4. CHAPTER IV.
LONDON.
You return from your ramble in “the city” by two
o'clock. A bright day “toward,” and the season in
its palmy time. The old veterans are just creeping
out upon the portico of the United Service club, having
crammed “The Times” over their late breakfast,
and thus prepared their politics against surprise for
the day; the broad steps of the Athenæum are as yet
unthronged by the shuffling feet of the literati, whose
morning is longer and more secluded than that of idler
men, but who will be seen in swarms, at four, entering
that superb edifice in company with the employés and
politicians who affect their society. Not a cab stands
yet at the “Travellers,” whose members, noble or
fashionable, are probably at this hour in their dressing-gowns
of brocade or shawl of the orient, smoking
a hookah over Balzac's last romance, or pursuing at
this (to them) desert time of day some adventure which
waited upon their love and leisure. It is early yet for
the park; but the equipages you will see by-and-by
“in the ring” are standing now at Howell and James's,
and while the high-bred horses are fretting at the
door, and the liveried footmen lean on their gold-headed
sticks on the pavement, the fair creature whose
slightest nod these trained minions and their fine-limbed
animals live to obey, sits upon a three-legged
stool within, and in the voice which is a spell upon all
hearts, and with eyes to which rank and genius turn
like Persians to the sun, discusses with a pert clerk
the quality of stockings!
Look at these equipages and their appointments!
Mark the exquisite balance of that claret-bodied chariot
upon its springs—the fine sway of its sumptuous hammer-cloth
in which the un-smiling coachman sits
buried to the middle—the exact fit of the saddles, setting
into the curve of the horses' backs so as not break,
to the most careless eye, the fine lines which exhibit
action and grace! See how they stand together,
alert, fiery, yet obedient to the weight of a silken
thread; and as the coachman sees you studying his
turn-out, observe the imperceptible feel of the reins
and the just-visible motion of his lips, conveying to
the quick ears of his horses the premonitory, and, to
us, inaudible sound, to which, without drawing a
hair's breadth upon the traces, they paw their fine
hoofs, and expand their nostrils impatiently! Come
nearer, and find a speck or a raised hair, if you can,
on these glossy coats! Observe the nice fitness of
the dead-black harness, the modest crest upon the
panel, the delicate picking out of white in the wheels,
and, if you will venture upon a freedom in manners,
look in through the window of rose-teinted glass, and
see the splendid cushions and the costly and perfect
adaptation of the interior. The twinmated footmen
fly to the carriage-door, and the pomatumed clerk who
has enjoyed a tête-à-tête for which a prince-royal might
sigh, and an ambassador negotiate in vain, hands in
his parcel. The small foot presses on the carpeted
step, the airy vehicle yields lightly and recovers from
the slight weight of the descending form, the coachman
inclines his ear for the half-suppressed order
from the footman, and off whirls the admirable structure,
compact, true, steady, but magically free and
fast—as if horses, footmen, and chariot were but the
parts of some complicated centaur—some swift-moving
monster upon legs and wheels!
Walk on a little farther to the Quadrant. Here
commences the most thronged promenade in London.
These crescent colonnades are the haunt of foreigners
on the lookout for amusement, and of strangers in the
metropolis generally. You will seldom find a town-bred
man there, for he prefers haunting his clubs; or,
if he is not a member of them, he avoids lounging
much in the Quadrant, lest he should appear to have
no other resort. You will observe a town dandy
getting fidgety after his second turn in the Quadrant,
while you will meet the same Frenchman there from
noon till dusk, bounding his walk by those columns as
if they were the bars of a cage. The western side
toward Piccadilly is the thoroughfare of the honest
passer-by; but under the long portico opposite, you
will meet vice in every degree, and perhaps more
beauty than on any other pavé in the world. It is
given up to the vicious and their followers by general
consent. To frequent it, or to be seen loitering there
at all, is to make but one impression on the mind of
those who may observe you.
The two sides of Regent street continue to partake
of this distinction to the end. Go up on the left, and
you meet the sober citizen perambulating with his
wife, the lady followed by her footman, the grave and
the respectable of all classes. Go up on the other,
and in color and mien it is the difference between a
grass-walk and a bed of tulips. What proof is here
that beauty is dangerous to its possessor! It is said
commonly of Regent street, that it shows more beauty
in an hour than could be found in all the capitals of
the continent. It is the beauty, however, of brilliant
health—of complexion and freshness, more than of
sentiment or classic correctness. The English features,
at least in the middle and lower ranks, are seldom
good, though the round cheek, the sparkling lip, the
soft blue eyes and hair of dark auburn, common as
health and youth, produce the effect of high and almost
universal beauty on the eye of the stranger. The
rarest thing in these classes is a finely-turned limb,
and to the clumsiness of their feet and ankles must be
attributed the want of grace usually remarked in their
movements.
Regent street has appeared to me the greatest and
most oppressive solitude in the world. In a crowd of
business men, or in the thronged and mixed gardens
of the continent, the pre-occupation of others is less
attractive, or at least, more within our reach, if we
would share in it. Here, it is wealth beyond competition,
exclusiveness and indifference perfectly unapproachable.
In the cold and stern mien of the
practised Londoner, it is difficult for a stranger not to
read distrust, and very difficult for a depressed mind
not to feel a marked repulsion. There is no solitude,
after all, like the solitude of cities.
“O dear, dear London” (says the companion of
Asmodeus on his return from France), “dear even in
October! Regent street, I salute you! Bond street,
my good fellow, how are you? And you, oh, beloved
Oxford street, whom the opium-eater called `stony-hearted,'
and whom I, eating no opium, and speaking
as I find, shall ever consider the most kindly and maternal
of all streets—the street of the middle classes—
busy without uproar, wealthy without ostentation.
Ah, the pretty ankles that trip along thy pavement!
Ah! the odd country-cousin bonnets that peer into
thy windows, which are lined with cheap yellow shawls,
price one pound four shillings, marked in the corner!
Ah! the brisk young lawyers flocking from their quarters
at the back of Holborn! Ah! the quiet old ladies,
living in Duchess street, and visiting thee with their
eldest daughters in the hope of a bargain! Ah, the
bumpkins from Norfolk just disgorged by the Bull and
Mouth—the soldiers—the milliners—the Frenchmen
—the swindlers—the porters with four-post beds on
their backs, who add the excitement of danger to that of
amusement! The various shifting, motley group that
belong to Oxford street, and Oxford street alone! What
thoroughfares equal thee in the variety of human
specimens! in the choice of objects for remark, satire,
admiration! Besides, the other streets seem chalked
out for a sect—narrow-minded and devoted to a coterie.
Thou alone art catholic—all-receiving. Regent street
belongs to foreigners, cigars, and ladies in red silk,
whose characters are above scandal. Bond street belongs
to dandies and picture-dealers. St. James's
street to club loungers and young men in the guards,
with mustaches properly blackened by the cire of
Mr. Delcroix; but thou, Oxford street, what class can
especially claim thee as its own? Thou mockest at
oligarchies; thou knowest nothing of select orders!
Thou art liberal as air—a chartered libertine; accepting
the homage of all, and retaining the stamp of
none. And to call thee `stony-hearted!'—certainly
thou art so to beggars—to people who have not the
WHEREWITHAL. But thou wouldst not be so respectable
if thou wert not capable of a certain reserve to
paupers. Thou art civil enough, in all conscience,
to those who have a shilling in their pocket—those
who have not, why do they live at all?”
