... And so you preserve your
independence and feel rested and stave off for a little while the evil day.
But only for a little. Very soon, for lack of alternative suggestions, you
are bound to be dragged in and do something.
But at Brighton the number of things to do is so enormous and so varied
that you can spend days and days in not doing them. On the pier alone there
are something like a hundred complicated automatic machines which you
needn't work; there are fishing-rods which you needn't hire, and concerts
to which you needn't listen. The sea is full of rowing boats and motor-
launches which you needn't charter, and the land is full of motor-brakes
which you needn't board. You needn't mixed-bathe nor go and watch the
professional divers, nor the fish in the Aquarium, nor the people with
Norman profiles arriving in motor-cars at the hugest hotels. You can simply
sit still on the beach and discuss which of these exciting things you won't
do first. And while you sit still on the beach you can throw pebbles into
the sea. No one has ever thrown as many pebbles into the sea in his life as
he wanted to, because someone keeps saying, "Well, you must decide;" but at
Brighton you can throw more than in any seaside place that I know. And, now
I come to think of it, I wonder that there is no charge for throwing
pebbles into the sea at Brighton. I should have thought a low wall with
turnstile gates and three or four shies a penny .
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