488 Ups and Downs of London. [MAY, 



human bliss, into the alembic, and draw from it a quintessence which 

 could be named by a single word, that word would be LONDON. 



" The next world," said the good Catholic at the confessional, " would 

 be very delightful if it were all heaven ;" and so would London, if you 

 could always make sure of enjoying it : but as the dish which is being 

 carried to the rich man's dinner does not appease the hunger of the 

 poor man, who stands shivering in the street, while his own bowels are 

 eating him up ; and as the fountain, which pours forth its living stream 

 so copiously and so constantly, tends not in one jot to cool the burning 

 lip of the captive who eyes it through the gratings of his cell, at the 

 farther end of the court : so neither do all the enjoyments of London 

 tend to remove the pang from the bosom of him to whom they are inac- 

 cessible. No : these are the very circumstances which deepen the 

 anguish, or rather which make it anguish at all. There is no real mea- 

 sure of pleasure and pain, except in those cases which involve a physical 

 change in the body. The agony of the mind is produced by differences ; 

 and he who is " like all the rest" does not, on account of what it may 

 be in which he is like them, complain. The Indian in his cabin of 

 leaves, or the Esquimaux in his house of ice, does not envy the inmates 

 of the mansions in Grosvenor-square, or St. James's their splendid 

 apartments, their gaudy furniture, and their soft couches : neither does 

 he long for turtle and venison, punch royal, and iced pines ; but is 

 well contented if his labour, in breaking the thick ice of the arctic main, 

 is rewarded by that choicest dainty of his land a seal steak, fried in 

 train-oil. In like manner, the Venus of Southern Africa never dreams 

 of brilliants, while she decks herself in her zone of guts ; the " dog- 

 ribbed" Minerva heeds not a rush all your purple, and crimson, and 

 tassels of silk and fine gold, when she puts on her baldrick, adorned with 

 the teeth of those fallen heroes of the hostile tribe which she numbers as 

 the triumphs of her lance or tomahawk ; and the blushing bride of the 

 lan'd mentioned by the traveller, cares not a jot for a special licence, a 

 bishop to put on the ring, or even a jointure ; nor does she feel her sense 

 of decorum in the least affected, or the black of her glossy cheek blanched 

 even the tithe of a shade, though, as the traveller avers (and he must 

 know best), the sacred unction in the ceremony that which is to 

 oil and sweeten the hinges of the holy state be none other than TO ot^ov 



lttu<;. 



In itself, the human mind is the most contented and accommodating 

 thing that can be ; and barring absolute pain and disease, there is never 

 any thing the matter with us, if we be " neighbour-like," and " not 

 worse than we have been." Nay, even though we be not altogether 

 like our neighbours, we feel no pain, if inferiority has always been our 

 condition ; neither are we broken down by change, if that change come 

 sufficiently slow. But you can never have elevations without depressions ; 

 and, wherever there are the means of climbing, there is the chance of 

 falling. Hence there are in London more reverses, and they come more 

 rapidly, than in any other place. The man who had turtle and cham- 

 paign last year, may contrive this year to subsist, without much grum- 

 bling, upon bread and water ; but if the transition be made in a day, or 

 in the portion of time between one meal and another, it will be agony to 

 him. The man who was clothed in splendour may bear a covering of 

 rags ; but he will do so only if he comes to them by degrees : ana he 

 who enjoyed the luxury and the amusements' of society cannot at once 



