Hitherto my London sketches have been its Claude Lorraine views; there are darker shades. A walk in November towards the more densely populated districts is like winding through a German story. Nothing can well be more gloomy than a November evening in the city; and yet it has a strange, though saddening excitement. The air is heavy, as if that fine and subtle element were, by some strange process, becoming palpable. The shop-windows are dim, and the most familiar objects take unknown and strange shapes; the lights have a red and sullen glare; a hurrying multitude passes along; vehicles and passengers jostle together; there is neither rest nor quiet; you speak, and hear not your own voice. There seems no such thing as sympathy or relaxation in the world; it is given up wholly to business. The hardships and the labour of life oppress you with their visible presence. Pleasure changes into self-reproach. The atmosphere is weighed down by toiling days and anxious nights. The crowd jostle on; they reck not of each other;—the careworn are always the careless. The great current of life flows through those restless streets, turbulent and unresting. There are no flowers on its troubled waters,—no sunshine on its banks;—or to drop metaphor, there seems no place for the gentler affections, graces, and sentiments of existence. Fear is upon you, and around you. You turn to some side-street; you seek to escape the tumult and the throng. You find yourself on one of the bridges. The scattered rays on each side, and the vapoury lamps, fling a faint and unnatural light on the dark arches which seem hung in air. Below is the river, gloomy, sepulchral,—a river of smoke. No purer element ever rolled in such "darkness visible." The dense mass of buildings lifts its shadowy outline on either side, crowded, confused, and heavy. Crime and misery rise uppermost on the mind. You feel what a weary wilderness is that whose moaning thunder comes perpetual on the ear. The black river is as Avernus, with hell upon its banks. I know not how it may affect others, such was the impression upon myself. I felt afraid, overwhelmed, and oppressed to the last degree of sadness. So much for fog, night, and November.
When I have been through those very streets of a morning, I have been full of interest, and curiosity, and historic association. Fashion has had to make the best of a bad bargain. She has retreated before the commercial interests. The Thames is wanted for the world: not for what is called the "great world." Wharfs have taken the place of the gardens. Still I must regret the noble dwellings of Henry and Elizabeth's times; the days of terraces and barges, when the court went by water to Greenwich, and the fine old houses in the Strand had pleasure-grounds sloping down to the river.
"Mais il faut finir enfin," as the Maréchal d'Albret's porter said when he ate up the last lark of the dinner which his master had had for sixteen, and of which the said master, in a fit of ennui, had desired him to eat as much as he could by way of experiment. I know that I have not done justice to my subject. I feel it too strongly. Last, best test of attachment, I hope the blame will fall upon me, and comfort myself by thinking this tribute to the perfection of London will appear at the most fitting season. Month of conservatories in full beauty; of milliners in full fashion; month of the latest oysters and earliest roses, who but must appreciate London in April!
L. E. L.
