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diff --git a/32842.txt b/32842.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a1403ad --- /dev/null +++ b/32842.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1731 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of London Impressions, by Alice Meynell + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: London Impressions + Etchings and Pictures in Photogravure + +Author: Alice Meynell + +Illustrator: William Hyde + +Release Date: June 16, 2010 [EBook #32842] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LONDON IMPRESSIONS *** + + + + +Produced by Chris Curnow and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive.) + + + + + + + + + +LONDON IMPRESSIONS + + + + + LONDON + IMPRESSIONS + + ETCHINGS AND PICTURES + IN PHOTOGRAVURE BY + WILLIAM HYDE + + AND ESSAYS BY + ALICE MEYNELL + + + [Illustration] + + + WESTMINSTER + ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND CO. + 2 WHITEHALL GARDENS + 1898 + + + + +[Illustration: _A Cheap Market._ + +Swan Electric Engraving Co] + + +LIST OF PICTURES + +FULL-PAGE PLATES + + + THE RIVER ETCHING _Frontispiece_ + + WESTMINSTER ABBEY PHOTOGRAVURE _facing page_ 2 + + TERRIBLE LONDON Do. " 4 + + AN IMPRESSION Do. " 6 + + END OF A WINTER DAY Do. " 8 + + UTILITARIAN LONDON Do. " 10 + + KENSINGTON GARDENS Do. " 12 + + NIGHT SCENE, BERMONDSEY Do. " 14 + + THE CLOCK TOWER, WESTMINSTER Do. " 16 + + ST. PAUL'S AT DAWN Do. " 18 + + WATERLOO BRIDGE Do. " 20 + + BELOW BRIDGE Do. " 22 + + ST. PAUL'S FROM WATLING STREET Do. " 24 + + THE VICTORIA TOWER Do. " 28 + + + + +PLATES IN THE TEXT + + + ST. PAUL'S IN A STORM PHOTOGRAVURE _On Title-page_ + + A CHEAP MARKET Do. _page_ v + + A FORGOTTEN CORNER Do. " 1 + + THE NERVES OF LONDON Do. " 6 + + THE EMBANKMENT AT NIGHT Do. " 9 + + TREES ETCHING " 12 + + THE LAST BOAT PHOTOGRAVURE " 19 + + BELOW BRIDGE Do. " 22 + + A BACK STREET Do. " 24 + + A COFFEE STALL Do. " 26 + + RAIN, SMOKE, AND TRAFFIC Do. " 29 + + WESTMINSTER ETCHING " 31 + + + + +LIST OF ESSAYS + + + PAGE + + THE LONDON SUNDAY 1 + + A PILGRIM 4 + + THE EFFECT OF LONDON 6 + + THE CLIMATE OF SMOKE 9 + + THE TREES 12 + + CHELSEA REACH 16 + + THE SPRING 19 + + BELOW BRIDGE 22 + + THE ROADS 26 + + THE SMOULDERING CITY 29 + + + + +[Illustration: THE RIVER.] + + + + +THE LONDON SUNDAY + + +This seems to be a thing that all exclaim against, and but few see. The +phrase is never varied--a sure sign of lack of experience. One cries, 'Oh, +the London Sunday!' and another, 'It must be too dreadful for foreigners!' +and before the topic disappears something yet vaguer has been said, in a +flickering manner, as to the Boulevards. But in fact London Sunday is +little understood even by those who know its aspect, and the greater +number do not know even so much. + + +[Illustration: _A Forgotten Corner._] + + +Obviously, it is one thing in the summer of livelong sunshine, and another +thing in winter. When the tops of the steeples fly a blue and white sky as +far as the eye may see--a broad flag for the streets, and a narrow, +wavering pennon for the alleys; when the reluctant faces of grey houses +are compelled by the fires of the day to bandy reflections with the grey +houses opposite; when the sun himself is lodged in every window, so that +the town multiplies his very face, and sets up suns to the west in the +morning and to the east in the evening--suns in rows, and suns that run +fluctuating along the windows of a long, unequal street; when the +plane-tree is fresh and the leaf of the elm already dry, the London +Sunday, from beginning to end, is passed by the London people out of +doors. For this reason it is difficult to understand it; you cannot tell +whither these streams of people are bound. They all have the gait of +making for some end; they do not stroll, and there is doubtless some +excursion afoot. The number of young men, in proportion to the numbers of +older men, of women, girls, and children, is curious, especially in the +further east. They go in great straggling gangs, and though they do +nothing--not even much talking--they give a false air of lawlessness to +the streaming street. They are the ugliest of all the populace, their +clothing, besides, being the most dull and indescribable, and their +bearing indefinitely defiant. The men of other kinds and ages, and the +women, who needs must balance such a horde of men of twenty, seem to +spend less of their Sunday on the road, and you may see them, accordingly, +in great numbers in the open spaces--the vague lands on the other side of +Clapton, for instance. Very few people of any kind seem to be within their +houses in the free afternoon. + +In spite of the length of London, you may pass from the furthest west to +the extreme east, and from the last country field to the first, so quickly +as to get a continuous Sunday impression--the day and the people flowing, +unfolding, and closing, from suburb to remote suburb, through 'town,' +through the City, through the east, and to the verge of breathless and +unfragrant meadows, divided by a league-long tramway line lost in the +distances of Epping, whither the smoke, from which a south-west wind has +set all London radiantly free, is trailing a broken wing. + +Even in the centre of the City it cannot be said that the main streets are +deserted; for they evidently are all thoroughfares towards the unknown +places to which these thousands and thousands of crossing feet are bent. +But the secondary streets are swept and vacant; and the effect of the +absence of people is to turn the whole picture pale. The asphaltic streets +are almost white, and in this light-grey London, colourless but clear, you +realise how much man darkens and blackens the earth in these latitudes by +his mere presence. The natural surface of the world, it seems, is rather +blond than dark; the quarry is white, and the harvest bright; with which +agrees the delicate, high, and sensitive soft colour of the body. It is a +pity that mere black, brown, and grey dyes should so change the colour of +the race--squalid dyes, in which are steeped the unchanged and the +unwashed garments of these quite innumerable young men. It may be noted +that the great majority of the London Sunday women are fresh to see. We +all know that there are alleys and corners where the women look otherwise, +but those who take their part in this Sunday, so famous in allusions, who +join in the day-long movement on foot and load the tramcars, are clean and +cleanly clad. In Shoreditch and along the out-stretching Kingsland Road +the all-brilliant sun strikes flashes from white dresses and gilds fair +hair attractively arranged. This is one of the surprises of the journey. + +Another surprise is that you fall in love with the City steeples, and find +it dull to pass out of their influence of serenity and fancy to come +amongst the Gothic towers and spires of the suburbs. These last are +studious and consistent, properly retrospective, and full of principle and +history. Moreover, they are well seen, for they stand in the wide dwarf +town, with nothing of their own measure except the Board Schools. All the +shabbier suburbs are dwarfs, and none drop so suddenly and go so near the +ground as the suburbs of the north-east. But there are too many Gothic +towers; whereas of the lovely spires of Wren and of his followers we shall +have no more. No one, it seems, plots to recapture that signal +inspiration, so delicate, so inventive, so full of dignity and freaks. +Nothing is quite so beautiful as the spire of Bow, but it must be +permitted to admire a slender steeple in Shoreditch, and one close to the +Blue-Coat School, the much less ingenious one by the Post Office, even +the prankish one near the Mansion House, besides the beautiful St. Mary's +in the Strand, and the only less charming St. Clement Danes. And all these +lily-like spires have kept, more or less, their paleness in the smirched +and spotted town. They are fine against all the London skies, and never +more beautiful than with a bright grey sky, and the half-sunshine of a +characteristic London day on their happy little cupolas and small and +exquisite columns, except, perhaps, when a westering sun makes their white +a golden rose. St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate, has but a squat spire, set with +flourishing little urns; but it has many trees tossing in the summer wind, +and in its garden a fountain where the pigeons and sparrows bathe +together. Across the geraniums and lobelias of another quadrangle, full of +sun and translucent shadow, you may see the gold of the altar-lights, and +white surplices gilded with that gold. The tradition--a Dickens tradition, +it seems--of the desolate City church is still true as to the numbers of +the congregations: in this open church there are but three people, +exceedingly devout; but the old woman, the beadle, the gloom are gone. + + +[Illustration: WESTMINSTER ABBEY.] + + +There is one respect in which Sunday flatters the town. It fills with iron +blinds and shutters the hollows of the shops whereby London usually looks +as though the houses found a kind of helpless security in their long, +staggering, lateral union, a prop for houses that have lost their feet. +Again, it helps the summer to put out many fires, and helps the live wind +to sift the darkness from the sunlight. + + + + +A PILGRIM + + +Now and then a firefly strays from the vineyard into the streets of an +Italian city, and goes quenched in the light of the shops. The stray and +waif from 'the very country' that comes to London is a silver-white seed +with silken spokes or sails. There is no depth of the deep town that this +visitant does not penetrate in August--going in, going far, going through, +by virtue of its indescribable gentleness. The firefly has only a wall to +cross, but the shining seed comes a long way, a careless alien but a +mighty traveller. Indestructibly fragile, the most delicate of all the +visible signs of the breeze, it goes to town, makes light of the capital, +sets at nought the thoroughfares and the omnibuses, especially flouts the +Park, one may suppose, where it does not grow. It hovers and leaps at +about the height of first-floor windows, by many a mile of dull +drawing-rooms, a country creature quite unconverted to London and +undismayed. This _flaneur_ makes as little of our London as his ancestor +made of Chaucer's. + +Sometimes it takes a flight on a stronger wind, and its whiteness shows +dark with slight shadow against bright clouds, as the whiter snow-flake +also looks dark from its shadow side. Then it comes down in a tumult of +flight upon the city. It is a very strong little seed-pod, set with arms, +legs, or sails--so ingeniously set that though all grow from the top of +the pod their points together make a globe; on these it turns a +'cart-wheel' like a human boy--like many boys, in fact, it must overtake +on its way through the less respectable of the suburbs--only better. Every +limb, itself so fine, is feathered with little plumes that are as thin as +autumn spider-webs. Nothing steps so delicately as that seed, or upon such +extreme tiptoe. But it does not walk far; the air bears the charges of the +wild journey. + +Thistle-seeds--if thistle-seeds they be--make few and brief halts, then +roll their wheel on the stones for a while, and then the wheel is a-wing +again. You encounter them in the country, setting out for town on a south +wind, and in London there is not a street they do not recklessly stray +along. For they use our arbitrary streets; it does not seem that they make +a bee-line over the top of the houses, and cross London thus. They use the +streets which they treat so lightly. They conform, for the time, to human +courses, and stroll down Bond Street and turn up Piccadilly, and go to the +Bank on a long west wind--their strolling being done at a certain height, +in moderate mid-air. + + +[Illustration: TERRIBLE LONDON.] + + +They generally travel wildly alone, but now and then you shall see two of +them, as you see butterflies go in couples, flitting at leisure at Charing +Cross. The extreme ends of their tender plumes have touched and have +lightly caught each other. But singly they go by all day, with long rises +and long descents as the breeze may sigh, or more quickly on a high level +way of theirs. Nothing wilder comes to town--not even the scent of hay on +morning winds at market-time in June; for the hay is for cab-horses, and +it is at home in the clattering mews, and has a London habit of its own. + +White meteor, lost star, bright as a cloud, the seed has many images of +its radiant flight. But there is only one thing really like it--the point +of light caught by a diamond, with the regular surrounding rays. + + + + +THE EFFECT OF LONDON + + +It is no wonder if the painters of London are somewhat eager for the help +of smoke. A simple glance at the streets--and the glance that would +appreciate so mingled a sight as that of London must be simple--shows you +that the detail of our streets is the closest detail in the world. Nowhere +else do the houses, the carriages, and the people, all alike, wear the +minute spots of hard colour that make a London street by bright daylight +look so sharp and small. In cities abroad, for instance, you find some +blank spaces of wall on the fronts of the houses, narrow spaces in the +north, but wider and wider as you go south. In other cities is here and +there a closing of the eyelids with a smoothing of the faces of the +streets; here alone the unshuttered windows are set close together; the +street glances and chatters with the false vivacity of these perpetual +windows. Shops and windows run into rows all but touching one another, or +what interval there might have been betwixt is, by the care of architects, +in some manner harassed and beset. + + +[Illustration: _The Nerves of London._] + + +Add to this the black garments of the crowd, which make every man +conspicuous in the light, and the abrupt and minute patches of +white--exceedingly pure white of sharp shapes and angles--scattered +throughout the drifting and intercrossing multitude. The white of a +footman's shirt, the white of the collars of innumerable men, the white +letters of advertisements, the white of the label at the back of cabs and +hansoms, and many and many another little square, triangle, and line of +white, are visible to the utmost distances. They have an emphasis that is +never softened; nothing, except snow, could be whiter; and nothing, +perhaps, makes so salient a part of the enormous fragmentariness of the +street view. + + +[Illustration: AN IMPRESSION.] + + +There might be as much detail in some other scenes, but that they have not +these shreds and patches of black and white. Of all landscape, for +instance, that of the small culture of Italy and of parts of the East is, +perhaps, the most minute. A little rill of vine is crossed by a short +patch of corn, and among all the sprinkled foliage of fruit-trees, the +olive, with the smallest leaf of all, is the most constant. There is no +liberty, and your sight is taken in a net of green crops; it is trapped on +the ground by tendrils of cucumber, and cannot rise because of maize and +beans, nor can it fly for branches. No tract of grass is wide enough to +make a space of quiet green, and the eyes are kept busy by delicate things +in perpetual interchange. It is not the multitude of a wide clover-field, +where one stroke of the breeze turns a million little faces of flowers +eastwards, for there is hardly any repetition, but an unending +obstruction. Nor can you see anything that is quite simple, unless, +pushing aside a branch of fig-tree with this hand, and a bough of peach +with that, you lift your eyes to the indescribable simplicity of the +distance of mountains. + +Or there is infinite detail in a Thames-side bank of woods between +Maidenhead and Cookham, when all the leaves are out, and all still +young--the characteristic local green of beech, alder, poplar, and ash, +all still unlike each other and undarkened; every separate leaf faced with +colour and light, and backed by mystery and shadow. But yet neither this +nor anything else in nature shows the innumerable minuteness of London in +the sun. The summer sun sends a peremptory summons to every patch of +omnibus, red or blue, to every scrap of harness, to all the broken, +inconsequent accents, all equal, all divided, and all leaping to light. + +In regard to movement, the scenery of the streets has no likeness to +anything in nature. Clouds wing one way, streams flow, trees toss, thrill, +and remain, but the crowd moves all ways without ever changing its spots, +its dull violence of colour and contrast. Summer and day make the streets +impossible for the painter. But the summer of London is most local and +characteristic--not only in the west, when the scent of mignonette and the +recurrent click of the bearing-rein and bit where carriages stand waiting +are the very signs of town; summer at the Bank, summer that gives to the +walls of Lombard Street a faint hint of reflected light, and fills at a +glance ten thousand serried windows with the images of the sun. If there +is everywhere a lack of spirit and sweetness, it is only that sunshine, +with every tree and every flower, is converted to London and turns a +Londoner. + +But such charm as there may still be in the touches of the sun are +perceptible rather in the few streets that keep their ancient narrowness. +Here there is precisely the possibility of that inter-reflection of +sunshine and warm light, from house to facing house, which in its gentle +splendour is the chief loveliness of summer in southern cities, where +walls are here and there blank, and tenderly coloured. Reflected light is +the beauty of shadows, and really one may see a shadow faintly so +transformed in the course of the delicate curves of City streets. Such +curves are not in the wider streets; they are beautiful, apart from the +chances and changes of light which they foster, and many a narrow street +leading to the right and to the left out of Cheapside, or some other of +the central London ways, takes curves as subtle as those of a swimming +fish's tail. Otherwise London curves are distressingly ugly and +dreary--those of a crescent, for example. But as much as the crescent +offends, the light wave of a fish's-tail street pleases the eye, with its +fine deflections. A wave of this kind is frequent enough in villages, but +a certain height in the houses gives it all its character in London. + +Some of these alleys, on one side at least, have also the charm, which is +the rarest thing in town, of a certain steepness in incline. They dip as +they waver, with a motion that tells of a direction towards water. Whether +in village or town there is sea or river, a hidden Mediterranean or a +hidden Thames, at the level to which the sway and swing of the path will +settle. And throughout London the direction of streets seems to be a +rather secret thing, and misleading--the sign of a town that has not been +ordered as a machine is ordered, but has felt its way like an organism. +Slight tendencies, convergences, divergences, lead the streets wandering +and draw lines long astray. Old and forgotten causes have brought to pass +the slight misgoing that first takes the streets apart--old rights or the +accidents of private liberty; and what these began the chances of sequence +have ended, a mile astray. Doubtless, besides, the swing of the river has +tended to set streets a-flowing too. + +But the downward fluctuation of little City streets towards the water is a +briefer thing, and as full of drawing as the upper line of a flexible fan +foreshortened. The long straying streets are too vague for drawing. In +these City lanes, too, there is some rest for the eyes from the infinite +detail of the street, and even from the tyranny of windows. Only in their +warehouses are to be found spaces of plain wall, but unluckily the plain +wall is also black. + + + + +[Illustration: END OF A WINTER DAY.] + + + + +[Illustration: _The Embankment at Night._] + + +THE CLIMATE OF SMOKE + + +It is some little treason to a natural storm to admire too eagerly the +mimic wrack and menace of the paltry tempest of the smoke. Only by +acknowledging the climate of London to be more than half an artificial +climate, and by treating our own handiwork--the sky of our +manufacture--with a relative contempt, are we excused for thinking the +effects in any sense beautiful. Let us avoid serious words of description. +The whirls of floating smoke that darken the sunset are 'lurid' to no very +grand purpose; and the threat from even twice as many kitchen fires never +would be terrible. It is a tale signifying nothing. Let us grant that +there is now and then an effect of handsome grime, but there is no system +in this scenery of smoke. What form seems at times to declare itself is +bestowed by the light. The sun rules from a centre, whatever the +circumference be made of--mist from mountain heights or vapour from that +series of successive fleeting solitudes, the ocean, or refuse from a +million fireplaces; and from this reigning centre his rays seem to compel +a kind of organism. There is no chance-medley where he rules, because of +his long, distributed lights, and straight, infallible, divergent shadows +that pick off the points and pinnacles of a thousand distances. The +lowering sun will not permit the smoke to show so shapeless, so lifeless, +so unbounded as it is; he takes his place in the middle of a wheel, and +commands at any rate a mechanical order. + +Otherwise, and without a sun lowered into your picture, the smoke-mingled +sky is the most unplanned in the world. It has no confederacy, and no +direction. Nothing leads, and there are no figures, no troops, no +companies; there is no history, nor approach. The smoke is helpless. It is +perpetually subject to gravitation; no wind makes it buoyant, and no +electric impetus lifts it against a wind. It constantly and drearily +drops, as you may see if you look against any London horizon; the minute +shower that it carries never ceases and never lifts, but sifts down +momently from the low sky into which the chimneys raised it at first. That +one upward spring was all its life. Thenceforth it does but drift until it +is all shed, to the last black atom, upon the face of the town. + +And yet you may, twenty times a day in London, hear the smoke called +cloud. Thunderstorms are announced as lurking in the heart of the +powerless bosom of the smoke, and showers are threatened where there never +was anything so fresh as a drop of rain. The puny darkness is supposed +capable of lightnings, and out of the grime is expected the thunderbolt. +The splendid name of the cloud is given to this poor local vesture of +decay; no use or custom seems sufficient to make the London sky of +mechanical suspension familiar to the citizen; when he faces it at the end +of a brief distance he calls it by the names proper to the celestial +heights, and he is hardly convinced of the truth when he sees it walk his +streets. + +But, indeed, he might have learned long ago that there is no life in his +storm, and that when thunder comes it wears a different gloom. The worst +is that with the authentic darkness of cloud comes so often the imitation, +and a town tempest is not only mocked, but hidden and covered, by the +pother of mere smoke, so that the citizen does not well learn to +distinguish. But he who has ever really known the cloud will not make that +ignominious confusion. He knows the difference in storm, and so much more +the greater difference in sunshine; he will not call by the name of cloud +a thing that shows the dark shadow grimly enough, but never the light +sweetly, and is naturally incapable of white. + +And yet the artificial climate of London is at its best when it is very +obvious, and when it has strong scenes of sunset or storm to deal with. +The time when it is insufferable is noonday or full afternoon on a +cloudless day in summer, when there is not wind enough to drift it, +helpless, out of town, and when it is not thick enough to keep the sun +away. It makes the sunshine ugly. No beauty, even artificial or obvious, +belongs to the smoke then, and it plays no antic pranks in mimicry of +cloud. It has no shadow and no menace; it has no opportunity for +stage-plays; it is disconcerted, and cannot make a penny theatre of its +London. Every one must know such days, of which the essence should have +been their purity, plain and splendid. By their light is the smoke seen to +be nothing in the world but a sorry smirch. The horizon is thickened with +it, and there it wreaks its chief 'effects,' but all near things are also +oppressed by it; the spirit of the sunshine is gone, and a blazing sun +upon miles of blue slate roofs and yellow houses, with the thin +uncleanness of smoke just showing in the blaze, is actually that +impossibility--sunshine without beauty. + + +[Illustration: UTILITARIAN LONDON.] + + +After this, let us grant the smoke the tragi-comedy of its successes. +These are generally connected with Westminster; it finds matter fitted to +its manner in the surrounding architecture, and in the westward opening. +It suppresses a great deal that is not very presentable, on the +working side of the river, and it reveals what is Gothic on the other +bank. It has a trick of being ashamed of its origin, for it hustles the +long chimneys out of sight. It does really surprising things with the +beautiful dome of St. Paul's; the very formlessness of its presence seems +to give more value to that fine form. It has a way of showing the noble +tops of clouds while it loses their bases in vagueness, which is not +without beauty. You cannot see from what heavenly ranges of highlands +those summits tower, and if they stand into the sunshine their isolation +is the more remote and splendid. But even this is but a handy bit of +scene-shifting; it touches no more than the fancy. + +There is another effect of the London climate, besides the effect of sky +scenery, and that is the local colour wherewith the characteristic smoke, +mingled with a little rain to make a general water-colour, has painted the +surfaces of the town in variants of black. The citizen who--unaware of +such things as the quarter of the wind--takes his umbrella for fear of the +thunderous look of a tremendous smoke-storm to leeward, is apt to take the +touch of soot for the touch of time. Nevertheless, the two dark colours +are quite unlike; time is browner, and has a depth in the tone, whereas +soot is greyer, and at its blackest has no depth. It gives a shallow +colour; and even those who love their sky streaked and tumbled into the +chaos of smoke should not be allowed to defend the _aquarelle_ that +colours their buildings. + +It is true that we no longer offer columns of the Doric order for +treatment by London water-colours; but all the Doric columns we already +have are left subject to this extraordinary substitute for the colouring +of a Laconic sun. We have discovered that terra-cotta and tiles resist the +work of the climate, and no doubt London at a glance presents a less +coal-blackened face than it once wore. But too much of the surface of +London is still the work of that dashing impressionist, the climate. + + + + +[Illustration] + + +THE TREES + + +The high trees that stand stirring and thrilling in the squares in summer +do taste of darkness; night drives home a thousand shadows--thin and +subtle flocks--to fold within the iron railings and to shelter in corners +of the worn and unfragrant grass till morning. But the single trees that +have their roots under grey pavements, and that breathe in the little +accidental standing-places of the wayside, the railed-in corners left by +the chance-medley of London streets--these have the strange fate to be in +perpetual light. They never are washed in darkness; they never withdraw +into that state and condition of freedom, into that open hiding-place, +that untravelled liberty, that wild seclusion at home, that refuge without +flight, that secret unconcealed, that solitude unenclosed, that +manumission of captives, that opportunity of Penelope--darkness. + +The leaves of the street-side tree flutter bright emerald green through +the whole night (out of town the discolouring night) of leafy summer. That +local colour is never quenched, as human blushes are quenched at night. It +rather takes a more conspicuous quality, under the closeness of the +electric light; it is sharply green. Whereas the day has its mists and +veils, and may at times darken a tree nearly black, by setting the sky +alight behind it, the night has none of these shadows. The light of night +is stationary and unchangeable, and there are some solitary trees here and +there that undergo the unshifting illumination at the closest quarters; +the light that knows no hours and makes no journey gleams near upon the +motion of the leaves and glosses their faces. It is beforehand with the +twilight, so that the dusk when it comes finds the place taken, and it +will not let the tree go until the light of day flows in fully, and dawn +is over. + + +[Illustration: KENSINGTON GARDENS.] + + +The sharp green of the plane-tree is never covered, nor are the delicately +sprinkled spots of the poplar-leaves mingled and massed, in these solitary +citizen trees. It is in the avenues and glades of Kensington Gardens +that Night has her way. There amends are made for the common day by a +double mystery. Not a tree is so much as to be known by name; all kinds +sigh together in the dark. The mass is sombre and alive, but betrays +neither leaf nor colour. As violently as the spirit of the woods was +driven away, through all the long daylight, by the sound, the breath, the +blackness, and the stamp and seal of London, which permit nothing +visible--not a blade of grass--to go unmarked by the proprietorship of +this despotic city; so swiftly as the spirit of the woods was hooted and +stared into banishment by day, so quickly, so intently, and in such a +union of multitude does it softly return by night. Solitude comes, the +movement of the forest comes, and remoteness, which by day must be sought +where it abides, comes at a stride to London, and sits in the branches of +the trees. Profound is the forest and august the sky whence the great and +melancholy spirit of the woods comes to restore these daily altered elms. + +Look but at the avenue of the Broad Walk at night, as it is seen from its +northern gate. Some midsummer daylight hovers up the sky, but the coolness +and purity of subtle light are subtly mixed with the thin brown that is +the colour of London. A narrow space of this sombre and delicate sky lies +straight between the two masses of the trees, and they are unmarked, +unbroken, by any single branch or twig astray. The symmetry is absolute; +the wide pathway is one faint grey from foreground to distance. Close to +you, two sentinel trees, one on either hand, hold the gateway of the +majestic avenue, and these only are green, on these only shines the +gaslight of the road. These two are among those London trees that never +bathe in darkness. You can see their branches and their leaves, their soft +encounters with the night-winds, and their articulate composure; but you +see none of such things in the high and dark mass beyond, standing also +precisely to the right, and precisely to the left. + +By day it is a London avenue, and the grass and gravel are, as it were, +disowned by Nature; but now this rigid pattern of a landscape is visibly +in the heart and centre of Nature and Night. No pilgrimage of days can +take a traveller further than the places he is rapt to by a pause, at +night, where distance and dreams themselves have made the journey. + +Or seek the trees earlier in the night; for the trees of Kensington +Gardens are not deprived of the delicate dusk, though the first twilight +has too much of day in it, and the touching restoration does not begin +until the paths are vague and colour is absorbed and effaced by the +influence of the local sky. London passes away from the trees while the +June north-west is still luminous, but barely luminous, and going out so +fast that to watching eyes it seems to flash softly while it darkens, as +though summer lightning were at play under the horizon; then the tender +leaves of penetrable trees, lightly apart in the tree-tops, let showering +glimpses of sky go through. + +If, on the other hand, you turn your own face from the bright regions and +take the leaves with the north-west upon them, on no apple-trees in +orchards, and on no olives in the south, does the subsiding evening look +more sweetly. All is forgotten except the cool ablution of evening upon +the separate leaves. + +Or if there is an early moon, she is as sovereign a restorative as the +dark itself. She touches the high places of avenues within sound of the +London wheels, and they become as simple as tree-tops at Verona. But, +indeed, the moon is plainly seen to bring this dignity and liberty from +the simple skies. All the world knows her to be like that lady of the +poets who spoke to none that was not worthy, because before she talked +with men she 'knighted them with her smile.' It is one of the tyrannies +wreaked by the electric light and the gas-lamps upon the street-side tree +that they keep away from it the glimpses of the moon. Not only is secret +darkness forbidden, but the secret light is quenched. The tree waves +softly all night in the unaltering lamplight, and the moonlight is killed +upon its leaves. + +As to these lights of London lamps, their beauty, which is so great, seems +to depend almost entirely upon the sky. See them as they glow in the long +unequal curves that follow the subtly misleading directions of the streets +of London, and in all their brilliancy they make but a common show--pretty +enough, but not beautiful. But let any lamp or line of lamps come into +visible relation with the sky--any sky, whether a mysterious night-sky +softly embrowned, or a night-sky swept pure by a west wind, or the most +ordinary grey of any average evening--and the lamp has indescribable +beauties. I have seen a grey blue sky at the earliest moment when street +lamps were alight at all, and radiant against the light grey of its +invisible and equal clouds an electric lamp has been reared: an electric +lamp of cold white light, pure and keen, and armed with intense and +splendid arrows that would pierce day itself. Light grey sky and thrilling +lamp together make--or so it seems to me--one of the most beautiful sights +that eyes can see--the most refined, most severe, and most exquisite. This +carbon electric light is so much disliked because, no doubt, it was +generally seen under the glass and iron of a railway station. Seen with +the sky it cannot but be seen to be most beautiful. The golden +lights--electric lamps or gas lamps--have the beauty of fire, but the +white lamp has the beauty of light. The golden, too, however, cannot be +seen at their best but in one picture with the sky. + +London at night has begun, of late, so to multiply her lights that they +make all her scenery. A search-light suddenly draws the eye up to the +chimney-pots (sweetly touched, they too, on the westernmost of their +squalid sides) and to the unbroken sky; and then at once the eye travels +down its shaft, revealing clouded air; and here a puff of steam from some +machine at work on the new underground railway takes colour on its curves. +Or the search-light makes the programme of a music-hall to shine black and +white upon the wall; anon, an advertisement is written in light, and +perpetually among the even progress of the carriage lights flit the lamps +of bicycles. And if, from a heart of glowing lights, you look into the +streets, you find them so filled with blue air that there is evident blue +between you and the houses opposite. + + +[Illustration: NIGHT SCENE, BERMONDSEY.] + + +The street-corner tree has always the golden gas and the blue air; upon it +rains a sky that is not seen to darken for rain, and you hear the drops, +silent elsewhere, upon its open leaves. + + + + +CHELSEA REACH + + +The worst of all reasons for continuing anything is that it is easily +continuable. The Houses of Parliament have an air as though you could take +them on along the river towards Chelsea without any necessity for +stopping. But that very suggestion prompts its own refusal. No man would +hold this characteristic to be one that makes for the beauty of a design; +what there is of a really fine building never prompted the wish that it +were to be prolonged. And although an embanking wall is not the same thing +as a building, yet of even an embankment it may be said that the fact that +it is already very long is at any rate a poor reason for making it longer. +When the thing is not altogether admirable, it would be hard to urge a +better reason for making no more of it. This is worth saying in +consideration of a recent measure of improvement directed against the last +bit left of the Chelsea foreshore. The measure was urged on the plea of +uniformity, which obviously has reference to the beauty of the bank. +Therefore when the protesters against the change were accused--as +doubtless they were--of opposing it for reasons of sentiment, they might +well answer that the County Council also has reasons of sentiment. '_Le +coeur a ses raisons!_' The feeling for uniformity is a sentiment, like +another. While, then, uniformity is one of the 'reasons of the heart' of a +County Council, the inhabitants of Cheyne Walk are free to press reasons +of their own hearts. + +The Embankment stops short at its westward end, in the course of Cheyne +Walk, just below the place where the river leaves a little bend which is +an inlet, an incident, of the long Reach. Call the curve a gulf, and this +is a little bay within it. The bay is a small, forgotten, abiding, +unremarked shore, with a great deal of modern London not only below it, +but above it, on its further side--that is, between it and the vaguest +beginnings of the country. Nevertheless, it is not modern at all. It looks +like the overlooked little bits of cottage, tiled cottage-roof, and +cottage front-garden, that are to be seen forgotten in the roaring streets +of Fulham--true bits of village in the depths of town. But in any case it +is to go, even though the gulf is saved. Let us say at once that there may +be two intelligible opinions as to the Embankment at Westminster and +Charing Cross. There is something due to the worldly dignity of a great +city. The distinction of London was once that it was not a great city +but a great village. It was a little town, widespread; and until the +raising of some of the best of the new buildings on the left bank, there +was nothing conspicuously fine to contradict the village character except +Somerset House. The great stations and the busy Gothic of the Houses of +Parliament were not influential enough for this. Now, however, it is +somewhat different. Two buildings at least in the line of new hotels and +offices seem good enough to make rules. They are not of the dignity of +Somerset House, but they will serve. For a space, then, where they stand, +the village-London is done away. And only for a village-London, a London +keeping its own distinctive character, would a broken, accidental, muddy +shore, with its tidal rhythm of mud and wave, be fit. This left bank at +least is, for a space, _grande ville_. We cannot altogether grudge its +Embankment. + + +[Illustration: THE CLOCK TOWER, WESTMINSTER.] + + +But if there is a mile of London village left--and therefore of the most +London-like London--it is at Chelsea. The reason of the County Council's +heart, even, ought to confess thus much. And the village-character is in +its vitality on the curving foreshore of this long Reach. A great part of +the district near is a village of yesterday, and mean enough, but the +river-side of wharf and barge and tidal change is a village river-side of +long ago. It is lowly enough, not mean at all. It is the scene of business +as old as civilisation; man-power and horse-power, and the movement of +wind and water, seem to do the greater part of the work among them. It is +the counterpart of spade cultivation on the Jersey _coteaux_, though this +is all river and that all earth; but both are simple. The chimneys on the +right bank are a long way off, the gasworks higher up are out of sight. +You can forget the great bridges down stream; and looking towards the +light the view is animating. + +Inasmuch as the Thames flows here north-eastward, when you look to the +south-west by Chelsea Reach, in the early afternoon of windy spring, you +look at once towards the gates of light, the gates of the wind, and the +gates of the river. There seems to be one sole spring and source in the +day. The way is, beyond description, open. For the waterway is the flat of +the world, and everywhere else in London are houses; here is a real +horizon. Here you get the proportions of a great sky, as you get the +proportions of a great church when there are no benches on the floor to +shorten them. The clouds come upon the south-west wind of the early year, +a little cold with the strength of freshness, and not with chill, and give +and withhold a hundred lights. + +Those who do not like the name of mud should see how these lights are +answered by the floor of mud in simple silver and steel. Twice a day the +motion of the wave is there, twice a day the still shore. With that +cradling change go the changes of the boats and barges at the wharves. All +is life, but there is no colour, except where you very dimly perceive that +a sail is red as the sails are on the Adriatic. It is a view to teach +painting, to teach seeing. We have not such another school in London as +Chelsea Reach. If Chelsea ever becomes _grande ville_ too, the shape of +the river will be altered, and the profile of that curve, sharp and fine +with masts against the west will be abolished: there will be no beauty of +tides, no silver wet mirror, no barges. + +There is nothing quite like Chelsea. The spoiling of Chelsea will not be +the same thing as the spoiling of the country by pushing on a suburb, for +instance; for in that case there is country beyond, only deferred. But +there is no Cheyne Walk, no Chelsea, further up the river, or anywhere in +the world of rivers. + + + + +[Illustration: ST. PAUL'S AT DAWN.] + + + + +[Illustration: _The Last Boat._] + + +THE SPRING + + +There is a splendid spring in town, and it happens to agree with the +country spring as to the time of appearing; but it is another show, and of +another spirit. The difference is curiously complete; it was, no doubt, to +be looked for in the avenues, in the sward, in the winding water, and in +the Park generally, considered as a landscape. But how is the grass itself +London grass? Not only in its acre of intense green, but in the space of a +square foot that might, one would think, be anywhere, it is London grass. +The leaves, the blades, are London growth. You cannot evade the spirit of +place by shutting out the sky, the railings, the people, or the gravel. +Even if you go close and make acquaintance, as a child does, with the +roots, you are aware that it is not the grass of England that you have +there, but the grass of London. + +The leaves of the trees have so vulgar a contrast in the black of stems, +branches, and twigs, that they are from the first obviously not the leaves +of the woods. They are all the better admired by many eyes, for whom the +modest contrasts of nature are not enough; and you may hear the black and +green of the parks praised for this same immoderate effect of colour. But +the grass has nothing to tell that tale of the London winter which the +branch tells; it is this year's; it has no past; it is innocent, and +answerable to the sun for merely its few inches of simple green. It might +be supposed to have the graces of an alien in London. But it has them not +at all; it comes up a Londoner. You cannot be really intimate with it; and +when it puts up its little flower, and your child brings it home to you +hot from a clenched hand, even then it has nothing, nothing whatever, of +the fields. You put it into water to flatter the child, but even there, +given by that little alien hand, and so isolated from its park and its +railings, it is unmistakably the grass of its own soil; it manifestly +could never have been romping with little young dandelions on the side of +a village road, or tossed by visiting winds scented with meadows. + +The London spring is a good thing, but it is another thing. It is only +because of the accident by which the real spring and the London spring +appear at the same time of the year that they have come to bear the same +name, and even to be confused together by the insensitive. A handful from +the hedgerows twenty miles away--a handful, already half faded, of mingled +things at random, grass and herbs, not free from traces of white and warm +rustic dust--an authentic little heap from the real spring, would show at +once to all apprehensive eyes what the difference really is. And yet there +must be careless or worldly birds that do not know it. Otherwise we should +not hear such songs from the remotest river-sides sung within Kensington +Gardens. Let no one pretend, however, that the bees are deceived or +indifferent. + +Nor let it be said that the difference is superficial. That is precisely +untrue; it is the likeness that is superficial, and the difference +essential. The London spring is a brilliant image of the real spring. It +is fresh when the real April is fresh; and when it grows dim you could +match it with specimens from the country wayside. Nay, soot and smoke +themselves cannot disguise the real spring growth and make it look like +the London. That can easily be proved. After two weeks in which you are +unconvinced of May by the green and dazzling parks, you will get the very +thrill of May from a square yard of very young nettles and young weeds of +many kinds, seen from a railway carriage and touched with the railway +dust. There is cleaner grass by the Speke Monument, but this that grows by +the railway is out of town; it is of another kind; it is of the other +spring. Somewhere, past the suburbs, the London spring had its frontier, +and, this past, the sun and the sap dawned and rose with sudden authority, +and spring was real. + +Knowing how intimate is the sense of smell, one might think that the +absence of the scent of the earth might account for all the deep +difference of London. But it is not so; for you know the real spring by +mere sight. Still, the lack of that fragrance is much. The earth is home, +and the scent of it is the scent of infancy and home. Childhood knows it +better than does the ploughman following the new furrow. Childhood has had +it so near, and has learned it once for all, and will never be deceived, +nor will the man who has had a childhood near living earth; he knows that +the springs are two. He knows, for he remembers that he knew, the spirit +of the place. That is an aura that lies near the ground. It is a warm +atmosphere that does not rise, but breathes by little garden plots in +corners; is the very spirit of rivulets and brooks; lurks amongst the +maiden-hair that covers the fresh waters of Mediterranean hillsides, and +amongst the gravel of old sunny garden terraces; is so caught in moss that +the air where moss grows seems to imprison it; and passes quick into the +nostrils of young children. All low-growing flowers--ground-ivy, and +things that are not so tall as grass--are entangled with the spirit of +place. Low box hedges are intricate with it, and with the spirit of +antiquity, because they are no higher than the heads of very little +children, whose hearts conceive antiquity and the genius of places. They +know the breath of the parks well. What children know--what they +knew--we have never forgotten. And yet all the differences which they +learned--the difference between the weak odour of soot and the gentle +odour of earth, and the difference between the click of the bit and the +sound of the bee--are not the real difference between the town spring and +the spring of the natural world. They are mere signs and proofs; the fact +lies deep and close; there are two springs. + + +[Illustration: WATERLOO BRIDGE.] + + +And yet, across all boundaries, across the frontier of the suburbs, what +is this strange scrap of the real May of the natural world dropped into +the midst of the May of London? A scrap of that true spring alighted in +the midst of the very winter would hardly look so strange as this shred of +the very spring in the spring of town. It is but some accidental grass or +leaf that has been shed and sown by some west wind upon the edges of the +tiles of a little old poor roof in town. Not into the parks did it fly, +not amongst the flower-walks or on the great sward, emerald green. It +hovered and flitted into the middle of town, a little flock of wild lives. +The enormous spring, the May of all the earth, unmarked, disguised by a +delusive likeness to the London spring, has visited the town. It is a +dainty _incognito_. It signals to those who know; but if Vestries +recognised it--and supposing they cared enough for roofs of that kind, +which they do not--they would take that grass up by the roots. + + + + +BELOW BRIDGE + + +The first impression, and, needless to say, the longest, is that of the +many miles of wharves compared with the few miles of embankments, drives, +and of the holiday river generally. Not only have the black and brown +warehouses, the chimneys, and the cranes possession of the whole right +bank of the London Thames, but they hold both banks of the lower Thames +through league-long reaches and noble curves, and such changes of aspect, +sky, and direction as renew the scene by the rule of the sky. + + +[Illustration: _Below Bridge._] + + +Besides this slow variation of light, in which the view wheels under the +wheeling cloud, there is no lack of variety along the dusky banks of the +river of commerce. The subsidence of height along the warehouses as the +river draws further and further from the middle of London is an incident +of continuous interest, interrupted now and then, but holding on +persistently, until the carrying river flows through a dark-gabled, low, +and long village towards the eastern woods and heights and the further +fields. + + +[Illustration: BELOW BRIDGE.] + + +Of really old buildings, wooden and small, and in any conventional sense +interesting, there is little indeed, but such as it is it takes the eye +instantly. Looking along the swarthy, unequal frontage of brick houses +that are no houses--somewhat as the _biblia abiblia_ of Charles Lamb are +among books,--you find the face of a single human little house, its timber +looking old, delicate, and pale among the bricks; a Limehouse +harbour-master's title is written across the face, and it is in fact dwelt +in--propped in the serried row that has the sightless aspect of a +barn. There is therefore almost nothing of what used to be called the +picturesque. Nevertheless, the whole continuous line has far more approach +to beauty than any street of 'handsome' houses with columns and porticoes +in the whole of western London; moreover, it is much finer than Regent +Street. For the form of the normal warehouse is anything but bad; there is +a good deal of plain wall, which--unless a building be in every way +wrong--gives dignity; the windows are not too many, and for a mile at once +the general repeated form is that of a single gable and a flat front. With +this you cannot have anything entirely corrupt. + +True, now and then there is a region or tract of buildings--'works,' these +seem to be, not warehouses--that touch the extremity of possible ugliness +and dreariness, and are flat-roofed, rectangular, and, without +exaggeration, black. These are very few--two or three at the most--and all +on the right bank. Otherwise the skyline of buildings is low, broken, +pointed, and very various. + +Low as it is, it is always--seen from the deck of a boat--the very +skyline. From that low point of view the scene is made of river and boats, +warehouses, and sky. Of the thronging town beyond, on either bank, nothing +appears; you have got rid of streets, and, with streets, of all the +movement, the rattle, the people, the inland perspectives. The face of +river-side buildings looks almost unbroken; it lets no glimpse pass +through. There might be marshes or fields beyond; it is only by the map +that you know these two dark banks to be the edges and hems of cities. + +The swarthiness, the darkness of the colour--a brownish grey--is to be +insisted upon; yet to none but a careless eye does the lower Thames seem +all brown and grey. The dull hues are shot with one single prevailing +colour--red. Innumerable red-tiled roofs are seen as the turn of the river +shows their dusky sides; iron sheds are ruddled with the red that signs +flocks of country sheep; shutters are red over warehouse windows (this is +a Sunday view), and everywhere are the red sails of Venice, dyed in the +selfsame dye, only differently lighted. Even when there is a difficulty in +fixing the place of this negroid blush, it is perceptibly there. It is +latent, even when no red sail rises between grey water and grey sky; it +lurks in hollows and inlets so darkly as to be almost black. Then suddenly +the scarlet of a huge black and scarlet steamer comes along and gives you +the colour without a shred of mystery, without charm, and with the most +definite division. Besides the red, there is nothing that is coloured +except a stack of timber now and then--raw wood with precisely the colours +of a wheatfield in August--and the piled-up hay of a red-sailed barge +loaded down to the water. These are not many on the Sunday river, but +Sunday clears the colours by clearing the air. There is exceedingly little +smoke; its sign is upon the whole river-side, it has re-drawn everything +in black, as a child might go over a water-colour with his black pencils, +but between you and the natural clouds there is nothing but fresh air, +quick with the movement that seems perpetually to follow this grey +waterway. Or now and then, at long intervals, a single flimsy puff of +smoke comes between mast and sky; it is brown, the steam is white, and +the cloud silver grey; and through each of these three with a various +gleam filters the flying sunshine. + +Sunday seals the faces of the barns and turns the key upon the leagues of +wharves; but it leaves all the cranes and masts etched in their thousands +upon the low horizon. These make the thicket of the Thames-side, a +deciduous, narrow wood winding east, south-east, and north, and standing +everywhere in its brief winter of a day, having shed sails and burdens and +put away noise. There is nothing in the handsome London of high houses so +delicate as these lifted lances against the sky. Hop-gardens or vineyards, +or the slender rows of sticks that carry pea plants and beans in rustic +gardens, make the same play with light, and let it through as fine a +design. + + +[Illustration: _A Back Street._] + + +Here is nothing of the sharp black and white detail that is the most +salient thing in London streets; everything is painted softly; all the +darks are dull; in a word, the scene is simple, and this the streets are +never. It is simplicity, indeed, that makes all the buildings (except only +the 'works' above mentioned) more than tolerable. There are no +advertisements. This means much to eyes too well used to those shreds and +tatters of the wall. That commerce which makes so much paltry show in the +West is here perfectly grave and quiet; it makes serious announcements, +not advertisements, of the things that occupy navies. You see 'Pickles' +and other names that launch a thousand ships, written large over various +landing-places, and the names of the owners of warehouses are broad across +their fronts; or you are reminded how little you know of the affairs of +the place by the frequent name of 'Sufferance Wharf' among the cranes. It +cannot possibly be said that this lettering is beautiful, but it is not +nearly so bad as the lettering in the streets we know. Needless to say, +you shall not see a scrap of gilding below bridge, except a momentary +tawdriness near the pier of some excursion place, where there are unseen +Cockney gardens at hand--no gilding, nor white, nor any kind of blue. +Seeing that bad blue is the worst thing in the far-off town of paint and +pleasure, the dark and reddish river-side of work has here again one of +its obscure advantages. + + +[Illustration: ST. PAUL'S FROM WATLING STREET.] + + +The work, almost all pausing in this summer Sunday, is obviously, to +judge by its instruments and chips, mainly the inhuman work of machines. +Nevertheless, wherever there are boats there is that arm of Hercules which +is heroic, and therefore greater, though much weaker, than the arm of +iron; and even on this day you may see the toil of the arm against the +mass of the heavy river, as two men stand to row their broad barge up +stream. It is the most primitive contest after all. Their figures strain +back on the long oar until they are stretched nearly straight horizontally +before they slowly gather themselves and grow erect again. Nothing suits +the river so well as the barge with its level load, flat as the water +itself. Nothing a-tiptoe there; but the very surface of the world reaching +to the sea, and the long river feeling for that level far inland. + +The dusky voyage darkens, for the Thames turns towards the north; anon it +takes a pale grey splendour, the sky shines, and the delicate intricacy of +masts that mar nothing of the simple view seems to be rather itself +luminous than dark against the light; flying birds are lost as they pass +in the upper brilliance. It is but that the Thames has swung towards the +south again. + + + + +THE ROADS + + +On Westminster Bridge at early morning Wordsworth thought of the heart of +London, but a view of London in the long day and night of movement, when +the mystery of sleep is away, suggests not the involuntary heart of men, +but their wilful feet. The roads, which are lonely messengers in the +far-off country, crowd together here, and hustle one another to give +footing to the tramp of the people. London has a fantastic look, as though +there were nothing to do but make haste to be gone. To look at London from +some point of height--a rare opportunity--is to trace these ways of +passionate escape. The roads, indeed, seem eager, but you know that the +crowds who, by these curves and knots, these straight lines, and these +intent, narrow, dark grey levels, traced with narrower steel, elude the +town, are in no more than jog-trot haste, and wear no look of fugitives. +Of them and of their detail there is no sign in this distant prospect. The +movement of the people in London is here no more perceptible than the +molecular motion in a diamond. + + +[Illustration: _A Coffee Stall._] + + +But the roads are all expressive of this energy of flight from a centre. +They are, as it were, signs of a perpetual explosion; they are the fringe +of the _melee_, the shooting, streaming outbreaks of the photosphere of +London. They hunt and are hunted. They fly from the city of confusion. It +is only by escaping that they become visible, and out of the uncertainty +of the smoke the hasty roads clear themselves as they make for light and +the open ground. It seems as though the steady strength of their curves +did in itself express some force and impulse. The railways run; their +foreshortened sweeps and reaches look like the swinging and swaying of +resolute motion. The town would shoulder them, but they evade and slip +through, slender and keen, with a stroke of their flying heels. They +crawl, but they crawl with the dominant level and liberty of flight in +air. + +They begin in the tangle of the town, but smoothly untie themselves and +pass away single and swift. No other road looks so resolute in flight as +the rail. The others jostle one another as they hurry from town, and must +needs relax their eagerness in order to climb the hills--brief and little +ones though these are. The roads pause on the mounds, they hesitate at +crossways, and they dip into slight and shallow valleys, whence they do +not see the riot of walls and roofs from out of which they go. + +The azure June hardly leaves a trace of the local grey of smoke. All, by +some accident of aspect, is a vague blue, although the smoke, seen from +the Greenwich heights, leaves nothing unveiled, cancels the horizon, and +barely lets the lovely dome of St. Paul's show a dark blue form upon the +close background of thick and sunny air. And blue, like the rest, is that +one wide road which takes here so majestic a sweep--the river. It is the +river of chimneys; they stand, on either bank, as unequal in growth as a +group of children; they crowd together, they stand apart, they straggle, +but if they have any law, it is the river's. They mark its path as reeds +and rushes might do in meadows. The hidden reaches are traced by this +black growth, followed and discovered. The chimneys will hardly let the +river go, but cling to the track of his waters when the town is dwindling +eastwards, and stand conspicuous among the flats when the houses have at +last, at last, ceased. Apart from the river they are almost as rare in +London as in Naples, and it is not to them we owe the chief part of our +'sky,' but to the steamers, to the trains, and, more than all, to the +unnumbered houses. If ever London is to be restored to her own mists--not +to great brightness, but to the tender exhalations that are now burlesqued +by smoke, to the true climate of nature, the marshes, and the north, it +will obviously be the work of laws touching the houses rather than the +factories. + +The river is perpetually overhung, involved, tangled, in that indefinite +and unshapely cloud. It looks blue from the Greenwich hill, but not blue +with the blue of pure sunny waters; it is blue because blue is the trick +of this midsummer light seen from this one point. The blue road lies open +and flat, from the dazzling confusion of the west, whence it comes, to the +dimmer confusion of the north, whither the great curve tends. It is a road +more level than the tyrannously level rails, but there is no haste in it. +The unceasing motion of the tidal Thames seems to make it wait about the +bridges of London. The accustomed versifier himself will hardly bid it +flow on, so often is it seen to flow back. Because it is so constantly +chidden and driven by the sea, the long tendency, brought from its first +source and kept between so many fields and over all the noisy weirs, is +concealed. That flowing lurks still, but you cannot find it among the +rhythmic tides. It is not expressed, and there is no sense of the final +sea in the coming and going of these turbid waters. The unceasing seaward +flow is their secret. + +But it is only upon this ambiguous road of the river that any human motion +is perceptible in this distant view. Barges are seen to float heavy and +flat, and at certain points there is the vague suggestion of some stir at +wharf or pier. Otherwise the scene keeps all its hurry out of sight and +hearing. But for the vague shifting and alteration of the light, London +might be a painted city. The little figure of man is so quenched, +incredibly. His town keeps the black crowds and their voices out of reach, +and it is difficult to believe in the noise, so deaf is the distance. + +London is at the mercy of her roads, and it is no wonder the fancy should +give them life. And now it is for their coming, not their going, that they +seem in haste. The town has covered up the original and all-fruitful +earth; her pavements seal up all the springs of earthly life, and her +roads are loaded with the fruits of earth unsealed. It is upon her, then, +that the roads are turned with boat, train, and cart charged with her +bread. What flocks and herds are daily hunted into the unproductive town, +the town wherefrom nothing, nothing--for all its factories--takes birth; +the town that visibly burns up, with never-ceasing reek of the +never-ceasing burning, the substance of the world. The flame of life is +fed fully in a thousand forms, and the flame of fire, smouldering in the +furnaces at the foot of these chimneys, is the sign of the enormous +sacrifice. + + + + +[Illustration: VICTORIA TOWER, WESTMINSTER.] + + + + +THE SMOULDERING CITY + + +Because the town covers her fires, sits darkling in her daily and nightly +burning, and sequesters flame from flame in a thousand thousand little +chambers of their own, there is but small show of the perpetual devouring +whereby fire abides among men as a long companion. Ariel of a hotter name +and of a wilder element, willing and brief, delicate and eager, quick to +finish and be gone, a hasty servant, is fire the mere visitant, unused to +these long hours. But fire in London never escapes. It is bound in +perpetual business, and if it flashes away for a moment it is recaptured +in another flash, and if it slips away under cover of ashes it is +overtaken and bound to the task again. Man, then, willingly pays the wages +of such a wildness in servitude, and spends mines and forests to keep the +mobile creature close within his gates. + + +[Illustration: _Rain, Smoke and Traffic._] + + +If there is little show of that multitudinous presence, there is a +broadcast sign of it. 'No smoke without a fire'; and the sky of London +continually betrays her house-mate. It is the flag signalling the presence +of the unseen creature; not by colour and brilliance like its own, but by +a folding and unfolding of banners of darkness. The quicker and hotter the +enclosed fire, the duller is the sign. It is a sign that denies and +confesses at once. Not a curl of flame, not a glow of furnace is visible +under the hurrying blackness of river-side smoke that hangs house and wall +with the grey tokens of invisible and splendid flame. Fire is the blush, +and when London shows colour it is the cool red, not the hot. + +Such colour has been all alight on many midsummer evenings. Hardly a town +away from these dark latitudes could show a fresher or fuller flash of +dyes. A coloured sky, a coloured sun, coloured cloud, the red of brick +softly empurpled, or made rosy, or turned a frolic scarlet, and the green +of trees, yet undarkened by the later days of summer--all this stirs and +lightens under the soft hurry of a west wind, so that a drive between +seven and eight o'clock is a surprise of red and blue. White is +wanting--the white surface that would look beautiful in western sunshine. +All the white is bad and unfortunate, whether it is the paint of Regent +Street or the stucco of suburbs; and where there is no beauty of white +there must be much lacking. It is grotesque to find the silly oil-paint +gloss of the Quadrant glazing back the tender sun, where one looked for +white made luminous. Seldom does the country landscape fail--especially +where it is gently populous--to hold up some tempered white to the rosy +sun; where there is no chalk or white quarry, or cliff, or white +hawthorn-tree or white cherry, there is the welcome whitewash of a cottage +wall. London, undecked with its white, and wearing little or no yellow, +has nevertheless a choice of these kindling reds of her various bricks; +and so decked with the colours of fire she is at her freshest. It is as +when you touch the red of a deep cheek and find it cool. + +The general fire has no part in the coloured evening; that sunny wind +blows the sign of flame away. In the thicket of fire there is no red brick +or green tree, or rosy cloud, or any light blue sky. Those who find +something to complain of in the rebuilding of the west of London in brick, +because the architecture is not everywhere what it should be, are hardly +thankful enough for the colour. The builder may build amiss, but he builds +with a colour that becomes all our skies, whether grey or bright. One day +he will, perhaps, begin a fashion of using much more white, in brick and +tile, and the fiery town will look relieved from her suggestion of fever. +Ruddy roofs abound in the poorer town, where red walls are absent; they +are built up with grey and black, needless to say, in such a manner that +their old gables are hidden in square frontages and straight cornices, and +their colours made invisible except to a view from above. It is from a +high railway that you may see the darkened but still soft and charming +colour spreading from roof to roof of the cottage-streets of older London, +until it looks--fading eastwards--as though it were itself some effect of +a London sunset. That flush almost reaches the regions of the red-hot +eastern furnaces hidden coldly under black and grey. + +The waters of the Thames could hardly quench so great a multitude of +imprisoned flames. Fire is the secret of the Thames itself, lurking as it +does in the ships and boats; the black barges are charged to feed it, and +the airs that wander with the river fan it to its perpetual work. It is +trained within its little shrines, and leaps in chains and captivity, and +runs in narrow courses. With its cold ashes and its cold grime, with the +burden of its chill refuse, all the remote roads and byways of the town +seem to be utterly choked and filled. + +When the Great Fire of London came out of its hiding-places and took life +in the air of day, it made ashes of more evident and conspicuous things, +but it can hardly have made more ashes and cinders than it makes daily +under cover. London is not destroyed again, but it has become the place of +immeasurable destruction. Moreover, since the smouldering city is a city +of men, the life of men, so multiplied, makes London a very centre of +fires insatiable. That life burns within five millions of furnaces. Life +feeds itself by fire, but out of London we are accustomed to see it at its +consuming work side by side with the signs of unceasing re-creation. Man, +woman, and child, sprinkled over the labouring land, are separate flames +far apart like the marsh flames of wildfire. Between them graze the sheep, +the wheat turns brown, or the apple reddens, and the husbandman's life +itself is immediately paid again in labour to the soil. Whereas London +visibly works at nothing but transformation. + +The delicate fire, that plays and vanishes elsewhere, but cannot vanish in +London, has nowhere else so gross and dead a following. Even in the north, +where the factory makes a denser cloud, you find the blue close by, and +the horizon cleaner, or so it seems. Little distant things on the verge, +the lashes of the eyes of earth and sky, are more perceptible than they +are in London, even with a west wind. Here the fiery Ariel has no delicate +companionship, no one near but Caliban. + + +[Illustration] + + +Edinburgh: T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of London Impressions, by Alice Meynell + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LONDON IMPRESSIONS *** + +***** This file should be named 32842.txt or 32842.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/8/4/32842/ + +Produced by Chris Curnow and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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