282 WAYFARING NOTIONS 



— thank goodness ! I do know what a haberdasher 

 (word of reproach in *' Pickwick") is — display- 

 so much taste (not in London) or the furniture 

 people collect so skilfully ? The tailors, London 

 swell builders, make a merit of aping banks or 

 government offices and appearing as private- 

 housey as possible, instead of using the natural 

 advantages attaching to window frontage in an 

 expensive situation. Inside you can view their 

 treasures, in a bad light. Bath does give you 

 a show in the front of the house as well as inside. 

 What with one trade and another's exhibits, I 

 can always amuse myself well for a day or two, 

 only I do not get the days. 



Bath's personality lets it change in the times, 

 but scarcely with them.j It holds still, from 

 the Georgian period, its strong individuality 

 as a centre to which people with money to 

 spend and no apparent necessity to work and 

 earn it resort, a haven for valetudinarians, a 

 county town where ''county" really does mean 

 something of more than merely geographical 

 significance, and society is apt to be exclusive, 

 not to say stuck-up, or — shall we say ? — sufficiently 

 conscious of its own importance. About the place 

 hangs a strong flavour of the Spa days during 

 our inland watering-places' long, big innings, 

 scarcely to be understanded of the present young 

 generation, who cannot quite make out how a 

 watering-place can be so at all without a sea- 

 shore, the sea with it, and, equally important, a 

 pier. Structurally the Fair City has altered very 

 little, I fancy, from its Beau Nash days, because 

 the cheapest building material is stone, and that 

 naturally lends itself to the old-style scheme, 

 adopted from the beginning of fashion's catching 



