The rambles I have described were mostly inland: when by chance they took us down to the sea our impressions and adventures appeared less interesting.

Looking back on the holiday, it would seem to us a somewhat vacant time compared to one spent in wandering from village to village.
I mean if we do not take into account that first impression which the sea invariably makes on us on returning to it after a long absence--the shock of recognition and wonder and joy as if we had been suffering from loss of memory and it had now suddenly come back to us.

That brief moving experience over, there is little the sea can give us to compare with the land.

How could it be otherwise in our case, seeing that we were by it in a crowd, our movements and way of life regulated for us in places which appear like overgrown and ill-organized convalescent homes?
There was always a secret intense dislike of all parasitic and holiday places, an uncomfortable feeling which made the pleasure seem poor and the remembrance of days so spent hardly worth dwelling on.

And as we are able to keep in or throw out of our minds whatever we please, being autocrats in our own little kingdom, I elected to cast away most of the memories of these comparatively insipid holidays.