HYDE PARK AND KENSINGTON GARDENS 351 



town dwellers are enriched by hours passed 

 thus, it is possible in part to realise the 

 magnitude of the debt London owes to 

 this beautiful pleasure ground. 



If I had been a man — such an one, sa\', 

 as George Gissing — an in\-eterate lover of 

 the country, yet compelled by unkind 



I would walk the long a\enues, and let 

 my feet rustle amongst the dead leaves ; 

 I would note the harmony of clustered 

 sheep beneath the trees, and regard with 

 mild reflected sympathy the whispering 

 loxers ; and when the day had come to 

 an end, I would turn and speed away to 



KENSINGTON GARDENS: NEAR \iClO 



destiny to pass, in poverty and toil, the 

 oest part of life in London : if the chang- 

 ing seasons had been scarcely known 

 except by the increase of heat or cold ; 

 if the snow had never been to me a pure 

 thing, but only seen smirched on the roof 

 and fouled in the gutter ; if I had the 

 bitter knowledge that my natural heritage 

 — insufftcient at the best — of summer days 

 had been lost, and the iron had deeply 

 entered into my soul — then, if I were, 

 like Charles Lamb, suddenly to recei\'e 

 my manumission and find myself at last 

 free to fly away and be at rest, I would 

 spend my last evening of city life in 

 Hyde Park. I would tra\'erse the open 

 spaces whence the houses are only to be 

 seen in gUmpses between green boughs ; 



lose myself in the heart of the west 

 country. 



Thus would I forgive the city for my 

 long imprisonment ; so would I say fare- 

 well to London ; through this green 

 vista should it ever after be seen ; and 

 when memory would recall the sorry 

 picture of mean districts, over against 

 it I would set the grandeur of the Broad 

 Walk. The thought of the unclean tur- 

 moil of streets should be softened by 

 recollection of that tiny spot of evening 

 calm, the Dell ; and even that darkest 

 cloud of all, the misery of the poor in 

 their squalid homes, would be lightened 

 by the memory of the children at play, 

 and lovers in their happiness in Hvde 

 Park. 



Arthur Scammell. 



