20 
Land & Water 
May 23, 19 1 8 
London: By Miller Dunning 
TO be in the outskirts of London, beyond the 
town, yet tragically within the spell of its at- 
mosphere, is to win an experience that may well 
make a lasting impression. It is a low level land, 
lying between the fiver and the last rows of 
houses, and stretching to and along the raised bank which 
borders the Thames. It is awav towards the East, well on 
the seaward side of the West India Docks ; a strange coim- 
try full of wild contrasts and boding suggestion. 
Above, if the month is April, the sky will be clear and blue, 
reaching over like a great sparkling dome whose founda- 
tions rest in a setting of encircling smoke, wliich rising, turns 
to amber till it veils the clouds and an afternoon sun. And 
beneath both crystal dome and smoke lie side by side the 
most acute of all contrasts — the borders of a blackened city 
against fields of unfilled soil . . . and here, near at hand, 
solitude ; and there, on a Httle further, desolation, and in 
the far-away distance, grim destruction— the spirits that 
hover between that sky and this earth and ever breathe 
their likeness into the beings who live in their midst. 
One is in touch yet removed from it all. The sounds that 
come, come singly and distinct ; the distant roll of the 
train to Tilbury, the hum of an ocean tramp on the river, 
and the low pulsating of engines in a factory hard by. 
Then the fields ! Eastwards they grow deeper and are 
finally lost in the turnings of the river — not green fields, 
but long broken levels, dun-coloured and uninviting. Along 
the inner boundary they are fringed by straggling wind- 
blown trees. An occasional cottage is seen in the back- 
ground and, standing forward from the rest, a mansion such 
as one would build who had a spite against his kind ; a dull 
red building, with gables, numerous chimneys and hundreds 
of windows. In this place it stands up as the very emblem 
of misery — a misery such as these cottagers could never con- 
ceive; the bitter God-cursing grief of disappointed Mammon. 
How is it revealed ? Most surely not by the lad 
who speaks of its ghost-haunted rooms and its secret 
tunnel to London. No ! It is self-evident. The soul that 
conceived such a house in such a place must have, been 
full of irony. It must have seen in everything about 
it the glaring signs of oppression ; the very smoke that 
infiltrated the air, the grim liostile looking factories in 
the immediate neighbourhood, the dirty unfertile fields 
all about it, the unholy visage of the docks, the tooth- 
like cranes standing gaunt and black above the river, 
a conglomerate mass of buildings, and' above them a 
gasometer frowning on every aspect of the land . . . and 
seeing these things, cursed them, and by coming into their 
midst, its own existence also. For such things as these are 
not the natural environment of happiness. Who then being 
happy would choose this place to enjoy the good things of 
life ? None, so it seems, but one whose life had grown 
thoroughly spiteful and rnorbid : one from whom all real 
joy had flown, leaving him to the gnashing of his teeth. 
"It is mine," so he said, "and with it I shall do as I choose. 
In the midst of man's degradation I will build me a mansion. 
My heart is bitter, and I curse the day I was born. But with 
the sight of my wealth, still more will I curse those around 
me. I will set my castle in the midst of their misery and from 
its high windows I shall look down on all that is mine. I 
shall laugh and deride their weakness, for it is I who am 
strong. It is I who am bitter, and it is I who shall do as 
I please." But this is not the misery that comes of poverty. 
Indeed this might afford the normal man with many lumin- 
ous moments, although at its best it can boast but a gro- 
tesque beauty. 
The tide is rising from the Thames, forcing the water into 
this smaller stream. Lining either side there runs a narrow 
sward of tall river grass — beautifully green and swaying 
gently to each breath of wind. The river between is calm 
and scarcely moving. Further down, two men are poling 
a great barge. There is an occasional splash, the thud of 
dropping poles, and the inarticulate sound of men's voices. 
Near at'hand, a flood gate retains the water of a still smaller 
stream. Men and women work in the gardens that run 
along either side. One of them scrapes a spade, and except 
for the chance cry of a child there is no other sound. 
But over all, far and near, there hovers a strange incon- 
gruous serenity. For this is none the less an ill-natured 
country which in some subtle manner would seem to epito- 
mise a sordid beauty, as though to draw from all greatly 
mundane things whatever expression of virtue they might 
contain. It is seen in the intermingling contrasts of beauty 
and ugliness. To the fore is a hazy landscape. We can 
dimly see — b\it we clearly know what it contains. And above 
all, above these broken fields and scraggy trees, above these 
sceptre-like chimneys and the grim masses at their base, 
a real sun is shining, ever as though to gild witli true gold 
the basest work of its creatures. But it rests in the arms of 
two soot-begrimed clouds, and while its light is reflected in 
the passing river and the swampy ponds, it is nevertheless 
light that is hushed and muffled ; like the souls of labour- 
ridden people. For this is the expression of a labouring 
city, and neither the sun nor any other star can make it 
more than seem a nobler thing. Everywhere it is the same. 
On The River 
On the river, large shipis and .iinall pass to and [fro, with 
only their masts and funnels showing abo'' ^ the banks. One 
passes by the entrance of the smaller stream and mingles its 
smoke with that of thfe factories that overshadow its water. 
Of these there is a long uneven row following at right angles 
from the greater river. There also everything is signifi- 
cantly quiet, and except for the occasional figure of a man, 
no living thing is to be seen. The factories are of the smaller, 
ramshackle class : Chemical and guano works, a hide and 
skin factory, and others of various kinds. This part of the 
country had known the activity of other days. Every- 
wTiere the natural earth lies many feet under great areas of 
refuse. The upper arch of a disused tunqel recedes and is 
lost in the rearward fields. There are pits and mounds, all 
overgrown with noxious and stunted weeds. A dry, nose- 
biting quality infiltrates the air, and soon the vilest of foul 
odours rolls up like a monster. A horse and cart come through 
a gate, and with them a great wave of unseen virulence — the 
natural atmosphere, so it seems, of those who dwell within. 
And yet, despite the general quietness of the day, there is 
a low, ill-matured whistle in the wind. Then too there is a 
house in sight — a smaller one this time — which bespeaks dark 
night deeds, associating us with those blood-curdling stories 
people read in their days of innocence. It is double-storied. 
Several lines of heavily laden telegraph poles wind into the 
distance behind it. It has on either side a chimney hke two 
Satanic ears. Its windows are almond-shaped eyes. The 
central doorway is capped by a sharp perverted curve, an 
evil nose, so that the whole architectural idea has as it were 
the countenance of commonplace villainy. 
The fields spread everywhere— some overgrown and green, 
others quite barren. Between the factories and the foot- 
path small swamps and pools of green slime line the way, 
and beyond, a row of attendant cottages succeeds the factories. 
Women are standing talking by the roadside. A boy with 
donkey and cart is preparing for the city. At the mouth of 
the smaller river there is an ale house of the kind with which 
London abounds. Men and women with their children are 
sitting on the bank above the river, drinking and talking. 
Below them a boy is lolling in a boat. His dog runs up and 
down the shore, and in its vain endeavour to reach him, 
snaps fruitlessly at the water. Out in the open stream looms 
a great tramp making for its native ocean, and following it 
comes the wash, rocking the boat and driving the dog up the 
bank with its wave. The evening shadows spread across the 
water, and, penetrating through them, stretch the long re- 
flections of distant buildings. The faint notes of music rise 
and fall on the almost motionless air, accompanied by the 
subdued- voices of men and women. 
They sit out in the evening. Resting thus, they seem to 
make themselves one with the all-pervading spirit of peace — 
for what can appeal more to our sense of the picturesque and 
seemly, than a group of men and women recumbent in the 
shadows that succeed the day. 
But this it is that following the easier way we so readily 
accept the 'more obvious reality, and pass over the spirit 
that lurks so darkly beneath it. Tradition would have us 
cry : "God's in his heaven, all's well with the world," while 
we, to uphold tradition, greet every seeming scene of tran- 
quility with applause, hold it fast in our memories for evidence, 
and being satisfied pass on, although we have but witnessed 
the manifestation of a happiness so rare, that we have long 
ceased to recognise it as the natural heritage of man ; or if 
we recognise it as such, then only to take it as signifying a 
state of permanence which does not exist — a delusion never- 
theless which enables us to go our way unhaunted by a truth 
too uncomely, too monstrous, to find itself at home in the 
dehcate tenements of our unpractised minds. 
