The sea is at its best at London, near midnight, when you are within the arms of a capacious chair, before a glowing fire, selecting phases of the voyages you will never make.

Tomlinson wryly contrasts the romance of seafaring with the comfort and safety of imagining it. “The sea” becomes an aesthetic and literary experience—something most vivid not on deck in bad weather, but in a London sitting room, late at night, warmed by a fire and cushioned by an armchair. The line satirizes armchair adventurism and the way travel can be consumed as selective “phases” or highlights, curated from books and daydreams rather than lived hardship. At the same time, it acknowledges the genuine power of imagination: the sea’s allure can be strongest when it is mediated by memory, narrative, and desire, not by salt, danger, and fatigue.