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LONDON—7 P.M. TO 8 P.M. · Around the Clock in Europe : A Travel Sequence

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Section seven of Around the Clock in Europe a Travel Sequence. This is a
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LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information
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or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Around the Clock in Europe
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a Travel Sequence by Charles fish Howell, London, seven p m To eight
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pm. It will probably have seemed to many that in London the evening hour
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between seven and eight o'clock is the most distinctive and significant of the twenty four,
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the one that is most expressive of the city's real life and character.
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It has something in its mellowness and repose that stimulates in the spectator a subtle
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receptiveness and quickens a special sensitiveness to the trooping impressions of this manifold, multifaceted
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community. One comes nearest then to truly sensing colossal, world, weary,
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indomitable London as she relaxes a gracious hour to catch breath in the turmoil and
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struggle that has endured for more than a dozen centuries. For quite the same
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reason as you would not say that the ocean is most characteristic in either calm
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or storm, but rather when rolling in long and steady swells. So London
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is not so much her real self at her most vacant hour of sunrise,
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when the milk carts clatter where the omnibuses usually are, and the street lights
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turn as wan and sickly as the tramps on the benches, nor yet at
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the height of her turbulence, when busy men are dashing hatless about cheapside and
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loaded drays are delayed for hours in traffic blocks, but rather in the agreeable
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period of early evening let up. While truce is effective between the working hours
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of day and the playing hours of night, of course, lead up is
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meant in a imperative sense only, for in the bright lexicon of London there
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is properly no such word. But there comes at seven o'clock at least as
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much of a lull as is ever to be looked for. Here, the
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savage roar of the streets is dulled to a deep growl, the crowds become
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shuffling and idle, and their relative depletion, and the proportionate activity and congestion
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in restaurants, pensions and hotel dining rooms are eloquent of the fact that the
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great city is now engaged in solemn rites before the roast beef of old England.
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Nor does the altered complexion of things come amiss to the distracted foreign visitors,
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who, though at odds and everything else, are of one opinion in
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this that without reservation on the part of humor during the greater part of the
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day, they cannot see London for the people. By that they mean that
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the life of the streets is so intense and so varied that it proves a
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serious distraction from taking adequate note of the appearance and significance of the city itself.
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It is therefore, with profound satisfaction that they welcome an hour in which
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they may devote a portion of their energy to something more edifying than jostling pedestrians
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or escaping sudden and sordid destruction by motor car, handsome or bus. It
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is now that the town throws off the yoke of its drivers, and the
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very buildings become distinct with individuality and character, every little, dim and noiseless
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square, each broad and lordly park, the massive mansions of the great whose
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names have been in history for ages, business blocks of old world charm to
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which trade seems the merest incident blackened pavements and Wren's slender steeples, Every memory,
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haunted, nook and corner, all wrought by smoke and fog to a
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blood brotherhood of neutral tones are joining the song Father Thames's singing of dignity,
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power and grandeur. All breathe the common exaltation of being London. It is
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more than self assertion. It is apotheosis. If this may seem an extravagant
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idea to some, it is certain that there can be but one mind as
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to the relief that comes with the let up. It gives a man a
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chance to find himself after being lost and daunted and disheartened all day, and
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to square off and give the giant a good look between the eyes, and
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happily attain to some just impression. Some just impression is doubtless within the possibilities,
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but any complete one is not. London is so vast in territory,
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interests, activities, and history, such a monstrous tuberosity of a civilized life,
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as Carlyle observed, that it effectually defies comprehension. It cannot be taken
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in look south on it from Hornsey or or Primrose Hill, or west on
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it from Blackwell or the Greenwich Observatory, or east from the top of the
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Opera House at Hammersmith, or north from Crystal Palace, and you may see
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a vast prairie of housetops and sharp, aspiring steeples and irregular twisting streets.
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But you also observe quite the same kind of prairies rolling away under the horizon
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beyond your ken. If one were to try such an experiment right at the
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heart of things, futility would still be obvious. For either the Victoria Tower
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of Parliament or the slightly higher dome of Saint Paul's lifts you only four hundred
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feet above the pavement to hang like a lookout in mid ocean. There might
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be hope of a completer impression if you tried an airplane, in which case
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prostrate London town would take the seeming of some fabulous questing best of the mort
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Darthur in format the traditional lion rotund, monstrous and oddly marked, half reclining
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and gazing fixedly seaward down the Thames, a monster indeed fourteen miles by ten,
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and of a vitality so expansive that his nebulous aura pervades an area of
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seven hundred square miles. Along his grim, grimy side, the Thames draws
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a crawling blue band with a deep yew for the convenience of his paws as
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it swings around the Isle of Dogs. The Regent's canal marks him lightly up
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the shoulder and clear across the upper body, and along the profile of the
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head meanders the Marshy River lay odd green patches would stand for the Parks Regents
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on his back hide green, and Saint James's on his flank and on his
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right ear Victoria. At the present hour, he is speckled with a myriad
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of lights from the tip of his tail to his chin whisker, and doubtless
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in all respects looks wild enough to daunt Sir Lancelot himself. To the average
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visitor, London is the strand Fleet Street, Regent Street, the Embankment,
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Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, the British Museum and the Tower. But tastes
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differ in this as in other things, and Boswell was doubtless justified in amusing
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himself by noting how different London was to different people. Opinions on the subject
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have always been very decided, but hopelessly conflicting, Sir quoth Doctor Johnson to
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Boswell at the miter Tavern. The happiness of London is not to be conceived
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but by those who have been in it. Note Heinrich Heine, on the
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other hand, observing in his English fragments, do not send a philosopher to
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London, and for Heaven's sake, do not send a poet. The grim
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seriousness of all things, the colossal monotony, the engine like activity, the
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moroseness even of pleasure, and the whole of this exaggerated London will break his
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heart. There is wisdom, as always in a happy mien, and one
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might do worse than to go about his sight seeing with the wedded curiosity and
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flaming imagination of those country children once described by Lee Hunt as fancying. They
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see the Duke of Wellington standing with his sword drawn in Apsley House, and
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the Queen sitting with her crown on, eating barley sugar in Buckingham Palace.
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In such a mood as this evening, impressions are fresh and vivid, and
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the goggle eyed stranger suddenly set down at seven o'clock before the schaef Severe Fountain
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in the center of Piccadilly Circus, feeling in heart and soul the shock of
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the huge town's first presence, would probably have his own opinion of any intimation
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that there was really very little doing at that time, in view of the
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hour and the absence of londoner's in the country. He would rather incline to
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the view of the Chinese prince who took one look at the wave of humanity
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sweeping across London Bridge and went back to his hotel and wrote home that he
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had reached the spot where all human life originates. Certainly, the stranger at
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Piccadilly Circus would need but one wild glance at the glare and blaze of lights,
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the excitement around the cree, the beckoning billboards of the pavilion, the
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dazzle of shop windows in the sweeping curve of the Regent Street quadrant, and
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the tremendous interweaving of carriages, swift hansomes, delivery bicycles, lumbering buses,
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taxis, flies and growlers to start him shouting to the nearest bobby through the
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roar of the wild surge for a safe passage to the sidewalk, which would
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be readily and obligingly accomplished by that calmest and most tranquil of officials, the
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mere lift of whose hand is as miraculously effective as the presence of a regiment
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at charge. And yet the intimation to the stranger would be entirely within the
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facts. For a good proportion of Londoners are too far away to hear the
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seven o'clock bells ring in town. The Briton's passion for out of doors leads
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him far afield. Thousands are at this hour in the surf at Brighton,
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or strolling on the terraced streets of the Chalk Cliffs. There hundreds are at
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Harrow, enjoying the wide prospect beloved by the boy Byron. Others in the
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pleasant villages of Hatfield and Saint Albans. Some are spying for deer in Epping
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Forest, and a happy multitude is turning from the maize and Dutch gardens of
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Hampton Court to roll homeward by break and motor car along the incomparable Chestnut avenue
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of Bushy Park, amid the placid deer of Richmond and the manifold delights of
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Kew Gardens. For hours, the tubes, surface cars and buses have been
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working to capac to get business men home, and loaded trains have been groaning
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out of charing Cross, Euston, Paddington, Saint Pancras, Victoria and Waterloo.
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They have all arrived by now at their various destinations around the picturesque common
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of Clapham, the breezy heights of Highgate, the river greens of Hammersmith,
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the lush meadows of Dulwich, the stuccoed villas of Islington, the quietude of
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Bentheal Green, or the wooded gardens of Brixton Road. Fancy residential property,
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in every guise of architectural surprises, is drowsing in the shade of elm and
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oak and poplar, and humming to the contented chatter of reunited families. The
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fortunate stranger whom Sir Launcelot has asked down to joyous guard, is reveling in
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the generous roast that makes its August appearance between courses of Scotch, salmon and
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surrey fowl. And presently there will be politics and havanas after the ladies have
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left, and later on a general assembling in a serene walled garden with light
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laughter and low voiced talk and mild discussion of water parties, dinners and dances.
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The London parks are in full revelry now, with bands at play and
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tens of thousands of loiterers crowding the benches and moving along broad graveled walks,
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under the deep shadows of old elms and in the fragrance of trim flower beds.
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At Hampston Heath, for example, not so much as the ghost of
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a highwayman haunts the bracken carpeted hills, and east Enders are out there in
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force along Judge's Walk and in the Vale of Heath that keats and Lee Hunt
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admired or up at the flag staff, inspecting Jack Straw's castle as Dickens so
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often did, or speculating upon the sources of the ponds with as much a
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plom as ever did mister Pickwick himself. Down on rugged and untamed Black Heath.
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The band is playing at the point and in all that region where Watt
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Tyler and Jack Kade stirred kent to rebellion. The talk is now of London
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Docks and the latest scores of the golfers up at Airy Victoria Park, the
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Swans and the ponds, and the chaffinches in the hawthorn bushes are performing to
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enthusiastic audiences, and the Gothic temple of the Victoria Fountain is rimmed with rough
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gallants and the sallies of their allys, who betray no inclination to attempt from
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love's sickness to fly. The cyclists are foregathered at picturesque Battersea Park and chatting
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with their sweethearts over tea in the refreshment rooms, while hundreds of unemployed who
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can afford neither bicycle, sweetheart nor tea, gaze gloomily on the gorgeous blooms
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of the subtropical garden, all over the balustrade of the Long Thames Embankment,
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and end up by sprawling face down on the grass or dozing fitfully on the
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benches. Perhaps the largest outpouring of all is at ever popular Regent's Park,
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preferred by the substantial middle class, long noted, like George, the first
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for virtues rather than accomplishments. Doubtless, they are now rambling through the zoo,
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exploring the botanic gardens, where flowered borders and large stone urns are spilling
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over with brilliant color. Watching the driving in the outer circle, or swelling
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the throng on the long board walk. Hundreds on these shady acres are taking
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their ease with all the unction of Arden under the greenwood tree, who loves
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to lie with me and tune his merry note unto the sweet bird's throat.
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In all probability, tremendous admiration is being expressed at Aristocratic Hyde Park, as
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usual for the broad reaches of velvety turf and the venerable oaks and elms.
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More than one one will indulge a pleasant reverie over the dead and gone who
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have braved it. There peeps and his yellow new coach, dainty ladies in
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powder and patches, flashing sparkling eyes on the gallants, and the scented,
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unhappy beaux who have sighed with shenstone along these alleys. When forced from dear
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he be to go what anguish I felt at my heart across the Serpentine.
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In the children's paradise of Kensington Gardens, we should find that the boardwalk and
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the round pond lose none of their drawing power with the years, and that
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the fountains and flowers are as beautiful and as highly prized. As ever,
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there is the additional attraction of having a chance, by keeping a sharp eye
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on the tops of the tall ash trees, of catching a glimpse of Peter
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Pan preparing to fly home to his mother's window. The exclusive shades of Green
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Park and Saint James's have a convenient nearness that entices hundreds from the roaring throats
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of the neighborhood, and at this hour their old elms and graceful bowers give
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impartiality of their repose, and peace to hearts that are heavy and hearts that
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are gay. It would seem inevitable that thoughts must come of the royal and
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princely companies that once trod these ways of Charles the Second, at least,
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strolling in Saint James's surrounded by his dogs, pausing a while to feed his
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ducks, and then tripping gaily up the green Walk for a chat with Nell
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Gwen over the garden wall, while scandalized John Evelyn hurries home to make note
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in his journal of a very familiar discourse between the King and Miss Nelly.
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London's social season being at its height during May, June and July, while
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Parliament is in session, belated clerks wending homeward between seven and eight o'clock find
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the great houses occupied and dinner parties in progress, with as much universality as
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a New York clerk on anunder like circumstances at home would expect to see.
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In December, all Mayfair, Belgravia and Pimlico is indulging in feasting and merriment,
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and the austere aloofness of their retired squares with central parks high fenced in
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iron from contact with the ordinary person, is broken by the whirl of the
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carriages and motors of arriving guests. The sudden flood of soft lights from the
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reception hall as Hawkins throws open the door, and the quick and noiseless disappearance
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of the conveyances is all of a moment, and our clerk finds himself disconsolately
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gazing at the frowning front of some solid, ivy grown and altogether charming old
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mansion, through whose carefully drawn window draperies only the slightest of beams dares venture
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forth to him were he to indulge such a passion for walking, as characterized
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Lord maccully said to have passed through every street in London in his day,
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he would find the same thing in progress at this hour in all of the
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exclusive region that lies in the pearliuse of Buckingham Palace. Dignity, riches,
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elegance and power would be his in hasty, grudging glimpses. And then the
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dim square again, and the high iron fence. The London Square indeed seems
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decorative, only trees, turf flowers, and the fence and the surrounding houses
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playing dog in the manager. This is not always without its bewilderment to foreigners,
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and so confirmed a traveler as Theophile. Gaudier puzzled over the matter considerably
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before he dismissed it, with the conclusion that it is probably satisfaction enough to
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the owners to have kept other people out. If our clerk were to take
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the tube at Brompton Road and come out at Whitechapel station in the East End,
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he would see the other side of the story with a vengeance. To
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quote Gaudier again, to be poor in life. London is one of the
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tortures forgotten by Dante. Here the air is stifling with dirty dust and thousands
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of miserable, unkempt creatures with wan and pasty faces. They feed when they
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can muster a penny on a choice of black puddings, pork pies, sheep
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trotters or the mysterious smoking faggots. In Old Ratcliffe Highway which is now Saint
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George Street, they make out by munching kippers carried in hand as they go
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their devious ways. An occasional stale fish from Billingsgate is that much better than
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nothing. Yiddish seems to be the prevailing national tongue east of Aldgate Pump,
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and if you understand it there will be no trouble over the signs and announcements.
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With characteristic Hebrew thrift, it is always open season for buyers. Each
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product has its own special habitat. Toys or other sweatshop articles come from Houndstitch,
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shoes from spital Field, leather goods from bermondsdy beef remnants from Smithfield,
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leftover poultry from Leadenhall, vegetable seconds from Covent Gardens. Birds are to be
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had in club Row, Meat and clothing in Brick Lane, and a general
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outfitting in Petticoat Lane, which the Reformers have rechristened Middlesex Street. As for
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a scruobeiki or a mugabitter. The pub of any corner will answer. The
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University settlement workers of Toynbee Hall are doing what man can to better conditions.
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But so have others tried for ages. Yet here is the molodoroist East End
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practically as unwashed and unregenerate as of old. The glimpses one catches of squalor
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and filth up narrow passages, and of the damp and grimy closes that remind
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you of Hogarth's drawings are apt to content the most curious, unless he is
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an insatiable investigator, indeed, and is willing to chake his chances of being
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burked hand on pocket you thread narrow alleys where people are said to have been
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offered attractive bargains on their own watches when they reach the other end Here,
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after the day's work is over and the moke and barrel safely stabled up for
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the night with a watcher, Jummy, how you're open up our industrious coaster
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friends, Airy and riot make merry among pals at a free and easy or
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lay out a couple of three penny bits for seats in a local theater.
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Whence they emerge between acts for a arf and arf or a pot a porter
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with instant and painfully frank opinions if it isn't frustrate. Dinner at the Three
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Nuns, of course, is only for state occasions. They are the people
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just the same to get most out of Hampstead Heath on a bank holiday or
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a picnic at Ebbing Forest any time with them originated in days gone. Most
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of the catchy street cries for which London was long curiously noted, but one
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hears no more bellows to mend or three rows a penny pins, or cockles
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and mussels alive alive ou or sweet blooming lavender, six bunches a penny or
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one a penny, two penny hot cross buns, or the traditional tune of
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by broom or the barrow woman's ripe cherries and green rushes. Oh you may,
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however, have a chance at taters all ought or three a penny yarmouth
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bloaters ears your bloaters. After all, it takes a very limited inspection of
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the East End to wish them all in Hyde Park as the flag falls at
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seven thirty, to join the hundreds of men and boys there who are out
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of their clothes before the signal is barely given, and taking an evening plunge
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in the Serpentine between the truffles of Mayfair and the faggots of Whitechapel lie Us,
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the region of the menu with which the average Londoner is most familiar and
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which he is now exploring with profound earnestness according to his likes and shillings.
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Dining, as everyone knows, is an important expression of the British conscience,
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a solemn right of well nigh religious momentousness. The traditional fate of the uninvited
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guest is his in double measure, who ventures to intrude between the Briton and
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his beef. One might try it on, perhaps on the Surrey side,
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where they incline to dining from the joint around six o'clock, though nothing short
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of compulsion should take the sightseer to South London after nightfall. The shabby Southwark
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shore of dingy wharves and grimy sheds is half concealed in drifting shadows raised by
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the uncertain light of flickering gas jets, and the net results are not worth
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the trouble of walking London Bridge unless we accept the picture of quiet dignity and
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mellow beauty presented by the Amie Church of Saint Savior. This rare old survivor
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finally expresses by night the subtle sense of a long, continued veneration and the
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finger touches of the passing years, And to think that Saint Saviour's was doing
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parish duty and was a delight to look upon, long before the globe theater
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of Shakespearean fame had reared a neighboring head. But the gloom of the Surrey
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side is thicker and more discomforting than the fog. Long, monotonous, cheerless
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streets, poorly lighted and scantily employed after dark, emerge from drab perspectives of
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gloaming and fade sullenly away into others. The scattered pedestrians one encounters reflect by
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solemn countenance the prevailing depression that seem to be able to take but little heart
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of courage as they go on their melancholy ways. The whole region appears given
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over to breweries, potteries, factories and hospitals. By night. Lambeth Palace
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itself takes on the universal brewery aspect. You even detect a vadish look in
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the Greenwich Observatory and mistrusts some trace of beer in the famous Meridian. And
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then the Terry Hotels of Greenwich must add their quota to the general dejection by
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offering everything in the world in the way of fish, excepting its celebrated whitebait,
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which was, of course the one thing you had come for. The
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lights of Saint George's circus. The Leicester Square of South London may be few
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in point of fact, but they seem highly exhilarating down there. Nor are
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you to scorn the good cheer of the comfortable old tavern hard by that rejoices
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in the extraordinary name of the Elephant and Castle. There may also be a
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kindly feeling for the old Kent Road, where Chevalier's coster noctum, But otherwise
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the breweries win. There is one on the sacred ste of the old Globe
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Theater, something like one where stood the tabern Inn whence Chaucer started his immortal
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pilgrims for Canterbury. And you will find a brazen gin palace if you search
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for the white Heart Inn of Henry the sixth and Pickwick papers. Poor old
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Southwark, her glorious days of light have passed, and she shakes her feeble
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head. That seems as if she said they are gone. Even Southwark is
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not much duller at this hour than that ancient nucleus that is still styled the
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city where the leading commercial centers and money markets of the world were in frenzied
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activity two or three hours ago. A few belated pedestrians now go clattering along,
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echoing in deserted streets with an unhappy air of apology. No section of
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London undergoes so amazing a transformation each day, nor is any other so drear
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and cheerless by the sudden of contrast, attesting the keenness of Lowell's observation that
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nothing makes so much for loneliness as the sense of man's departure, There is
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little dining now in the region where Falstaff once reveled at the Boar's Head,
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and the Shakespearean coterie at the Mermaid Tavern. The low, windowless, stolid
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Bank of England gropes like a blind man toward Wellington on his horse, before
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the lofty Corinthian portico of the Royal Exchange and the massive somber mansion house of
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the Lord Mayor, suggests some ruined temple of pastom Gog, and may goog
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slumber in the dusty recesses of the old Gilhall, and the pigeon's nest in
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its blackened eaves, unstartled by the impassioned oratory of government ministers at banquets.
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But it is the time of times to attend the sweet chiming of bow bells
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under the dragon in the beautiful tower that Wren built for Saint Mary's, and
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one could almost wish to have been bored Cockney, if only to have heard
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them ringing from babyhood. The winding and gloomy little streets whose names recall so
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much in the lives of the Elizabethan literati, entice one, craftily, like
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so many bow runners, into the preluse of the tower, within the shadows
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of whose momentous walls cabmen drows securely on the boxes of dusty four wheelers to
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the imaginative stranger. Its bright fascination by day suffers a night change into something
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gruesomely repellent, and the beef eaters do not protect the crown jewels half so
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effectively as do the headless shades of Lady Jane Gray and Henry's unhappy queens Anne
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Boleyn and Catherine Howard. Doubtless there are safer thoroughfares on Earth than Lower Thames
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Street in the early evening, but they would not lead to as diverting a
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neighborhood. The wharves and storehouse may not be as tumultuous as by day,
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but the fastidious wayfarer encounters at Billingsgate enough strength of language and odoor to satisfy
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Tom Bowling is entertaining black eyed Susan at some east End hall, but the
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pubs are roaring with the mariners of England that guard our native seas. Still,
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cutty pipes are glowing at wopping Old Stairs, and the heaving turmoil of
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the shipping in the pool, with swaying riding lights dotting the vast tangle of
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masts and cordage, prepares you for the shock of the amazing human wave that
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is ever surging with a ceaseless roar across Old London Bridge. Caught in a
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strong current of that billow, one washes back to Wellington and his horse and
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drifts aimlessly along under the raised awnings of the tailor shops of Cheapside, with
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scarce time for a grateful hand wave to hushed and shadowed Saint Augustine's for the
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inglesby legends its former rector gave us before he finds himself high and dry in
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Paternoster Row and the bookish churchyard of Saint Paul's. The great cathedral is imposing
30:07
without doubt, and no one would think of saying that Ren did not earn
30:11
the two hundred pounds per annum he received during the thirty five years it took
30:15
him to build it. And yet it can hardly be expected to appear over
30:19
cheerful by night, when it is chill and gloomy and repellent by day,
30:23
with the sun powerless to warm the tessellated floor and stiff gloomy monuments, with
30:30
the brightest colors of its stained glass windows, futile to rival even the moon.
30:36
In that vision of Keats, as she through warm guless on Madeleine's fair
30:41
breast, rose bloom fell on her hands together pressed, and on her silver
30:48
crossed soft amethyst, and on her hair a glory like a saint. The
30:55
moon, however, will aid us now in quickening into life the rich memories
30:59
that adhere in the surrounding churchyard, and to Paternoster Row, where so many
31:03
generations of authors and publishers in dingy shops and inns and coffee houses have debated
31:10
the launching of immortal books. Every English published volume must still start its race
31:15
from neighboring Stationers Hall. The foolish stranger who chooses such an hour for a
31:21
tramp about the city will breathe more freely after he has exercised the last whispering
31:26
shade of Newgate and the poor prisoners of the Fleet, as he hurries along
31:32
Ludgate Hill and attains unto his heart's desire at Fleet Street. Thence on it
31:37
is all the Primrose Way, no matter what the hour or season. He
31:41
can never be companionless in the Highway of Letters, for its very excess of
31:48
material and immaterial presences, in its brief and narrow course of a few hundred
31:53
yards, the richest in literary associations of any region on Earth. The weather
32:00
beaten, irregular fronts of its old stone houses look down affectionately and perhaps pityingly
32:07
on hurrying journalists and anxious authors, as they have been doing for ages.
32:12
The leisurely diner of the old school, who clings to the mellow places of
32:16
inspiring associations is pretty sure to be going along Fleet Street at this time,
32:22
intent on a chop in kidneys and a mug of stout at the cock preferred
32:27
of Tennyson, or a beefsteak pudding, and atoby of ale at the sand
32:32
floored Cheshire cheese palpitant with memories of autocratic and snuffy Doctor Johnson, exploding with
32:39
sers of good natured Goldsmith, Crotchety Reynolds, impassioned Burke, Mary Garrick,
32:46
and all the others of that deathless company. The usual evening idler and aimless
32:52
stroller always makes Fleet Street a part of his pleasant itinerary, and it matters
32:58
little to him that the side are narrow and the crowd uncomfortably large, when
33:02
he can beguile each yard or two by lingering glances up dim and fascinating little
33:08
rookery courts full of mysterious corners and deep shadows, whose paving stones have re
33:15
echoed the tread of so many suns of fame. The lights may not be
33:20
as bright nor as numerous as in the strand, nor the shops as attractive,
33:24
but they are non existent to the sentimentalist who is seeing Isaac Walton in
33:30
his hosier shop at the Coventry Lane corner, and Richard Lovelace in Dingy Quarters
33:37
up Gunpowder Alley, and is peering wistfully through the arched gateway to the Temple
33:42
for a glimpse of Lamb's birthplace, or Fielding's home, or Goldsmith's grave,
33:46
or a sight of those delightful old benchers, Brusque Thomas Coventry, methodical Peter
33:53
Pearson, and gentle Samuel Salt. Doubtless he is able even to detect the
34:00
rich aroma of the chimney sweeps Sassafras tea in the neighborhood of mister Reid's shop
34:06
on the south side of Fleet Street. As thou approachest Bridge Street, the
34:12
shadows fall away with startling suddenness. As Sleet Street becomes the strand at Temple
34:16
Bar, the jolliest uproar of all London storms impetuously along that modern rialto all
34:23
the way into Trafalgar Square. Brilliant lights, shop displays of every description,
34:30
theaters, hotels and restaurants create a profusion of excitement for the gay and jostling
34:36
crowd that harries you perilously near to the curb. And the heavy wheels of
34:40
the ponderous buses. And what an amazing institution the London bus is. The
34:46
Strand might still be the Strand if Saint Mary's and Saint Clement Danes were effaced
34:52
from its roadway, But what if the buses went. Gladstone's partiality for these
34:58
archaic contrivances was extreme, which naturally disposed Israeli to take the other side and
35:04
champion the fleeting hansom, the gondola of London, as he aptly styled it.
35:09
And indeed much can be said in commendation of the omnipresence, economy and
35:15
convenience of the latter, and of its friendly way of flying to one's aid.
35:19
The merest raising of a hand to whisk you away at breakneck speed,
35:23
and through a thousand hair breadth escapes to any possible destination you may indicate,
35:29
But the majority vote with Gladstone nevertheless, and take their ease on a bus
35:35
top. It is true that in the profusion of advertising signs, you may
35:39
not always be certain whether you are bound for Pear's Soap or Sanderson's Mountain Dew.
35:45
But with blissful indifference you pocket the long ticket and ensconced among the glowing
35:52
pipe bowls, in the dusk of a garden seat, rumble, earth quakingly
35:55
aloft. What a delight it is to hear the cockney conduct der drawl chair
36:00
and cross Tottenham Court Road, Saint James's Pock and the rest of it.
36:07
From your heaving perch beside the ruddy faced driver in his white high hat,
36:12
you observe that your arc keeps turning to the left, the English rule of
36:15
the road, and that now you must look down instead of up, to
36:19
find the placards on the trolley posts that mark the stopping places of the trams.
36:24
You see belated solicitors and barristers hurrying out of the great gray courts of
36:30
justice. And above the heads of the pedestrians you may study the gloomy arches
36:35
of Somerset House, or the ornate Lyceum where Sir Henry Irving reigned, or
36:40
the neat little Savoy where Gilbert and Sullivan won spurs and fortune. It is
36:45
a great satisfaction to look down in comfort on the elbowing throng you have escaped,
36:52
with its jostling and its stereotyped I'm sorry, the top hats and the
36:57
caps, the actors, bohemians, professional man, tourist, tramps, beggars,
37:00
thieves, Tommy Atkins in pill box and swagger, blue coated and yellow
37:07
legged boys of Christ's Hospital, red coated boot blacks, barmaids in turn down
37:13
collars, well dressed and shabbily dressed women, as well as that particularly flashy
37:17
brand to whom you return a bade retro setanous to her, come to my
37:24
arms, my slight acquaintance. No wonder when Kipling's private authoress went mad of
37:30
the heat in India, that he babbled of the Adelphi Arches and the Strand
37:37
in the lull before the turning of the evening tide toward the opera and the
37:42
theatre. There is opportunity for each to indulge his penchant. What the shops
37:46
of Fleet Street and the Strand show in general, the windows of specialists elsewhere
37:52
are presenting. In particular, and with increased elaboration, Regent Street will draw
37:58
the fanciers of pictures, leather goods, perfumes and jewelry. Bond Street,
38:04
rare paintings and choice porcelains, Wardour's Street curios and antiques, Stanway Street,
38:09
silver and embroidery, Charing Cross Road, old books, and Hatton Gardens diamonds,
38:15
the same Hatton garden that Queen Elizabeth gave a slice of to a favorite
38:22
courtier and threatened the Bishop of Eli in a brief but sufficient note to hurry
38:27
up with the necessary details or I will unfuck you. By God. This
38:32
methodical fashion of grouping certain interests in definite localities is carried even further, as
38:38
for example, should you feel the need of a physician, it is not
38:44
necessary to wade through the thirty five hundred pages of Kelly's post office directory,
38:50
but to take a taxi to Harley Street, where any house can supply you.
38:54
No matter where you ramble, surprises and delights await you. It will
38:59
be fair found so to those in particular who stroll down Oxford Street with thoughts
39:04
perhaps of de Quincey, when a starved and homeless little boy groping a timorous
39:08
and whimpering way down this street as he clutched the hand of his new acquaintance,
39:15
or of Hazlit's dramatic struggle with hunger and poverty, and suddenly, on
39:20
reaching High Holborn, catch their first glimpse of the picturesque beauty of medieval Staple
39:25
Inn. There are few lovelier spots in all London, and the sparrows still
39:31
chatter there as clamorously every evening as they did when doctor Johnson frowned up at
39:37
them from the manuscript of Ruscellus, or when Dickens lived and worked there,
39:43
or when Hawthorne visited and re visited with increasing delight. The princely spaces in
39:50
the neighborhood of Buckingham Palace are quite as attractive at this hour as when the
39:54
afternoon sun is warm. Along fair Piccadilly, Radiant and amor Whortle Street,
40:00
said Henley, and the gay coaches clatter back toward Trafalgar Square with blasts of
40:06
horn and jangling chains. The Mall the Grand Walk for Ages fairly exhales class
40:12
and pride. In the deepening dusk of the late English twilight. The club
40:16
men of Pall Mall and Saint James's Street, in their fine, imposing old
40:22
houses, are taking up the question of the evening's amusements with as much bored
40:27
listlessness by the aristocrats at Brooks as rakish enthusiasm by the country gentlemen of Boodles.
40:35
Signs of approaching activity are even to be observed in the stately mansions of
40:38
exclusive Park Lane, a street that half the business men of London hope to
40:44
be rich enough to live in some day. So effectually has time effaced the
40:49
memory of Jack Shepherd and Jonathan Wilde and the rest of the air dancing specialists
40:54
who figured here in chains in the days when Tyburn Hill was a name to
41:00
shudder over. But the appeal of the halls, which began when the curtains
41:05
of the Alhambra and the Pavilion went up at seven thirty, grows almost imperative.
41:09
As the hour wears around toward eight, the rank of waiting cabs up
41:15
the middle of Haymarket is thinned to the merest trickle. Heavy swells of Clubdom
41:20
and the West End are strolling in groups across the wide, statue dotted expanse
41:24
of Trafalgar Square, stopping to scratch matches on the lions of Nelson's Column or
41:30
General Gordon's granite base. The artists are forsaking the studios of Chelsea, the
41:37
real bohemians, not the pretenders of the Savage Club and the vagabond dinners,
41:42
the cheap restaurants and the performing monkeys of Soho, the students their quiet quarters
41:47
in Bloomsbury and the forty miles of bookshelves of the British Museum. The musicians
41:52
their Baker Street lodgings up Madame Tussaud's Way, the literary people their charming Kensington,
41:59
and even the gay Italians are deserting the organ grinding of Saffron Hill and
42:04
the disorder of Saint Giles. And all are rapidly moving on Leicester Square,
42:09
Piccadilly's Circus and the Strand. There they will view the elaborate ballets according to
42:15
their means, from the pit for a shilling, or from a grand circle
42:20
stall for seven shilling sixpence, with another sixpence to the girl usher for a
42:24
programme loaded with advertisements. It is the hour when Pierce Egan would have summoned
42:30
Tom and Jerry to be in at the inauguration of the night life of the
42:34
great City, and Colonel Newcombe would have marched Clive out of the Cave of
42:38
Harmony to hear less offensive entertainers at the halls. It is the time Stevenson's
42:45
New Arabian Nights has invested with the richest potentiality for adventure, and when in
42:51
consequence any polite tobacconist is likely suddenly to disclose himself as a reigning sovereign in
42:58
disguise. Sherlock Holmes and doctor Watson, you may be sure, are never
43:02
in their Baker Street lodgings at such a time as this. In the preliminary
43:07
uproar about the bars and the favorite cafes, and in the flashing of electric
43:12
signs, glare of lights, and rush of hansoms and motors, one may
43:16
discern the beginnings of a night of it for many whom the early sun will
43:21
surprise with blear eyes and battered top hats about the coffee booths of Covent gardens.
43:28
And indeed, unless you have access to a club night foraging is a
43:32
highly difficult undertaking. In London. Every restaurant closes down at half an hour
43:37
after midnight and thereafter, unless you come across a chance luncheon bar that defies
43:43
the authorities, or a friendly cabman introduces you to a shelter, you may
43:47
have to content yourself with a hard boiled egg at a coffee stall. Many
43:52
a sturdy Britain trudging along behind his linkman would have found better accommodation two hundred
43:58
years ago, when the watch went by with stave and lantern and cried out
44:01
that it was two o'clock and a fine morning, with Big Ben in Parliament
44:07
watch Tower throwing its full thirteen tons into an effort to advise as many Londoners
44:13
as possible, that it is eight o'clock at last, and with a banned
44:16
concert in progress in the Villiers Street garden of the Embankment. As agreeable a
44:22
lounging place as one could desire is the beautiful expanse of Waterloo Bridge. Not
44:28
only is the prospect fair and inspiring, but the great bridge itself is worthy
44:31
of it, said Gaudier. It is surely the finest in the world,
44:37
said Canova. It is worthy of the Romans. Pallid and broad and long,
44:43
and so level that its double lines of fine lights scarcely rise to the
44:47
slightest of arcs. It rests with rare grace on its nine sweeping arches,
44:53
and spans the Thames. Just where the great bend is made to the east,
44:59
one look along it northward and sees the lamps of Wellington Street fade into
45:04
the blurring dazzle of the strand and long Acre, and southward to find the
45:08
converging lights of Waterloo Row, sending a bright arrow straight to the heart of
45:14
Southwark. The greensward of the flowered and statute Embankment sweeps across the back on
45:20
either side of its northern end, and palace hotels, Somerset House and the
45:24
huge glass roof of charing Cross Station bulk large at hand. Eastward, the
45:30
iconic columns of Blackfriar's Bridge and the strutting iron arches of Southwark Bridge stock boldly
45:37
across the Serene River, and southwestward, the broad arch of Westminster Bridge offers
45:44
Parliament cheer to glum Lamberth. It would be the most natural mistake in the
45:49
world to suppose the trim buildings of Saint Thomas Hospital on the Surrey Bank,
45:53
a favored row of handsome detached summer villas with owners of strong pultas influence,
46:00
to be able to build on the fine, long curve of the Albert Embankment,
46:06
having no less a visaviss than the terraces and glorious Gothic pile of Parliament
46:10
buildings on their thousand feet of noblest water front in the world. Only the
46:16
mine's eye may look farther on to Chelsea and take note of the tall plane
46:22
trees of Chiney Walk and repeople, the red brick terraces and homely old houses,
46:27
with Sir Thomas Moore entertaining Erasmus and Holbein with Addison and Steel in revelry
46:32
at Don Saltero's coffee house, with Byron at home in the amazing disorder of
46:37
lee Hunt's cottage, with Tennysons smoking long pipes, with Carlyle, with Turner
46:44
and Whistler bending over their palates, and with Rosetti, Swinburne and Meredith courting
46:50
the muses under a common roof and in a common brotherhood. To the observer
46:54
on Waterloo Bridge, the deep roar of the city comes out, and subdued
47:00
bells chime softly in the whistles of the river. Craft sound from time to
47:06
time with sudden and startling shrillness. Long shafts of light shake out from either
47:10
bank in spots of color from signal lamps dot their nearer rim. All outside
47:16
is a bright dazzle with patches of deep shadow and heavy ripples from the brown
47:22
sailed lighters and perch steamers that move across the shining reaches. The gloomy Southwark
47:29
shore is blurred and uncertain in light mists, and the roof masses of the
47:32
frowning city lift the ghostly fingers of Wren's slender spires and cower beneath the indistinct
47:39
and cloudlike silhouette of the Dome of Saint Paul's. The prospect is that of
47:45
a vast, confused expanse of indistinguishable, shadowy blending of buildings and foliage,
47:52
whose remoter verges merge into a soft violet blur, and over all of it
47:59
rages a wild snow storm of tiny pinpoint lights. Under the arches of the
48:06
bridge, Old Father Thames moved serenely seaward, the most ancient, and yet
48:12
ever the youngest member of the community. From his continual renewal of life.
48:16
No one could believe that, in some long forgotten time he had won this
48:22
reward, when he too had achieved the holy Grail among the stout knights up
48:28
Camelot Way, in the days of weather Pendragon, when he was king of
48:32
all England and so reigned with true British reserve. He whispers to a stranger,
48:38
no word of such secrets as once he confided at this bridge to Dickens,
48:45
of the savagery and cruelty of this London that has driven so many of
48:49
its desperate children to peace within his sheltering arms. Mad with life's history,
48:55
glad to death's mystery, swift to be hurled anywhere anywhere out of the world.
49:05
Looking from one of these bridges on the proud, powerful, self sufficient
49:09
city, Wordsworth was once moved to exclaim that Earth has not anything to show
49:15
more fair. Certainly, it has few things to show more stirring and impressive,
49:22
Few to move the heart more profoundly. Few that in achievement, resourcefulness,
49:29
and power embody more completely to men of today the grandeur that was Rome.
49:37
End of section seven, read by Nichol Wright, Lynden, Washington,
49:43
September twenty twenty three,