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Ford Madox Ford. The Soul of London
The Soul of London
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTORY
CHAPTER I. From a Distance
CHAPTER II. Roads into London
CHAPTER III. Work in London
CHAPTER IV. London at Leisure
CHAPTER V. Rest in London
THE END
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Ford Madox Ford
Published by Good Press, 2022
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It is, in fact, comparatively easy to evoke a picture of England as a whole, still easier, perhaps, to think of this world as a green orange revolving round a candle, or as the pink and blue of a Mercator's projection. One may sail easily round England, or circumnavigate the globe. But not the most enthusiastic geographer—one must of course qualify these generalisations with an 'as a rule'—ever memorised a map of London. Certainly no one ever walks round it. For England is a small island, the world is infinitesimal amongst the planets. But London is illimitable.
A brilliant, wind-swept, sunny day, with the fountains like haycocks of prismatic glitter in the shadow of Nelson's Column, with the paving stones almost opalescent, with colour everywhere, the green of the orange trees in tubs along the façade of the National Gallery, the vivid blue of the paper used by flower-sellers to wrap poet's narcissi, the glint of straws blown from horses' feeds, the shimmer of wheel-marks on the wood pavement, the shine of bits of harness, the blaze of gold lettering along the house fronts, the slight quiver of the nerves after a momentarily dangerous crossing accentuating the perception—is that 'London'? Does that rise up in your Londoner's mind's eye, when, in the Boulevard Haussman, or on the Pyramids,' he thinks of his own places?
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