146 WINTER SUNSHINE 



ware Road, Tottenham Court Koad, etc., with in- 

 numerable lesser roads. Then there are lanes and 

 walks, and such rural names among the streets as 

 Long Acre, Snowhill, Poultry, Bush-lane, Hill-road, 

 Hounsditch, etc., and not one grand street or im- 

 perial avenue. 



My visit fell at a most favorable juncture as to 

 weather, there being but few rainy days and but 

 little fog. I had imagined that they had barely 

 enough fair weather in London, at any season, to 

 keep alive the tradition of sunshine and of blue sky, 

 but the October days I spent there were not so very 

 far behind what we have at home at this season. 

 London often puts on a nightcap of smoke and fog, 

 which it pulls down over its ears pretty close at 

 times ; and the sun has a habit of lying abed very 

 late in the morning, which all the people imitate; 

 but I remember some very pleasant weather there, 

 and some bright moonlight nights. 



I saw but one full-blown characteristic London 

 fog. I was in the National Gallery one day, trying 

 to make up my mind about Turner, when this chim- 

 ney-pot meteor came down. It was like a great 

 yellow dog taking possession of the world. The 

 light faded from the room, the pictures ran together 

 in confused masses of shadow on the walls, and in 

 the street only a dim yellowish twilight prevailed, 

 through which faintly twinkled the lights in the 

 shop windows. Vehicles came slowly out of the 

 dirty obscurity on one side and plunged into it on 

 the other. Waterloo Bridge gave one or two leaps 



