Grand Forks herald. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1916-1955, 1919-02-01
DOVER

nelled within and fortified overhead;
the sea has been bound inside a vast
harbor, and driven back to make way
for trucks and trolleys to carry
stones for its prison walls: the smoke
of tunnels has superseded the gentle
motions of sails; there arc forts Inc
harYacks and prisons. like great ware-
thexe is action. change. energy; there
are foreign faces, people coming and
going from the ends Of the earth, to
whom Dover Is a stepping-stone; and
it is a gate, which can be opened to
friends and closed on enemies. A
gate Of England, m Of the Clinque
Ports and the only n Of them that
has held it's own; it has always been
a part of history; it is our only port
which has a natural magnificence and
a great tradition" So Arthur Sym
n wrote Of Dover in 1908 in an es-
say recently published in "Cities and
Sea Coasts and Islands"
THE sea of Dover. since the adj
miralty has looped 1t in With its stone
barriers, can hardly be said to have
remained a quite wholly natural part
tanned, brought to serve man meekly,
and not Of it's own will. BY day we
see the gap in the prison walls, and
the ships going in and out, to be
caught or loosed. But by night there
is the aspect of a lake, ana the gold
and red and green lights that go in a
seni-circle about it seem like lights
outlining a curving shore. The exc
cradle British pleasure-pier, with the
it's Dubbed head thrust, im%pudently
glittering, into the water. adds the
last sign of the deeper signs Of mans
domination. Yet, by day or night, IL
o listen. you will hear the lisp OF
water on the pebbles in a faint, pow
erless affirmation; you will know, in
that faint sound, the seas voice. But
hear it speak out Of its own pleasure,
You must stand on the stone wall
which binds it in from the west wind,
or look down from the cliffs. on west
or east. The cliffs share in it's liberty:
they have never consented to it's bon
dage; they endure its buffetings with
patience, as friendly losers do in a
game. When the wind freshens and
the water is whipped from green to
stone pier of the Admiralty in showers
of white foam, the cliffs above it turn
to the color of thunderclouds. Under
a faint mist cliffs and sea suffer a new
enchantment; a bloom comes out
over Them seeming to melt them into
a single intangible texture. The cliffs
and sea, in sun OF storm. are at one.
1T is the cliffs that make the best
beauty Of Dover. They are he crown.
her support, her defense: they hold
her in their arms and she sits white
and long, with her feet in the sea.
They are beautiful. at all hours, with
their white walls and the bare green
and brown Of their downs; they are
like fortresses, calm. assured. stead
fast, and ready to become impregna-
BILE. Everywhere towers. walls and
defenses: and the friendliness of the
cliffs to the town. which it holds
against the sea has a. %reticence of
manner toward strangers and foreign
coasts. At night they rise mysteri-
ously against the sky, with rows and
patches Of lights shining out Of dull
level walls, turned now into Candida
bra for candles Of gold fire. The old.
red. gabled. sordid harbor. seen dim
Is, its lights striking like red and yell
low knives into the stasnhnt water.
becomes q kipd Of fairy thing. which
one vaguely remembers TO have seer
in foreign lands. Which? Venice
has no such eager cliffs above her
tanned water; and Venice. for a mo-
msnt, has come into the memory, re-
turning there. as she does at most
OAk1A0 VI 4lOASOo lOVAaV4 uVWu luLC
water. is 1t Alicante? The palms
on tho sand are not here. nothing OF
what IL African in that rare coast 81
epain; but ] remember q certain
likeness in, the hill with tts castle ris-
ms more abruptly over . long.
curved tpwn. winter and stranger
40 go Dover u . whole. you
must stand on the stone parapei
above the landtng-DlAce. where the
steamsrs slide in gently hardly
touching the quay with the wooden
roofs over their propsllers. You mus,
turn your back on the |. which Ii
there really tho sea. and not an EN-.
closed bay. AIsharbor' made for the
ships to come back into. and you
smoke Of the trains: to the white
dull gray. over the long curve Of
white-fronted houses. with their dark.
green balconies and fiat windows se,
It regular intervals; eoing on beyond
them to the east. with many indentar
tons. white, vast and delicate, shut.
ting In the sea With it, high walls
and seeming to throw ont long, thtr
piers TO clutch and 1mpgison 90: Or
the west. Hhakespeare's Cid, and theT
smoke and the long mine-chimpey
and the cliffs turn the corneFs and m
beyond your sight Butt for the .ysrJ
heart of Dover, you must leek under
YOU. where dock s4taS 4ock ltGg mo.
tionleGs, It'd long arms shut eh0st Il,
/ susstA"-fsom sessurdsy N1sht"