1 6 Land & Water February 28, 19 1 8 
The Sense of London : By Charles Marriott 
:>^-?^5s%; 
Greenwich Hospital. View from Observatory Hill over River Thames 
[ A> Edgar Wilson. 
WE are apt to forget that London was not built 
in a day. This often leads us into insincerity, 
as when we try to fincj^cuses for a slum because 
It happens to please our sense of the picturesque 
If we remembered that very likely when the 
slum was built it was reasonably well adapted to the condi- 
tions of life prevailing then, we could indulge our liking for 
the picturesque without finding it necessary to pretend that 
the slum is tolerable now. Just as dirt is only " matter in 
the wrong place," so a great many abominations are onlv 
wrong in time. This is ^ 
almost a truism as re- 
gards human virtues 
and vices ; everybody, 
for example, sees that 
the great fault of the 
Germans is that they 
are obsolete ; but I do 
not think it is generally 
recognised of places and 
institutions, and so 
public nuisances are 
allowed to remain be- 
cause they were once 
public benefits. 
There are some parts 
of London, however, 
which, though they were 
built a long time ago, do 
not seem to have out- 
lived their convenience, 
and therefore need no 
insincerity to justify our 
affection. Particularly 
the parts that lie beside 
the Thames. On the 
whole, though with un- 
happy intervals, they 
have been altered less 
than any other parts of 
London, and they do not seem to need alteration Often 
gnmy and ramshackle, they are not reallv slnrnf a' ci • 
dead matter like dead tissL in "tht humL body alid Zs" 
places are alive. I think that one reason why ' thev have 
the demand, though increasing S population lo^^'^oi 
T^^I ""^fu^^ '" character from one centur^ to anoth« 
Nor does the means of supplying it. The Sr flow" con: 
Springtime. View from 
tinuous y, one tide follows another without interruption and 
with aU the successive changes in motive power a barge is 
still a barge. These places are alive, then, because they serve 
persistent needs and because they are constantly in touch 
with the country and the sea. They are organic parts of the 
body politic and not excrescences. . 
.1,^* ^lu""! ^"''""es and pleasures and the means of gratifying 
them that change rapidly and so leave the town behmd The 
consequence is that those parts of London which are associ- 
ated with luxury and pleasure look much more old-fashioned, 
and degenerate more 
rapidly than do the 
places I have men- 
tioned. They were 
never alive m the sense 
of serving life. Com- 
pared with the West 
End the City stiU serves 
Its purpose, and looks 
it. So long as it is big 
enough a warehouse will 
last a good many 
centuries, and however 
it be elaborated, busi- 
ness is still a matter of 
buying at twopence and 
selling at twopence 
ha'penny; but a res- 
taurant or a theatre 
must be within a year 
or two of our notions of 
social enjoyment or dra- 
matic entertainment if 
it is not to become an 
anachronism. So far as 
looks go Piccadilly 
belongs to the period 
of ''Champagne 
Charlie," or thereabouts. 
The West End wears 
[A> £dgar IViVsM. 
Old Chelsea Embankment 
as Hiri^,;l ' rT>"^^^°-^^ tTthe'needs oTLoTdon 
t^JoncfXl^' ^°"^ ^^-* -"^d haertVbfreTuS 
TheThole'of 'fl^-f ^ "IV^' '"^"^ characteristic of London, 
nn «.^!^ ^''?* ^"^' ^^cept a comer of St. James's 
an enormous proportion of London, indeed could be s^eDt 
away without affecting its individuality among dties. Size 
