July lo, 19 1 5 
LAND AND WATER 
THE SURVIVAL OF LONDON 
By J. D. SYMON 
THERE are those who complain that the London 
of these days is dull and uninviting. From 
their judgment permit us to enter a respectful 
dissent. The Mother City is certainly changed 
and subdued ; at nights she is, perhaps, even 
gloomy, by contrast with her former blaze, but never really 
duU. For amid all the stress of the times her ancient fascina- 
tions remain. Certain superficial attractions may have 
vanished, but in her quintessence London is unassailable, 
while some characteristics, and these the most permanent, 
have won a heightened value by the disappearance of the 
blurring non-essential. An open city, she is impregnably 
fortified by her very immensity. 
The Season is not, but London of the Season asserts 
her ancient charm. The butterfly population may be invisible 
or may go disguised in sober hues ; Mayfair has laid festivity 
aside, and the house of feasting is now the house of healing, 
but the spacious summer nights on the borders of the Park 
are this year more than ever wonderful. The undertone of 
ceaseless traffic still supports the huge and complex orches- 
tration of the capital ; it does not matter that the traffic 
is no longer that of pleasure but of the deadliest business. 
A London waste and silent is inconceivable. The Martians 
of Mr. Wells's romance achieved that wreckage. A human 
enemv, however inhumane, would hardly compass it. Nor 
would it fall within his scheme. London, if taken at all, 
must be taken alive. Granted an engine sufficiently powerful 
to destroy her and her millions utterly, no mortal could attempt 
the work of cleansing and restoration. Her ruins would 
be in every sense the abomination of desolation, unapproach- 
able, breeding death to the victor. Natural situation has 
made her the one possible heart of a world Empire. Her 
area, turned to pestilential heaps, would defeat the dream of 
the Imperial ravisher. 
Him I saw close, one February day, as he drove down 
Pall Mali, on his departure after a memorable visitof condolence. 
That greenish complexion of his, first noted by George Steevens 
in his German sketches, was very marked. Later it gave 
place to something less mysterious and impressive. But 
that day he looked exactly as Steevens had described him. 
He sat, remote and proud, splendid in his eagled helmet, 
still a young man. Before him rode the axe-bearer of the 
Life Guards. The edge Wcis turned away from Majesty, 
but one could not at the time resist the whimsical suggestion, 
and a thought of what that symbol reversed meant to gazing 
crowds in London long ago, when dignitaries left Westminster 
Hall after their assize. To right and left the Emperor looked, 
not at the crowds, but upwards at the palaces of Clubland, 
it seemed with an air of future proprietorship. All this, 
hisglance seemed to say, will one day be mine. That impression, 
very vivid at the moment, has remained supreme over all 
other memories of that fleeting pageant. 
And London, in her grey majesty, is well worth a con- 
queror's dream. No would-be conqueror of intelligence but 
would desire to have her as little spoiled as might be. "London, 
thou art the flower of cities all," sang Dunbar in times when 
her growth had hardly begun. The poet touched a deeper 
truth in his opening line. " London, thou art of townes A 
per se." It is her idiosyncrasy, her state apart from all 
others that is the sum and substance of her life. To call her 
the flower of cities might be a mere poetical flourish, applicable 
at will to others. But Dunbar saw further. His genius 
extracted the quintessence of London and gave it immortal 
shape. Heterogeneous and unwieldy the capital may have 
become, but in the mass she conforms to the spirit of her 
nucleus, to which her outlying tribes resort when they would 
enjoy her charms at the full, and know themselves for citizens 
of no mean city. Herein London is eternal, as Rome is not ; 
this is the heritage we hold, and by God's grace will keep. 
And the persuasion that, here and thus constituted, lies the 
only heart of world-wide Dominion, must give covetousness, 
boasting of " another and a better Rheims," pause before 
the boast to do as much (or as httle) for London. Break 
her continuity, and you annihilate her power. For her main- 
spring is her history. 
Only a person who had fallen into an enchanted sleep on 
the first of August last, and, suddenly awakened to-day, had 
been set down in the midst of London, could give a satisfactory 
account of the change that has come over us. He would note 
first of all the omnipresence of a certain cloth (I am under 
contract not to name it or its cause), and he would wonder if 
he were really awake or still dreaming an exaggerated version 
of the South African affair. The exhortations in huge 
letters, covering whole fronts of hotels and theatres, to all fit 
men to adopt the profession of arms would tempt him to ask 
whether we had not all gone a little mad. Informed, he 
would agree that we were very sane, but the shock would 
take some time to subside. He would be more mystified by 
the grey scaffolds on the fa9ade at Hyde Park Corner, which 
carry the colour of the battleship to the gates of the Park ; 
and if his first awaking had been at night he would imagine 
the soaring searchlights some ceremonial of jubilee. He 
■ would be conscious, in a way we cannot quite appreciate, of 
a London in disguise. The lowered street lamps he could not 
account for at all, except they were intended to give the 
searchlights a finer effect. 
Gradually, however, all things would come into focus. 
The newspaper placards would tell our amazed inquirer the 
truth, that is, the general fact of our present state ; for he 
would not expect particular truth from these conflicting 
brevities of conflict. The names of so many belligerent 
nations would still bewilder him as to pro and con. But at 
last he would understand, amid all the welter, what was 
afoot. Fortunate man : he alone could see as we all wish to 
see. what it is that has overtaken us. The slow cumulative 
effect of many happenings and many distractions has blurred 
our vision. That is our misfortune, not our fault. 
If our late dreamer were of military age he would be off 
to enlist, and his rediscovery of London would have to wait. 
But if his years kept him at home at such patriotic tasks as 
lay to his hand, he would be able, as he went to and fro about 
his duties, to pursue, from 'bus top or pavement, his quest 
of the city he knew before sleep came upon him. Stripping 
away the accidents of the moment, he would find his London 
still true to herself, more than ever orderly in her throngs, 
and obedient to Robert, ordinary and special, her giant and 
impetuous traffic still swayed by the motion of his hand. 
The city's life by lamp-light may not, could not with propriety, 
be the gay swirl that it was, but it is still intense enough to be 
a sight for strangers, and the crowds in the dim spaces are 
more interesting than of old, for they seem a people of shadows, 
such as may have moved by night in the great cities of the 
past when the art of public lighting was embryonic. These 
dim myriads of our London streets to-night are somehow 
suggestive of passages in " Salammbo." ' 
London has gained rather than lost in picturesque effect 
by her shrouded lamps. Now as never before we understand 
in town at nightfall what we have always understood in the 
country, that most perfect refrain of Homer, " Then the sub 
sank and all the ways were darkened." The electric light 
wrought marvels, which inspired Mrs. Meynell to her dis- 
covery in the colour of London — " the throng go crowned with 
blue ; " but it took a\vay even as it gave. The great blue spaces 
of twilight can now be seen in mass with a new intensity, 
and the last fragments of light touch the greys of the buildings 
to an unsuspected pearl on spire and column. And for once 
the London night sky comes into its own. The stars are 
ours, without screen or earthly rival. The garishness of lighted 
London no longer fetters the city to the mundane. 
The incidents of streets transformed to present uses keep 
alive the reputation of Town as an inexhaustible store-house 
of curious interests. Lately there has beaten into our daily 
life a quickened pulse of military music. The afternoon 
band in Trafalgar Square is a paradox, something festal in 
its air, yet very little festal in its purpose. More to the point 
is the marching band, with blare' of brass or skirl of pipes, 
heading the ranks of recruits. And the singing regiment is 
always with us. Everywhere occurs some touch of the unusual, 
such as the Red Cross nurse intent upon her sewing at the 
open window of a mansion in Park Lane. Dull ! London 
dull ! Not for a moment. Quieter outwardly ; inwardly 
sternly resolved with a resolve that grows, as knowledge 
of the need for resolution increases, but still the same ancient, 
enchanting witch-city she has ever been. Age cannot wither, 
custom cannot stale her infinite variety. She is still " of 
townes A per se," subtly adaptive of herself to new conditions, 
but never relinquishing her essence. 
Her little waywardnesses remain also, as befits her sex. 
For a time her very pitfalls seemed to increase by reason 
of our altered way of life. But such things we'.e inevitable 
in an imperfect world, and the strong hand of authority, 
careful for the victim, put out to save him. Other pitfall? 
there are, more strictly part and parcel of London and far 
less serious. These will remain, although the heavens fall. 
If proof were wanted of the survival of London it lies close 
at hand. August is not far away, and the streets will be up 1 
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