MELLOW ENGLAND. 



149 



But I finally mastered the city, in a measure, by the 

 aid of a shilling map which I carried with me wher- 

 ever I went, and upon which when I was lost I would 

 hunt myself up, thus making in the end a very sugges- 

 tive and entertaining map. Indeed every inch of this 

 piece of colored paper is alive to me. If I did not 

 make the map itself, I at least verified it, which is nearly 

 as good, and the verification, on street corner by day, 

 and under lamp or by shop window at night, was often 

 a matter of so much concern that I doubt if the orig- 

 inal surveyor himself put more heart into certain parts 

 of his work than I did in the proof of them. 



London has less metropolitan splendor than New 

 York, and less of the full-blown pride of the shopman. 

 Its stores are not nearly so big, and it has no sign- 

 boards that contain over one thousand feet of lumber, 

 neither did I see any names painted on the gable ends 

 of the buildings that the man in the moon could read 

 without his opera-glass. I went out one day to look 

 up one of the great publishing houses, and passed it 

 and repassed it several times trying to find the sign. 

 Finally, having made sure of the building, I found the 

 name of the firm cut into the door jamb. 



London seems to have been built and peopled by 

 countrymen, who have preserved all the rural reminis- 

 cences possible. All its great streets or avenues are 

 called roads, as King's Road, City Road, Edgeware 

 Road, Tottenham Court Road, etc., with innumerable 

 lesser roads. Then there are lanes and walks, and 



