I like Elsom. It is a seaside in the south of England, not very far from brigton, and it has something of the late Georgian charm of the agreeable town. But it is neither bustling nor garish. Ten years ago, when I used it there not infrequently, you might still see here and there an old house, solid and pretentious in no unpleasing fashion (like a decayed gentlewoman of good family whose discreet pride in her ancestry amuses rather than offends you) which was built in the reign of the first gentleman in Europe and where a courtier of fallen fortunes may well have passed his declining years