The Open Air 



droops and floats sideways, downwards, as if the 

 chimney enjoyed the smother as a man enjoys his 

 pipe. Shattered here and cracked yonder, some 

 missing, some overlapping in curves, the tiles have 

 an aspect of irregular existence. They are not fixed 

 like slates, as it were for ever: they have a newness, 

 and then a middle-age, and a time of decay like human 

 beings. 



One roof is not much; but it is often a study. 

 Put a thousand roofs, say rather thousands of red- 

 tiled roofs, and overlook them not at a great altitude 

 but at a pleasant easy angle and then you have 

 the groundwork of the first view of London over 

 Bermondsey from the railway. I say groundwork, 

 because the roofs seem the level and surface of the 

 earth, while the glimpses of streets are glimpses of 

 catacombs. A city as something to look at de- 

 pends very much on its roofs. If a city have no 

 character in its roofs it stirs neither heart nor thought. 

 These red-tiled roofs of Bermondsey, stretching away 

 mile upon mile, and brought up at the extremity with 

 thin masts rising above the mist these red-tiled 

 roofs have a distinctiveness, a character; they are 

 something to think about. Nowhere else is there an 

 entrance to a city like this. The roads by which you 

 approach them give you distant aspects minarets, 

 perhaps, in the East, domes in Italy; but, coming 

 nearer, the highway somehow plunges into houses, 

 confounding you with facades, and the real place is 

 hidden. Here from the railway you see at once the 

 vastness of London. Roof-tree behind roof-tree, ridge 

 behind ridge, is drawn along in succession, line behind 

 line till they become as close together as the test-lines 

 used for microscopes. Under this surface of roofs 

 what a profundity of life there is ! Just as the great 



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