its carelessness of what any one thinks or feels about it, putting forth no claim, having no beauty, nor desirableness, pride, nor grace; yet neither asking for pity; not, as ruins are, useless and piteous, feebly or fondly garrulous of better days; but, useful still, going through its own daily work--as some old fisherman, beaten grey by storm, yet drawing his daily nets, so it stands, with no complaint about its past youth, in blanched and meagre massiveness and serviceableness, gathering human souls together underneath it; the sound of its bells for prayer still roiling through its rents; and the grey peak of it seen far across the sea, principal
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