London Days: A Book of Reminiscences

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Arthur Warren. London Days: A Book of Reminiscences

CHAPTER I. FIRST GLIMPSES OF LONDON

CHAPTER II. LONDON IN THE LATE SEVENTIES

CHAPTER III. A NORMAN INTERLUDE

CHAPTER IV. I TAKE THE PLUNGE

CHAPTER V. BROWNING AND MOSCHELES

CHAPTER VI. PATTI

CHAPTER VII. JOHN STUART BLACKIE

CHAPTER VIII. LORD KELVIN

CHAPTER IX. TENNYSON

CHAPTER X. GLADSTONE

CHAPTER XI. WHISTLER

CHAPTER XII. HENRY DRUMMOND

CHAPTER XIII. SIR HENRY IRVING

CHAPTER XIV. HENRY M. STANLEY

CHAPTER XV. GEORGE MEREDITH

CHAPTER XVI. PARNELL

CHAPTER XVII "LE BRAV' GÉNÉRAL"

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London was a more livable place in the late seventies than it is now, or so it seems to me, as it seems to many others who knew the town in that earlier time. There were not so many means for getting everywhere as there are now, and yet we got everywhere,—everywhere, that is, that we wished to go. We were not in a hurry then, and there was more consideration for the old and the lame than there is now. Now there is none at all in the streets or under them. The electric age was prophesied, but nothing more. Nobody in England believed in prophecies. There were arc lights on Holborn Viaduct and the Thames Embankment, nowhere else, but the incandescent lamp had not appeared. There was nothing electrical, in our modern sense, except the telegraph. The telephone was unknown. It is almost unknown to-day, if London's use of it be compared with New York's. There was no electric traction, and the petrol age was nearly a quarter of a century distant. But for all these drawbacks, as I daresay they may be regarded by the youth of the present hour, London was the most livable place in the world, if you loved cities; it had a charm, a fascination all its own.

That charm is not to be described. How can it be described, any more than the charm of a charming woman? You are conscious of it, you know that there is nothing like it, you are sorry for those who must live elsewhere and cannot come under its spell; they have missed that much out of life. You experience a certain largeness of heart, and would like to give everybody a June in London, but reluctantly acknowledge that every one must take the will for the deed.

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"The voyage from Kensington was rough," said the prelate, "but this seems a snug harbour."

"Make fast to moorings here, and to-morrow the envious will say that G.A.S. is travelling Rome-wards with you on an American train."

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