The London Scene: Six Essays on London

Table of Contents

“Whither, O splen

where, a hundred years ago, lovers wandered and picked violets.

They have no longer the proper perspective of sea and sky behind them, and no longer the proper space in which to stretch their limbs. They lie captive, like soaring and winged creatures who have got themselves caught by the leg and lie tethered on dry land.

Drawn by some irresistible current, they come from the storms and calms of the sea, its silence and loneliness to their allotted anchorage.

Life is a jest and all things show it. I thought so once, and now I know it

Travellers absent for years, battered and sun-dried men just landed from India or Africa, from remote travels and adventures among savages and tigers, would come straight to the little house in the quiet street to be taken back into the heart of civilisation at one stride.

One could not spend too much time on the past: one must not give all one’s attention to the present.

Nobody can be said to know London who does not know one true Cockney—who cannot turn down a side street, away from the shops and the theatres, and knock at a private door in a street of private houses.

Everybody has been well fed and given a good education doubtless.

The mere process of keeping alive needs all our energy.