LONDON 



265 



A LOVER OF LONDON 



Once an American went to England 

 as to his childhood's home. He carried 

 to it an inheritance of memories, a ready 

 sympathy; it offered to him a certain 

 strangeness, yet a sweet familiarity that 

 puzzled and enthralled. Today so many 

 of our fellow-citizens look to Germany, 

 Poland, Switzerland, Italy, Russia, or 

 France as their forefathers' home, it can- 

 not be true ; yet wherever the English 

 tongue is spoken, wherever English his- 

 tory is known and English literature 

 read, there is a constant preparation for 

 the assured treading of London pave- 

 ments, for enthusiastic recognition of re- 

 vered spots and deeds and names. I 

 think it is Mr. Howells who says, ''You 

 may not like London, but you must love 

 it." I quite agree, and because I love it 

 and because one hesitates to speak of 

 those one loves, fearing to say too much 

 or yet too little, I cannot come to any 

 clear description. 



In the days when I was so young that 

 I thought myself quite, quite old, I lived 

 for many months in a hotel that looked 

 down upon High Holborn just where 

 Chancery Lane opens. It is not a loca- 

 tion that any tourist would choose today. 

 I am not sure that he would have done 

 so then. I was not a tourist. There 

 were reasons why I should be there and 

 I was there. 



A NEW HIGH HOLBORN 



I do not recall the motive, whether I 

 or some one was ill, or if it was merely 

 the call of the summer night : but I re- 

 member very clearly leaning with folded 

 arms upon the broad, low window seat, 

 far out OA T er the silent street, at some 

 hour just before the dawn of a June day. 

 Always, when I had seen it, that street 

 had been a tangle of omnibuses, han- 

 soms, bicycles, drays, carts, and wagons 

 struggling to or from the "city," twisting 

 in and out of Chancery Lane. Always 

 the air had been filled with cries — ven- 

 dors, newsboys, teamsters — loudest of all 

 those of the rival 'bus lines : "Chipside 

 or Bink ! Pennv all the wye ! Penny all 

 the wye ! Chipside or Bink ! Bink ! 

 Bink !" No matter how late I had gone 



to bed, the hubbub of voices, feet, and 

 wheels had come to my window. 



This time the street was still. Under 

 the light on the corner stood a policeman, 

 quiet but alert ; in the shadow of a door- 

 way slouched a figure, not a policeman, 

 also quiet. Idly I watched them both, 

 and in the silence there came to my ears 

 the sound as of a great distant waterfall 

 or of a well-oiled, contented dynamo. It 

 rose and fell gently in the summer 

 night — a deep, full note, softly trilled. I 

 have heard it many times since that 

 night ; heard it from a window opening 

 on Trafalgar Square ; from a balcony in 

 Mayfair : a terrace by the river ; listened 

 for it deliberately then and at other hours 

 and in other cities. The noises of the day 

 overlie it as the treble covers the pedal 

 notes of an organ, but it is there. I do 

 not find it in other places — Paris, Phila- 

 delphia, New York, or Rome. Night 

 noises there are, but each distinct — the 

 whistle of a boat on the river, the rumble 

 of a train, the hoot of a motor-car. This, 

 however, is not noise : it is a drone — the 

 combined whirring and buzzing of many 

 wheels and men toiling while the city 

 sleeps. 



ECHOES OE THE PAST 



And for those who have ears to hear, 

 it is more than that. It is the tramp of 

 Roman legions investing a squalid Brit- 

 ish hamlet ; it is the battle-cry of Saxon 

 and of Dane; it is the shout of the Nor- 

 man conqueror, the echoes of the mallets 

 of his builders ; it is the gay songs of 

 courtiers riding to this or that palace on 

 the Thames ; it is the chant of many 

 psalms, the sob of martyrs ; it is the thud 

 of oars in muffled rowlocks, as a barge 

 slips down the river from the judgment 

 hall of Westminster to the Traitor's Gate 

 at the Tower. It is the laughter of 

 masques and revels in inns of court halls 

 and gardens : it is the moan when a king 

 dies by Whitehall : it is the frenzy born 

 of plague and of fire ; it is the babble and 

 yells of roisterers, the drone of nuns : it 

 is the acclaim of a new prince and a new 

 crown. It is all these and more — it is 

 the throbbing of a city's heart : it is the 

 voice of many peoples through two thou- 

 sand vears. 



