[Gutenberg 33042] • Hastings and Neighbourhood

[...]resort, an heterogeneous assemblage of sea-mews and stockbrokers, Amphitrites of the town, and misses that coquet with the Ocean. If it were what it was in its primitive state, and what it ought to have remained, a fair, honest fishing-town, and no more, it were something-with a few straggling fishermen's huts scattered about, artless as its cliffs, and with their materials filched from them, it were something. I could abide to dwell with Meshech, to assort with fisher-swains, and smugglers.... But it is the visitants from town, that come here to say that they have been here, with no more relish of the sea than a pond-perch or a dace might be supposed to have, [...].