Letters from England/First Impressions
IN ENGLAND
First published March, 1925.
First Impressions
“YOU must begin from the beginning,” I was advised, but as I have now been for ten days on this Babel of an island the beginning has got lost. What am I to begin with? Fried bacon, or the Exhibition at Wembley? Mr. Shaw, or the London policemen? I see that my beginning is very muddled; but with regard to these policemen I must remark that they are recruited according to their beauty and size; they are like gods, a head taller than mortal men, and their power is unlimited. When one of these bobbies, two metres high, raises his hand in Piccadilly, Saturn comes to a standstill and Uranus stops on his celestial path waiting until Bobby lowers his hand again. I have never seen anything so super human.
The greatest surprise for a traveller is when he discovers in a foreign country what he has read about or seen in pictures hundreds of times. I was amazed when I found the Milan Cathedral at Milan or the Coliseum at Rome. The effect is a little uncanny; you have the feeling that you have already been there at some time, perhaps in a dream, or that in some way or other you are repeating an experience of long ago. You are startled to find that there really are windmills and canals in Holland, and that the London Strand actually contains so many people that it quite upsets you.
There are two impressions which are completely fantastic: to discover something unexpected, and to discover something altogether familiar. One is always taken aback to meet an old acquaintance unawares. Well, in the same way I was astonished when I discovered the Houses of Parliament by the Thames, gentlemen in grey top-hats in the streets, two-metre bobbies at the cross roads, and so on. It was astonishing to find that England is really so English.
But to begin actually from the beginning I will draw a little picture of how England looks when you approach it from the English Channel.
The white part consists simply of rocks, and grass grows on the top. 
It is built quite solidly on rock, so to say; but to have a continent under your feet feels somewhat safer, I must admit. Now I will draw Folkestone, where I disembarked. In the sunset it looked like a castle with battlements; later it turned out that these were only chimneys. Having landed, I discovered to my horror that I could neither speak nor understand a word of English. So I hid myself in the nearest train; fortunately it proved to be bound for London. 
On the journey I observed that what I had regarded as England is really only a large English park, just fields and meadows, lovely trees, adorable field paths, with sheep here and there, as in Hyde Park. There are surprisingly few people about; in Czechoslovakia one is accustomed to see somebody busying himself on every inch of the soil.
At last the train bores its way between houses of a curious sort; there are a hundred of them entirely alike; then a whole streetful alike; and again, and again. This produces the effect of a fashion craze. The train flies past a whole town which is beset by some terrible curse; inexorable Fate has decreed that each house shall have two pillars at the door. For another huge block she has decreed iron balconies. The following block she has perpetually condemned to grey bricks. On another mournful street she has relent lessly imposed blue verandahs. Then there is a whole quarter doing penance for some unknown wrong by placing five steps before every front door. I should be enormously relieved if even one house had only three; but for some reason that is not possible. And another street is entirely red.
Then I stepped out of the train and fell into the arms of a guardian angel speaking a language I could understand. I was guided to the right and to the left, up and down; I can tell you, it was fearful.
They bundled me into another train and took me out at Surbiton, comforted and fed me, and laid me in a feather bed, and there was darkness, just as at home, stillness, just as at home, and the dreams I dreamed were of all sorts, something about the steamer, something about Prague, and something strange, which I have forgotten.
I thank Heaven that I did not have fifty dreams alike, one after the other. I thank Heaven that dreams at least are not turned out wholesale.