Chapter III: Part 3

This, of itself, was a worth-while experience, for meeting friends at a London station is always exciting. To begin with, they are never there. You rush madly about from one ridiculous, inadequate ticket wicket to another,—from one absurd, inadequate waiting-room to another,—and then you think that after all they must have said Charing Cross.

Then you forget them, and become absorbed in watching the comic opera crowd of week-enders, in their neat travelling-suits of beflounced muslin, frilly lace scarfs, and stout boots.

Wandering about in the luggage-room, I suddenly chanced upon my friends calmly sitting on their own boxes, and looking as if they had been evicted for not paying their rent.

And such a multiplicity of luggage as they had! I had contented myself with one box of goodly proportions, but my cherished friends had no less than twelve pieces of the varying patterns of enamelled blackness and pig-skinned brownness which only England knows.

“Why sit ye here idle?” I demanded.

“We await the psychical moment,” responded the Wag O’ The World; “you see they won’t stick our luggage sooner than ten minutes before train time, and they’re not allowed to stick it later than five minutes before train time. The game is to catch a porter between those times.”

The game seemed not only difficult, but impossible, for the porters were not only elusive but for the most part invisible. Preoccupied-looking men strolled about with a handful of labels and a paste-pot, but could not be induced to decorate our luggage therewith.

“The principle is all wrong!” I declared. “It is absurd for one to be such a slave to one’s luggage. Somebody ought to invent a trunk with legs and intelligence, that would run after us,—instead of our running after it!”

“Even that would not be necessary,” responded the Wag O’ The World, in his mild way; “if somebody would only invent a porter with legs and intelligence, it would fulfil all requirements.”

Now this is the strange part.

Though there were more than a thousand people waiting to have their luggage stuck (_i. e._, labelled), and though there were but few of the invisible porters, yet everybody was properly stuck, and started when the train did!

The next entertainment was the securing of an entire compartment for our party of three. This is always accomplished in England, but by many devious and often original devices.

“I’ve thought of a good plan, which I’ve never tried yet,” observed the Wag O’ The World, “to get a compartment to one’s self. That is, to invent some collapsible rubber people,—like balloon pigs, you know,—that may be carried in the pocket, and blown up when necessary. Three or four of these, when blown up and placed in the various seats would fool any guard. And if one were shaped like a baby, with a crying arrangement that would work mechanically, the others would not be needed.”

This plan was ingenious, but, like everything else in England, unnecessary. It is one of the most striking characteristics of the English that nothing is absolutely necessary to their well-being or happiness. If anything is omitted or mislaid, it is not missed but promptly forgotten, and no harm done.

After an hour or two of pleasant travel through the hop-poled scenery of Southeastern England, we reached a place with one of those absurd names which always suggest Edward Lear’s immortal lyrics, where we must needs change cars.

My Cherished Friends strolled along the length of the platform to the luggage van, and judiciously selected such boxes as they cared to claim; though I am sure they did not get all of their own, and acquired a few belonging to other passengers. I easily picked out my own American trunk, and, surrounded by our spoil, we stood on the platform while the train wandered on.

After a long, but by no means tedious, wait there appeared on the other side of the platform a toy railroad train, so amateurish that it looked like one drawn by a child on a slate.

We were put into a box-stall, and locked in. The ridiculous little contraption bobbled along its track, and finally stopped in the middle of a beautiful landscape, and we jumped out to become part of it.

The barouche of our hostess awaited us, with still life in the shape of liveried attendants. A huge wagon awaited the luggage, which had mysteriously dumped itself out of the train, and we were whisked away to the Garden Party.

Partly to be polite, and partly because I couldn’t help it, I remarked on the marvellous beauty of the country.

The Wag O’ The World enthusiastically agreed with me. “But, Emily,” he said, “if you could only see this same country in the spring! These lanes are walled on either side with the pink bloom of the may,—and the wild flowers . . .”

Tears stood in the blue eyes of the Wag, at the mere thought of spring in Kent, and I realized at last why English poets have sometimes written poems about Spring.

We passed through the village, one of those tiny hamlets which acquire merit only by age and local tradition. The Happy Villagers stared at us with just the correct degree of bucolic curiosity, and we rolled on through the lodge gates, and along the winding, beautiful avenue to the house. In every direction stretched wide lawns of perfect grass, that probably acquired its uppish look when William the Conqueror trod it.

We were met by no humanity of our own stamp, but were shown to our room by benevolent-minded factotums, and gently advised to prepare for the Garden Party.

With the exception of entertainments of a public nature, I have never seen so beautiful and elaborate an affair. The guests, to the number of two hundred, came from all the country round; some in equipages dripping with ancestral glory, and some in motor-cars reeking with modern wealth.

The women’s costumes were of themselves a study. The English woman’s dress often inclines to the _bizarre_; and at a garden fête she lets herself loose in radiant absurdities, which she wears with the absolute self-satisfaction born of the knowledge that in the matter of feminine adornment England is the land of the free and home of the brave.

The Garden Party proceeded with the regularity of clock-work. The invitations read from four till six, and promptly at four the whole two hundred guests arrived. This occasioned no confusion, and the hostess greeted them with a neatness and despatch equalling that of our own Presidential receptions.

The guests then conversed in amiable groups on the lawn, while a band of musicians in scarlet and gold uniforms played popular airs.

All were then marshalled into a huge marquee, of dimensions exceeding our largest circus tent. Here, a Lucullian feast was served at small tables, and the country gentry, in their vague, involuntary way, amply satisfied their healthy English appetites.

After the feast, the assemblage was rounded up into a compact audience, to witness the performance of a troupe of Pierrots. The antics of these Mountebanks, with accompanying songs and dances, were appreciatively applauded, and then, as it was six o’clock, the assemblage dissolved and vanished, almost with the rapidity of a bursting bubble.

To my easily flustered American mentality, it all seemed like a feat of magic; and I looked in amazement at my hostess who, after the departure of the last guest, was as composed and serene as if she had entertained but a single guest. And like the insubstantial pageant faded, it left not a rack behind. More magic dissolved the tent, the band-stand, the Pierrots’ platform, and all other incriminating evidence, and then, with true English forgetfulness, the Garden Party was a thing of the past, and dinner was toward.

The house-party numbered forty, and, after exchanging the filmy finery of the garden garb for the more gorgeous regalia demanded by candle-light, the guests repaired to the stately dining-hall. Of course, _repaired_ is the only verb of locomotion befitting the occasion.

Sunday passed like a beautiful daydream. The English have a great respect for the Sabbath day, and, perhaps as a reward for this, the weather on Sunday is usually perfect. It is not incumbent on guests to go to church, but it is considered rather nice of them to do so; especially if, as happened in this instance, the old church is on the estate where one is visiting. Nor is it any hardship to sit in an old carved high-backed pew, that has belonged to the family for ages.

Sabbath amusements are of a mild nature, one of the favorites being photography. English people have original ideas of posing, and any one who can invent a new mode of grouping his subjects is looked upon as a hero.

Aside from Lord Nelson’s declaration, if there is one thing that England expects, it is Tea; and tea she gets every day. But of all the various modes of conducting the function, the out-of-door Tea at a country house is probably the most delightful.

The appointments are the perfection of wicker, china, and silver, but it is the local color and surrounding that count most.

I cease to wonder that the English are only vaguely interested in their viands, for who could definitely consider the flavor of tea when in full view was a rising terrace leading to a magnificent old mansion of the correct and approved period of architecture, and covered with ivy that may have been planted by an Historical Character? or, looking in another direction, one could perceive a formal garden, with fountain and sun-dial; another turn of the head brought into view a unique rose orchard, unmatched even in England; while toward the only point of the compass left, rolled hills and dales that made many an English landscape painter famous.

Add to this the inconsequent and always delightful small-talk of English society, spiced here and there by their dreadful expletive, “My word!” and enlivened by the English humor, which is, to those who care for it, the most truly humorous thing on earth,—and I, for one, am quite ready to concede that these conditions combine to make Afternoon Tea a Spangle of Existence.

_X._ “_I Went and Ranged About to Many Churches._”

Miss Anna was certainly a godsend. It was due to her comprehension of the “human warious,” and her experienced knowledge of London, that I was enabled to revisit places I had never seen before.

When she calmly asked me to spend a day sightseeing in the “City,” I gasped. But when she reminded me that I ought to look once more on some of the old landmarks of London, I was flattered into a gracious acceptance.

One soft, purry August morning we started out. I was supposed to be absolutely under her direction, but when she remarked casually that we would take a ’bus, I rebelled.

“I have never been in or on the horrid things,” I protested, “and I never intend to!”

But she only said, “We’ll stand on the corner of Oxford Street, and wait for a City Atlas,” and somehow I immediately felt quite accustomed to City Atlases,—and intuitively knew it would be a blue one,—but it wasn’t.

Imitating Miss Anna’s air of habitual custom, I swung myself aboard of the moving monster, and laboriously climbed the curving companion-way at the back.

Once in our seats, it was not so bad; though very like riding the whirlwind, without being allowed to direct the storm.

Miss Anna drew my attention to points of interest as we passed them. In her tactful way she humored my idiosyncrasy. She never said, “On your right is the ‘Salutation and Cat,’ where Coleridge and Southey and Lamb used to congregate of a winter evening.” She said, instead, “Haven’t you always thought ‘Salutation and Cat’ the very dearest tavern in all London?”

Nor when we came to the half-timbered houses of Holborn did she say, “Here lived Lamb’s godfather, who was known to and visited by Sheridan.”

She said: “Don’t you like Hawthorne’s way of putting these things? You remember how he tells us that on his first visit to London he went astray in Holborn, through an arched entrance, in a court opening inward, with a great many Sunflowers in full bloom.”

All this pleased me, as did also Bumpus’s great book-shop, which is, I think, in this neighborhood.

Another delightful pastime was observing the signs over the shop doors. As the English are adept in the making of phrases, so are they especially happy in adjusting their callings to their names.

Lest I be considered frivolous, I shall mention only two; but surely there could not be more appropriate names for dentists than two whose sign-boards proudly announced Shipley Slipper, and, across the street from him, Mr. Strong-i’th’arm.

We went on, absorbed in our view of kaleidoscopic London, until Miss Anna decreed that we go down to the ground again. There was no elevator as in the Flatiron Building, so we tumbled down the back stairs, and were thrown off.

The sequence of the places we visited I do not remember, but they seemed to be mostly churches and taverns.

St. Paul’s was taken casually, as indeed it should be, being, like a corporation, without a soul.

Exteriorly, and from a goodly distance, St. Paul’s is perfection. From the river, or from Parliament Hill, it is sympathetic and responsive. But inside it is a mere vastness of mosaic and gilding, peopled with shiny marbles of heroic size. There is an impressive grandeur of art, but no message for the spirit. It is magnificent, but it is not church.

Miss Anna and I walked properly about the edifice, fortunately agreeing in our attitude toward it.

From here, I think, she led me across something, and through something and around something else, and then we were in St. Bartholomew’s church. Being the oldest church in London, St. Bartholomew’s is historically important, but it is interesting and delightful as well. The very air inside has been shut in there ever since the twelfth century, yet one breathes it normally, and enjoys the sudden backward transition. Had I the time, I could easily find an inclination to walk every day round its ancient triforium.

As we left the church, the Charter-house put itself in our way. Though other British subjects were educated at this school, it remains sacred to the memory of Thackeray. From here he wrote to his mother, “There are but three hundred and seventy boys in this school, and I wish there were only three hundred and sixty-nine.” But visitors to the Charter-house are glad that the three hundred and seventieth boy remained there, and stamped the whole place with his gentle memory. The atmosphere of the Charter-house is wonderfully calm; it does not connote _boys_, but seems tranquilly imbued with the later wisdom of the great men who spent their youthful days within its walls.

The stranger in London has a decided advantage over the resident, in that he can choose his heroes.

A friend of mine who lives in Chelsea proudly assured me that he could throw a stone from his garden into Carlyle’s! The point of his remark seemed to be not his superior marksmanship, but the proximity to the garden of a great man. Now, were I of the stone-throwing sex, there is many a dead hero at whose garden I should aim before I turned toward Carlyle’s. But of course this was because my friend lived in Chelsea. Therefore the non-resident, not being confined to a locality, can throw imaginary stones into any one’s garden.

A desultory discussion of this subject caused Miss Anna to propose that our next stone be aimed at the garden of Dr. Samuel Johnson.

So to the Cheshire Cheese we went.

The imposing personality of Dr. Johnson, and the antiquity of the famous tavern, led me to anticipate great things; and I was sorely disappointed (as probably most visitors are) at the plainly spread table, the fearfully hard seats, and the trying umbrella-rack filled with sawdust.

Of course we occupied the historic corner, where, according to the brass tablet, Dr. Johnson loved to linger; but two young American women whose tastes are not of the sanded floor and mulled ale variety cannot at a midday meal, whoop up much of the atmosphere that probably surrounded the smoke-wreathed midnights of Johnsonian revelry.

Not that we didn’t enjoy it, for we were of a mind to enjoy everything that day; but the appreciation was entirely objective. Methodically we climbed the stairs and viewed all the rooms of the old, old house, and on the top floor were duly shown by the guide the old arm-chair in which Dr. Johnson used to sit. A stout twine was tied across from arm to arm, that pilgrims might not further wear out the old cushion. When I, as an enormous jest, asked the guide to cut the string, that I might sit in the historic chair, he cheerfully did so, and I considered the fee well spent that allowed me to linger for a moment on the very dusty cushions of Dr. Johnson’s own chair.

I afterward learned that the string business was a fraud, and was renewed and cut again for each curious visitor. I accept with equanimity this clever ruse, but I’m still wondering how they renew the dust.

While we were doing Early Restaurants Miss Anna said, “We must take in Crosby Place.”

This pleased me hugely, for I remembered how Gloucester, in _Richard the Third_ was everlastingly repairing to Crosby Place, and I desired to know what was the attraction.

I found it interesting, but, lacking Gloucester, I shall not repair there often. To be sure, it is a magnificent house, Gothic, Perpendicular, and all that; the hangings and appointments are, probably, much as they used to be, but after all, I do not care greatly for eating among Emotions.

Whereupon Miss Anna cheerfully proposed that we visit the Tower.

“No,” said I, with decision; and then, my mind still on _Richard the Third_, I quoted: “I do not like the Tower, of any place.”

I’m not sure I should have been able so bravely to disclaim an interest in the Tower, had it not been that the night before I had heard a wise and prominent Londoner state the fact that he had never visited it.

“No Londoner has ever been to the Tower,” he declared. “We used to say that we intended to go some time or other, but now we don’t even say that.”

I was greatly relieved to learn this, for I’m positive that the Tower is hideous and uninteresting. As an alternative, I asked that we might visit the railway stations.

Aside from the romance that is indigenous to all railway stations, there are peculiar characteristics of the great London termini that are of absorbing interest. And so strong are the claims each puts forth for pre-eminence, it is indeed difficult to award a palm.

Euston has its columns, Charing Cross its Tribute to Queen Eleanor, St. Pancras a spacious roominess, and Victoria a wofully-crowded and limited space. Each station has its own sort of people, and, though indubitably they must mingle upon occasion, yet the type of crowd at each station is invariably the same.

And yet, after all, my heart goes back with fondest memories to Euston. Not the crowd, not even the atmosphere, but a mysterious influence which emanates from those wonderful columns. Not only the sight of them as you approach from London, but the queer, almost uncanny way in which they permeate the whole place. They follow you through the station and into the train, and not for many miles can you get out from under the presence of those perfect shapes.

Coming into London, Cannon Street is a good station to choose, if your route permit, but going out, Euston or Charing Cross should, if possible, be selected.

Before, after, or during, our station visits, we touched on a few more churches.

The Temple Church proved a delight because of the bronze Knights peacefully resting there. Miss Anna told me they were called Crusaders because they chose to lie with their legs crossed. This was probably true, for the position was maintained by all of them. Oliver Goldsmith is buried here, but I had no particular desire to throw a stone into his graveyard, and so we went on. Owing to a change of mood, we no longer rode on the ’buses, but took a hansom from one place to another. This was not as extravagant as it might seem, for, notwithstanding assertions to the contrary, one cannot ride enough in London cabs to make the bill of any considerable amount, at least as compared to a New York cab bill. And Shakespeare averred that “nothing is small or great but by comparison.”

As our cab bumpily threaded its way along the crammed Strand, the bright-colored mass of humanity and traffic seemed to me the pre-eminent London. I wanted no more sight-seeing, I wanted no more historical association, I merely wanted to continue this opportunity for feasting on real City London. I voraciously bit off large chunks of the atmosphere as we passed through it, which I am even yet digesting and assimilating.

As a complement to this view of London, we suddenly decided to call on a friend for a cup of tea. A personal, at-home tea would be a pleasant contrast to the publicity of our day.

Deciding upon the coziest and homeliest tea-dispenser, we drove to Mrs. Todd’s in Kensington.

It is a great satisfaction to know that the unpromising portal of a London house will positively lead eventually to a delightful back garden, and tea.

We were welcomed by our charming hostess in her pretty trailing summeriness, and were immediately transformed from whimsical sight-seers into sociable tea-drinkers.

Though it was by no means a special occasion, the garden was bright with flowers and people, and the tea and cakes were served under the inevitable marquee. It was Mrs. Todd’s weekly day at home, and the guests were all amiable and charming. A young woman with a phenomenal voice sang to us from the back parlor windows, and thereby gave a stimulus to the conversation. All was usual and orthodox. Everybody listened politely to everybody’s else chatter, and, apparently unhearing, answered at random, and quite often wrongly.

It seemed to me that even in this land of bright flowers the blossoming plants were of unusually brilliant hues. As I took my departure I commented on this, and my hostess responded with a superb indifference: “Really? yes, they are rather good ones. The nursery man fetched them early this afternoon, and after you are all gone, he will come and carry them away”; and, if you please, those ridiculous plants were in pots, sunk into the earth, and giving all the effect of a beautiful growing garden!

This fable teaches that our English sisters are not above the small bluffs more often ascribed to American femininity.

_XI._ _Piccadilly Circus and its Environs_

A favorite game of mine in London was to walk until I became tired or lost or both, and then take a cab back home.

Oftenest, the bright beckoning of Piccadilly allured me, and I strolled along that Primrose Path from Park Lane to Piccadilly Circus, my mind laid open like a fresh blotting-book, to receive whatever impress London might carelessly leave upon it.

Such delightful people as I would see!

Ladies, tricked out in pink filminess of raiment, ever striving to clutch one more handful of their _frou-frou_, as it waggishly eluded their grasp, and dawdled along the pavement behind them.

Yet, strange to say, the flapping frilliness rarely becomes muddily bedraggled, as it would on a New York street; it merely achieves that palpable grayness which marks everything in London, from its palaces to its laundry work.

The headgear of these same ladies can be called nothing less than alarming.

During the summer of which I write, it was the whim to wear huge shapes of the mushroom or butter-bowl variety. These shapes, instead of being decorated with flowers or feathers, bore skilfully contrived fruits, that looked so like real ones I was often tempted to pluck them. Cherries and grapes were not so entirely novel, but peaches, pears, and in one instance a banana, seemed, at least, mildly ludicrous. I was rejoiced to learn that these fruits, being stuffed with cotton-wool, were not so weighty as they appeared; but they were indeed bulky, and crowded on to the hat in such quantities that it seemed more sensible to turn the butter-bowl the other side up to hold them.

Owen Seaman calls the English “the misunderstood people,” but how can one understand those who put fly-nets on the tops of their cabs instead of on their horses, and wear peaches on their heads?

As difficult to understand as their own handwriting (and more than that cannot be said!), after the solution is puzzled out the Londoners are the most delightful people in the world.

But you must accept the solution, and take them at their own valuation; for they are unadaptable, and very sure of themselves.

Now, Piccadilly is not like this. It is smiling, affable, charming, and very yielding and adaptable. It will respond to any of your moods and will give you an atmosphere of any sort you desire. On one side, as you walk along, are houses, more or less lately ducal, but all of a greatly worth-while air. Citified, indeed, with a wealthy width of stone pavement, and a noble height of stone frontage.

On the other side is Green Park, with its shining, softly-waving trees, its birds, and its grass.

But, passing the Hotel Ritz, both sides suddenly give way to shops and restaurants which rank among the most pretentious in all the world.

Many of the tradesmen are “purveyors to the King,” which magic phrase adds a charm to the humblest sorts of wares.

The book shops and the fruiterers’ shops are, to me, most enticing of all. It is a delight to make inquiries concerning a book that is, perhaps, not very well known, and, instead of the blank ignorance or the substitutive impulse often found in American book-shop clerks, to receive an intelligent opinion, quickly backed, if necessary, by intelligent reference to tabulated facts.

The unostentatious, yet almost invariably trustworthy, knowledge of London booksellers is a thing to be sighed for in our own country. Not even in Boston (outside of the Athenæum) is one sure of receiving bookish information when desired. But in London the bookseller takes a personal interest in your wants, and feels a personal pride in being able to gratify them.

And the heaps of second-hand books are mines of joy.

Among them you may find, as I did, real treasures at the price of trash.

I chanced upon an early edition of Byron’s poems—four little volumes, bound in soft, shiny green, with exquisite hand-tooling, and containing steel engraved book plates of old, scrolled design, which bore the name of somebody Gordon, whom I chose to imagine a near and dear relative of the late George Noel.

Also, I found a paper-covered copy of an Indian edition of Kipling’s early tales, and many such pleasant wares.

The fruit shops, too, have treasures both new and second-hand. This seemed strange to me, at first, and I learned of it by hearing a fellow-customer ask to hire a few pines.

After her departure I inquired of the shopman the meaning of it all.

He obligingly told me that many of his finest specimens of pineapples, canteloupes, Hamburg grapes, and other spectacular fruits, could be rented out for banquets night after night, with but slight wear and tear on their beauty and bloom. One enormous bunch of black grapes, as perfect as the colour studies of fruit that used to appear as supplements to the _Art Amateur_, he caressed fondly, as he told me it had been rented out for the last nine nights, and was yet good for another week’s work.

I then remembered the architectural triumphs of fruits that had graced many of the dinner tables I had smiled at, and I marvelled afresh at the English thrift.

All shops, streets, theatres, and traffic merge and congest in a perfect orgy of noise, motion, and color at Piccadilly Circus.

The first humorous story I heard in London was of the man who, returning from a festal function, inquired of the policeman, “_Is_ this Piccadilly Circus, or is it Tuesday?” That story seems to me the epitome of London humor, and also a complete description of Piccadilly Circus.

The first few times I visited it I found it bewildering, but after I had learned to look upon it as a local habitation and a name, I learned to love it.

By day or by night, it is a great, crazy, beautiful whirl. Everybody in it is trying to get out of it, and everybody out is trying to get in. This causes a merry game of odds, and the elegant policemen send glances of mild reproof after the newsboys who hurtle through the crowd, yelling “Dily Mile!”

The rush of traffic here is considered a sure road to battle, murder, or sudden death, and the Londoner who crosses Piccadilly Circus rarely expects to get through alive.

But to me London traffic seems child’s play compared to ours in New York. I sauntered safely through Piccadilly Circus, without one tenth part of the trepidation that always seizes me when I try to scurry across Broadway. The lumbering ’buses have no such desire to run over people, as that which burns in the hearts of our trolley-cars. The pedestrians are too deliberate of speed, and the traffic too gentle of motion, to inspire fear of jostlement.

Dawdling along, I paused to look in at Swan and Edgar’s windows. Rather, I attempted to look in; for, with a peculiar sort of short-sightedness, these drapers choose to be-plaster their window panes with large posters which comment favorably upon the wares that are presumably behind them, but which cannot be seen by peeping through the small spaces left between the posters.

Then across to the Criterion for tea. All of the great restaurants present a gay scene at tea hour, and the Criterion, with its “decorative painting by eminent artists,” and its crowds of guests both eminent and decorative is among the gayest.

But it is a gayety of correct and subdued tone. The ladies, in their flashing finery of raiment, are of a cool, reserved deportment, and the men drink their tea and munch sweet cakes with a gravity born of the seriousness of the occasion.

If one notices any conspicuous action or effect in a London restaurant, one may be sure it is perpetrated by a stranger,—probably a visiting American.

I recently saw in one of our finest Fifth Avenue restaurants a most attractive young woman, who came in accompanied by a well-set-up, and moreover an exceedingly sensible looking, young man.

With absolute _savoir faire_, and no trace of self-consciousness, the girl carried in her arm a large brown “Teddy bear.”

The couple sat at a table and ordered some luncheon, and the bear was also given a seat, a napkin was tucked about his neck, and a plate placed before him. The girl’s face was sweet and refined; the man’s face was intelligent and dignified, and the bear’s face was coy and alluring. There was no attempt to attract attention, and, luncheon over, the young woman, who was at least twenty years old, tucked her pet under her arm, and they walked calmly out.

But such things are not done in London restaurants. And yet, these also have their peculiarities. At one small, but very desirable, restaurant in Old Compton Street it is the custom to steal the saltspoons as souvenirs. Not to possess one or more of these tiny pewter affairs, which are shaped like coal-shovels, is to be benighted indeed. So I stole one.

After my tea, I would, perhaps, trail along toward Trafalgar Square, by way of Regent Street and Pall Mall. After a long look at the black and white grayness of the National Gallery, I would slowly mount its steps, and from there take a long look at the wonderful façade of St. Martin’s-in-the-Field. Trafalgar Square is full of out-of-door delights, but if the mood served I would go into the National Gallery, and walk delicately, like Agag, among the pictures. I went always alone, for I did not care to look at certain pictures which I owned (by right of adoption of them into my London), in danger of hearing a companion say, “Note the delicate precision of the flesh tones,” or, “Observe the gradations of aerial perspective.” Nor did I want a “Hand-book,” that would assert, “Without a prolonged examination of this picture it is impossible to form an idea of the art with which it has been executed.”

Unhampered by mortal suggestion, I paused before the pictures that belonged to me, prolonging my examination or not, as I chose, and for my own reasons.

Some pictures I should have loved, but for an ineradicable memory of their narrowly black-framed reproductions that crowd the wall spaces of friends at home, who “just love Art.”

Other pictures I might have appropriated, but that a prolonged examination of them was impossible by reason of the massing in front of them of people who go out by the day sight-seeing.

And so I took my own where I found it, and happily wandered by _A man with Fair Hair_ or _Clouds at Twilight_ in a very bliss of art ignorance.

Then out-of-door London would call me again, and back I would go to Trafalgar Square, one of the lightest, brightest-colored bits of all England. From the asphalt to the welkin, from the Column to the Church, from the National Gallery to Morley’s Hotel, are the most beautiful blues, and greens, and whites, and reds, and grays that can be supplied by the combined efforts of Nature, Time, and modern pigments. A sudden impulse, perhaps, would make me think that I had immediate need of the Elgin Marbles, and, with a farewell nod to the northeast lion (which is my favorite of the four), I would jump into a hansom and jog over to the British Museum. But often the approach was so clogged by pompous and overbearing pigeons that I would make no attempt to enter. Instead, I would find another hansom, and take a long ride over to the Tate Gallery.

As I bounced happily along, I would note many landmarks of historic interest. Some of these were real, and others made up by myself on the spur of the moment, to fit a passing thought.

For, if I saw an old building of picturesque interest, I could make myself more decently emotional toward the antiquity of it by assuring myself that that was where Sterne died, or where Pepys “made mighty merry.”

And, after all, facts are of little importance compared with “those things which really are—the eternal inner world of the imagination.”

It was from the outlook of a hansom cab that I could get some of the best views of my London. Every turn would bring new sorts of motion, sound, and color. And, birdseyed thus, it was all so beautiful that I wondered what Shelley meant by saying “Hell is a city very much like London,”—if, indeed, he did say it.

Once in the Tate Gallery, I would fall afresh under the spell of the lonely wistfulness of G. F. Watts’ _Minotaur_.

Then I would go to gaze long on Whistler’s wonderful notion of Battersea Bridge on a blue night, and then betake myself to the Turner collection.

Here I could spend hours, floundering in unintelligent delight among the pictures, sensitive to each apotheosis of color and beauty, and not caring whether its title might be _Waves Breaking on a Flat Beach_, or _River Scene with Cattle_.

But too much Turner was apt to go to my head, and just in time I would tear myself away, hop into a hansom, and make for the Wallace Collection to be brought back to a sense of human reality by a short interview with the _Laughing Cavalier_.

What a city it is, where cabs and picture-galleries are within the reach of all who desire them!

_XII_ _The Game of Going On._

The appetite for the social life of London grows with what it feeds on. Although at first indisposed to be lured into the Social Vortex, I found it possessed a centripetal force which drew me steadily toward its whizzing centre.

Nor was it long before I became as avid as any Londoner to pursue the bewildering course known as “going on.”

There is a cumulative delight in whisking from Tea to Tea, and no two teas are ever alike.

It pleased me greatly to classify and note the difference in London Teas.

In New York all Teas are alike in quality—the only difference being in quantity. But in London one Tea differeth from another, not only in glory, but in size, shape, and color.

Yet all are enjoyable to one who understands going on. If the Tea be of the Glacial Period, there is no occasion to exert your entertaining powers. Simply assume an expression of bored superiority, and move about with a few murmured, incoherent, and not necessarily rational words.

There is a very amusing story, which I used to think an impossible exaggeration, but which I now believe to be true.

Thus runs the tale: A guest at an afternoon tea, when spoken to by any one, invariably replied, “I was found dead in my bed this morning.” As the responses to this were always, “Really?” or “Charmed, I’m sure,” or “Only fancy!” it is safe to assume that the remark was unheard or unheeded.

But this state of things is not certainly unpleasant, or to be condemned.

One does not go to a Tea to improve one’s mind, or to acquire valuable information. The remarks that are made are quite as satisfactory unheard as heard. We are not pining to be told the state of the weather; we deduce our friend’s good health from the fact of his presence; and it is therefore delightful to be left, unhampered, to pursue our own thoughts, and, if so minded, to make to ourselves our own analytic observations on the scene before us.

Again, if the Tea be of the Responsive Variety, and you are supposed to chat and be chatted to, then is joy indeed in store for you—for when Londoners do talk, they talk wonderfully well.

I went one afternoon to a Tea given for me by a well-known London novelist. The host, beside being an Englishman of the most charming type, and a clever writer, was of a genial, happy nature, which seemed to imbue the whole affair with a cosy gayety.

Though not a large Tea, many literary celebrities were present, and each gave willingly of his best mentality to grace the occasion.

Now, nothing is more truly delightful than the informal chatter of good-natured, quick-witted literary people. Their true sense of values, their quick sense of humor, their receptiveness, their responsiveness, and their instantaneous perception, combine to bring forth conversation like the words of which Beaumont wrote:

So nimble, and so full of subtle flame,
As if that every one from whom they came
Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,
And had resolved to live a fool the rest
Of his dull life . . . Wit that might warrant be
For the whole city to talk foolishly
Till that were cancelled.

Nor are Teas of this sort rare or exceptional.

Given the entrée to London’s literary circles, occasions abound for meeting with these companions who do converse and waste the time together.

To my great regret, this is not to be said of America. A Literary Tea in New York means a lot of people, some, perhaps, bookishly inclined, invited to meet a Celebrity of Letters.

The Celebrity comes late, sometimes not at all, and he or she is often enveloped in a sort of belligerent shyness which does not make for coherent conversation of any sort. Moreover, Americans do not know how to give a Tea. We are learning, but we conduct our Teas in an amateurish, self-conscious way, and with a brave endurance born of our national do-or-die principles.

But to return to my going ons (which must by no means be confounded with goings-on).

From my Literary Tea, I went to a Musical Tea. This is distinctly a London function, and the music, while of the best, acts as a soaking wet Ostermoor laid on the feebly-burning vivacity of the occasion. The young girl sings, the long-haired gentleman plays a violin, the lady in the Greek gown plays the harp, and the guests arrive continuously, and escape as soon as possible.

But, like Kipling’s lovable tramp, I “liked it all,” and stood tranquilly holding my teacup, while I studied the Tussaud effects all about me.

Then, as it was Fourth of July, I betook myself to the reception at Dorchester House.

This is a most admirable institution. I mean the reception, not the house, though the statement really applies to both.

But it is a fine thing to celebrate our Independence Day in London. There is an incongruity about it that lends an added charm to what is in itself a stupendously beautiful affair.

Dorchester House, one of the finest residences in London, is now the home of our own ambassador, and is thrown open for a great reception on the afternoon of every Fourth of July.

As my hansom took its place in the long line of waiting carriages I glanced up at the noble old stone mansion, and was thrilled with a new sort of patriotism when I saw our own Stars and Stripes wave grandly out against the blue English sky. Our flag at home is a blessed, matter-of-fact affair; but our flag proudly topping our Embassy in another land is a thrilling proposition, and I suddenly realized the aptness of the homely old phrase “so gallantly streaming.”

Chiding myself for what I called purely emotional patriotism (but still quivering with it), I entered the marble halls of Dorchester House.

A compact, slowly-moving mass of people exactly fitted the broad and truly magnificent marble staircase.

Adjusting myself as part of this ambulatory throng, we moved on, mechanically, a step at a time, toward the top. On each landing, as the great staircase turned twice, were footmen in pink satin and silver lace, who looked like valentines. They are very wonderful, those English footmen, and sometimes I think I’d rather have one than a Teddy bear.

At the top of the staircase our ambassador and his reception party greeted each guest with a cordial perfunctoriness, that exactly suited the occasion, and then an invisible force, assisted here and there by a very visible footman, gently urged us on.

Although the thought seems inappropriate to the splendor of the occasion, yet to me the marvel of the affair was the “neatness and despatch” with which it was managed. No crowding, no herding, no audible directions, yet the shifting thousands moved as one, and the route through the mansion, and down another staircase, was followed leisurely, by all. One might pause in any apartment to view the pictures or the decorations, or to chat with chance-met friends. By the admirable magic of the management, this made no difference in the manipulation of the throng. Eventually one came into a great marquee, built on terraces, and exquisitely draped inside with white and pale green. Here a sumptuous feast was served with the iron hand of neatness and despatch hidden in the velvet glove of suavity and elegant leisure. Here, again, one met hundreds of acquaintances, and made hundreds of new ones, the orchestra played national airs under two flags, and the scene was one of the brightest phases of kaleidoscopic London.

Then on, out into the great garden, full of delightful walks, seats, flowers, music, and rainbow-garbed humanity. More meetings of friends and strangers; more invitations for future going on; more introductions to kindly celebrities; more pleasant exchange of international compliment, and, above it all, the Stars and Stripes waving over Dorchester House!

From here I tore myself away to keep an engagement to Tea on the Terrace of the House of Commons.

This invitation had greatly pleased me, as it is esteemed a very worth-while experience, and, further, I was very fond of the genial M. P. and of his charming wife who had invited me. A bit belated, I reached the Lobby, where I was to meet my host, several minutes after the appointed time.

Unappalled by this disaster, because of my ignorance of its magnitude, I asked an official to conduct me to Mr. Member of Parliament.

“Impossible,” he replied, “Mr. Member has already gone to the Terrace, accompanied by his guests.”

“Yes,” said I, still not understanding; “I am one of his guests. Please show me the way to the Terrace.”

He looked at me pityingly.

“I’m sorry, madame; but it is impossible for you to join them now. No one may go there unless accompanied by a Member, and the Member you mention may not be sent for.”

This seemed ludicrous, but so final was his manner, that I became frightened lest I had really lost my entertainment.

Whether my look of utter despair appealed to his better nature, or whether he feared I was about to burst into tears, I don’t know,—but I could see that he began to waver a little.

I thought of bribery and corruption, and wondered if so austere an individual ought to be approached along those lines. I remembered that an Englishman had spoken to me thus:

“I don’t know of anybody in London who would refuse a fee, except a club servant or the King, and,” he added reflectively, “I’ve never tried the King—personally.”

Assisted by this knowledge, I somehow found myself being led down dark and devious staircases which gave suddenly out upon the broad, light Terrace. My guide then disappeared like an Arab, and I happily sauntered along in search of Mr. and Mrs. M. P.

The scene was unique. The long Terrace, looking out upon the Thames at the very point of which Wordsworth wrote,

Earth has not anything to show more fair,

was filled with tea tables, at each of which sat a group of prominent London tea-drinkers and their friends. The background, the Perpendicular architecture of Parliament House, is crumbling in places, and I looked quickly away, with a feeling of apology for having viewed it so closely as to see its slight defects.

My host greeted me with an air of unbounded amazement.

“But how did you get down here?” he exclaimed.

“American enterprise,” I responded, but I learned that it had been an extraordinary and reprehensible act on the part of the official who had guided me.

I was sorry to learn this, but glad that I had persevered to success.

Twelve people were at table, and that Tea is among my fairest London recollections.

The very atmosphere of the Terrace is Parliamentarian, though, of course, not in a literal sense, and vague, unmeaning visions of woolsack and wig seem to mingle with the visible realities. On the one side the Thames, trembling with traffic; on the other the silent altitude of stone, that seems to grow hospitable and confidential as you sit longer at its feet. And between these, the tea-table, with its merry group, laughing at each other’s jests, and carelessly throwing about those precious invitations which keep one going on.

My right-hand neighbor proved to be a large-minded editor of delightful personality.

We talked of books, and he said quite casually: “Yes, I fancy Henry James’s works. And, moreover, he’s a charming man, personally. Would you care to go motoring down to Rye to-morrow, and spend the day at his place?”

While almost simultaneously on my other side a lady was saying, “Yes, indeed, I’ll be glad to send you a card to the Annual Dinner of the Women Authors of Great Britain.”

Truly, hospitality is the keynote of the Leaders of London Society. An apparent lack of warmth may sometimes be noticeable in their manner, but they deal out delightful invitations with a free and willing hand, the acceptance of which keeps one forever going on.

And, after all, one is too prone to generalize.

Hostesses are human beings, and, therefore, there are no two alike.

One may classify,—and the types fall easily into classes,—but one may not make sweeping assertions. And, too, in society, which the world over is a sham and purveyor of shams, are kind hearts always more than coronets?

And when one is gayly, perhaps flippantly, going on, one wants to see all sorts, and I went from my Terrace Tea to a private view of some paintings.

Then, after suitable robing, to a dinner; then to the opera, where the delicious incongruity of _Madame Butterfly_ set to Italian grand opera music, was heightened by the dear baby who sat flat on the stage and waved the American flag into the very faces of the boxes full of English royalty.

And so, as Pepys would say, home, and to bed, feeling that there was certainly a fascinating exhilaration in London’s game of Going On.

_XIII._ _A French Week-End_

In London I met an American friend, a busy New York man of letters.

“I come to London every season,” said he, “for six week-ends. These are spent at country-houses, and are planned for a long time ahead.”

At first, I wondered what he did between the week-ends, but I soon learned that what with getting to and from one country-place, and arranging to go to and from another, the insignificant Wednesday or Thursday in between is totally lost sight of.

Distance to a week-end Mecca is counted as nothing; and so, when I was invited to a house-party at a villa some twelve miles out of Paris, I prepared to go as casually as if my destination were within the Dominions of the Unsetting Sun.

There seemed to be several routes from London to Paris, and each was recommended to me as “the only possible way”; but I decided upon the Dover-Calais route, and left Victoria station on the special train.

A friend who came to “see me off” insisted on providing me with a put-up luncheon, saying the only preventive of Channel bothers was to take a bite before embarking.

So persistent was he, that I accepted his offer to put an end to his argument, and waited in my compartment while he ran for the “bite.”

He returned, followed by a porter, who wheeled on a truck a “put-up luncheon”! It was in a hamper, shaped like a large-sized wicker suit-case. This stupendous affair was pushed under the seat, and before I had time to remonstrate, my train started.

Impelled alike by hunger and curiosity, I finally opened the gigantic lunch-basket. Inside were carefully planned compartments containing several courses of a delicious cold luncheon. Ample provision of serviettes and oiled paper protected the viands from possible dust or cinders, and the array of flat silver was bewildering. Plates and cups fitted into their niches, and the whole collection was of a completeness beyond compare. This is as yet an untried field for American enterprise, but I suppose it will come.

The disposition of the emptied hamper was simply to restore it to its place under the seat, and leave it there. Apparently it had the instincts of a homing pigeon.

Leaving Dover was like backing away from a picture post-card. I have sometimes thought lithographed colors unnaturally bright, but the green and white and blue of receding Dover on a sunshiny day make aniline dyes seem dull by comparison.

The crossing on the Channel steamer was delightful, and I now know the dreadful tales I have heard of this experience to be mere peevish malignity. I sat on the deck of the dancing boat, and when the spray grew mischievous, kind-hearted attendants wrapped me in tarpaulin mackintoshes, or whatever may be the French for their queer raincoats.

I ruined my hat and feathers, but, in the exhilaration of that mad dash through the tumbling, rioting sea, who could think of personal economy?

All too soon we reached Calais, and here, again, a living, breathing picture confronted me. Unlike Dover, the harbor at Calais is like an exquisite aquarelle. The high lights and half-tones are marvellous, and the composition is a masterpiece. But (and here I made my two rules that should be invariably observed by the traveller from London to Paris) there is not a more fearful wild-fowl living than your French customs inspector.

Troubles of all sorts cropped up, and the porters and officials talked such strange French that they couldn’t understand mine!

But the troubles were all because of my luggage, which they divided into two classes. And hence my two rules:

(1) When crossing the English Channel, on no account take with you any luggage except hand-luggage.

(2) On no account take any hand-luggage.

These rules, carefully observed, will insure a happy, peaceful journey, for the accommodations for personal comfort are admirable.