________________________________________________
_ Being in a humour for complete solitude and uninterrupted
meditation this autumn, I have taken a lodging for six weeks in the
most unfrequented part of England--in a word, in London.
The retreat into which I have withdrawn myself, is Bond-street.
From this lonely spot I make pilgrimages into the surrounding
wilderness, and traverse extensive tracts of the Great Desert. The
first solemn feeling of isolation overcome, the first oppressive
consciousness of profound retirement conquered, I enjoy that sense
of freedom, and feel reviving within me that latent wildness of the
original savage, which has been (upon the whole somewhat
frequently) noticed by Travellers.
My lodgings are at a hatter's--my own hatter's. After exhibiting
no articles in his window for some weeks, but sea-side wide-awakes,
shooting-caps, and a choice of rough waterproof head-gear for the
moors and mountains, he has put upon the heads of his family as
much of this stock as they could carry, and has taken them off to
the Isle of Thanet. His young man alone remains--and remains alone
in the shop. The young man has let out the fire at which the irons
are heated, and, saving his strong sense of duty, I see no reason
why he should take the shutters down.
Happily for himself and for his country the young man is a
Volunteer; most happily for himself, or I think he would become the
prey of a settled melancholy. For, to live surrounded by human
hats, and alienated from human heads to fit them on, is surely a
great endurance. But, the young man, sustained by practising his
exercise, and by constantly furbishing up his regulation plume (it
is unnecessary to observe that, as a hatter, he is in a cock's-
feather corps), is resigned, and uncomplaining. On a Saturday,
when he closes early and gets his Knickerbockers on, he is even
cheerful. I am gratefully particular in this reference to him,
because he is my companion through many peaceful hours.
My hatter has a desk up certain steps behind his counter, enclosed
like the clerk's desk at Church. I shut myself into this place of
seclusion, after breakfast, and meditate. At such times, I observe
the young man loading an imaginary rifle with the greatest
precision, and maintaining a most galling and destructive fire upon
the national enemy. I thank him publicly for his companionship and
his patriotism.
The simple character of my life, and the calm nature of the scenes
by which I am surrounded, occasion me to rise early. I go forth in
my slippers, and promenade the pavement. It is pastoral to feel
the freshness of the air in the uninhabited town, and to appreciate
the shepherdess character of the few milkwomen who purvey so little
milk that it would be worth nobody's while to adulterate it, if
anybody were left to undertake the task. On the crowded sea-shore,
the great demand for milk, combined with the strong local
temptation of chalk, would betray itself in the lowered quality of
the article. In Arcadian London I derive it from the cow.
The Arcadian simplicity of the metropolis altogether, and the
primitive ways into which it has fallen in this autumnal Golden
Age, make it entirely new to me. Within a few hundred yards of my
retreat, is the house of a friend who maintains a most sumptuous
butler. I never, until yesterday, saw that butler out of superfine
black broadcloth. Until yesterday, I never saw him off duty, never
saw him (he is the best of butlers) with the appearance of having
any mind for anything but the glory of his master and his master's
friends. Yesterday morning, walking in my slippers near the house
of which he is the prop and ornament--a house now a waste of
shutters--I encountered that butler, also in his slippers, and in a
shooting suit of one colour, and in a low-crowned straw-hat,
smoking an early cigar. He felt that we had formerly met in
another state of existence, and that we were translated into a new
sphere. Wisely and well, he passed me without recognition. Under
his arm he carried the morning paper, and shortly afterwards I saw
him sitting on a rail in the pleasant open landscape of Regent-
street, perusing it at his ease under the ripening sun.
My landlord having taken his whole establishment to be salted down,
I am waited on by an elderly woman labouring under a chronic sniff,
who, at the shadowy hour of half-past nine o'clock of every
evening, gives admittance at the street door to a meagre and mouldy
old man whom I have never yet seen detached from a flat pint of
beer in a pewter pot. The meagre and mouldy old man is her
husband, and the pair have a dejected consciousness that they are
not justified in appearing on the surface of the earth. They come
out of some hole when London empties itself, and go in again when
it fills. I saw them arrive on the evening when I myself took
possession, and they arrived with the flat pint of beer, and their
bed in a bundle. The old man is a weak old man, and appeared to me
to get the bed down the kitchen stairs by tumbling down with and
upon it. They make their bed in the lowest and remotest corner of
the basement, and they smell of bed, and have no possession but
bed: unless it be (which I rather infer from an under-current of
flavour in them) cheese. I know their name, through the chance of
having called the wife's attention, at half-past nine on the second
evening of our acquaintance, to the circumstance of there being
some one at the house door; when she apologetically explained,
'It's only Mr. Klem.' What becomes of Mr. Klem all day, or when he
goes out, or why, is a mystery I cannot penetrate; but at half-past
nine he never fails to turn up on the door-step with the flat pint
of beer. And the pint of beer, flat as it is, is so much more
important than himself, that it always seems to my fancy as if it
had found him drivelling in the street and had humanely brought him
home. In making his way below, Mr. Klem never goes down the middle
of the passage, like another Christian, but shuffles against the
wall as if entreating me to take notice that he is occupying as
little space as possible in the house; and whenever I come upon him
face to face, he backs from me in fascinated confusion. The most
extraordinary circumstance I have traced in connexion with this
aged couple, is, that there is a Miss Klem, their daughter,
apparently ten years older than either of them, who has also a bed
and smells of it, and carries it about the earth at dusk and hides
it in deserted houses. I came into this piece of knowledge through
Mrs. Klem's beseeching me to sanction the sheltering of Miss Klem
under that roof for a single night, 'between her takin' care of the
upper part in Pall Mall which the family of his back, and a 'ouse
in Serjameses-street, which the family of leaves towng ter-morrer.'
I gave my gracious consent (having nothing that I know of to do
with it), and in the shadowy hours Miss Klem became perceptible on
the door-step, wrestling with a bed in a bundle. Where she made it
up for the night I cannot positively state, but, I think, in a
sink. I know that with the instinct of a reptile or an insect, she
stowed it and herself away in deep obscurity. In the Klem family,
I have noticed another remarkable gift of nature, and that is a
power they possess of converting everything into flue. Such broken
victuals as they take by stealth, appear (whatever the nature of
the viands) invariably to generate flue; and even the nightly pint
of beer, instead of assimilating naturally, strikes me as breaking
out in that form, equally on the shabby gown of Mrs. Klem, and the
threadbare coat of her husband.
Mrs. Klem has no idea of my name--as to Mr. Klem he has no idea of
anything--and only knows me as her good gentleman. Thus, if
doubtful whether I am in my room or no, Mrs. Klem taps at the door
and says, 'Is my good gentleman here?' Or, if a messenger desiring
to see me were consistent with my solitude, she would show him in
with 'Here is my good gentleman.' I find this to be a generic
custom. For, I meant to have observed before now, that in its
Arcadian time all my part of London is indistinctly pervaded by the
Klem species. They creep about with beds, and go to bed in miles
of deserted houses. They hold no companionship except that
sometimes, after dark, two of them will emerge from opposite
houses, and meet in the middle of the road as on neutral ground, or
will peep from adjoining houses over an interposing barrier of area
railings, and compare a few reserved mistrustful notes respecting
their good ladies or good gentlemen. This I have discovered in the
course of various solitary rambles I have taken Northward from my
retirement, along the awful perspectives of Wimpole-street, Harley-
street, and similar frowning regions. Their effect would be
scarcely distinguishable from that of the primeval forests, but for
the Klem stragglers; these may be dimly observed, when the heavy
shadows fall, flitting to and fro, putting up the door-chain,
taking in the pint of beer, lowering like phantoms at the dark
parlour windows, or secretly consorting underground with the dust-
bin and the water-cistern.
In the Burlington Arcade, I observe, with peculiar pleasure, a
primitive state of manners to have superseded the baneful
influences of ultra civilisation. Nothing can surpass the
innocence of the ladies' shoe-shops, the artificial-flower
repositories, and the head-dress depots. They are in strange hands
at this time of year--hands of unaccustomed persons, who are
imperfectly acquainted with the prices of the goods, and
contemplate them with unsophisticated delight and wonder. The
children of these virtuous people exchange familiarities in the
Arcade, and temper the asperity of the two tall beadles. Their
youthful prattle blends in an unwonted manner with the harmonious
shade of the scene, and the general effect is, as of the voices of
birds in a grove. In this happy restoration of the golden time, it
has been my privilege even to see the bigger beadle's wife. She
brought him his dinner in a basin, and he ate it in his arm-chair,
and afterwards fell asleep like a satiated child. At Mr.
Truefitt's, the excellent hairdresser's, they are learning French
to beguile the time; and even the few solitaries left on guard at
Mr. Atkinson's, the perfumer's round the corner (generally the most
inexorable gentleman in London, and the most scornful of three-and-
sixpence), condescend a little, as they drowsily bide or recall
their turn for chasing the ebbing Neptune on the ribbed sea-sand.
From Messrs. Hunt and Roskell's, the jewellers, all things are
absent but the precious stones, and the gold and silver, and the
soldierly pensioner at the door with his decorated breast. I might
stand night and day for a month to come, in Saville-row, with my
tongue out, yet not find a doctor to look at it for love or money.
The dentists' instruments are rusting in their drawers, and their
horrible cool parlours, where people pretend to read the Every-Day
Book and not to be afraid, are doing penance for their grimness in
white sheets. The light-weight of shrewd appearance, with one eye
always shut up, as if he were eating a sharp gooseberry in all
seasons, who usually stands at the gateway of the livery-stables on
very little legs under a very large waistcoat, has gone to
Doncaster. Of such undesigning aspect is his guileless yard now,
with its gravel and scarlet beans, and the yellow Break housed
under a glass roof in a corner, that I almost believe I could not
be taken in there, if I tried. In the places of business of the
great tailors, the cheval-glasses are dim and dusty for lack of
being looked into. Ranges of brown paper coat and waistcoat bodies
look as funereal as if they were the hatchments of the customers
with whose names they are inscribed; the measuring tapes hang idle
on the wall; the order-taker, left on the hopeless chance of some
one looking in, yawns in the last extremity over the book of
patterns, as if he were trying to read that entertaining library.
The hotels in Brook-street have no one in them, and the staffs of
servants stare disconsolately for next season out of all the
windows. The very man who goes about like an erect Turtle, between
two boards recommendatory of the Sixteen Shilling Trousers, is
aware of himself as a hollow mockery, and eats filberts while he
leans his hinder shell against a wall.
Among these tranquillising objects, it is my delight to walk and
meditate. Soothed by the repose around me, I wander insensibly to
considerable distances, and guide myself back by the stars. Thus,
I enjoy the contrast of a few still partially inhabited and busy
spots where all the lights are not fled, where all the garlands are
not dead, whence all but I have not departed. Then, does it appear
to me that in this age three things are clamorously required of Man
in the miscellaneous thoroughfares of the metropolis. Firstly,
that he have his boots cleaned. Secondly, that he eat a penny ice.
Thirdly, that he get himself photographed. Then do I speculate,
What have those seam-worn artists been who stand at the photograph
doors in Greek caps, sample in hand, and mysteriously salute the
public--the female public with a pressing tenderness--to come in
and be 'took'? What did they do with their greasy blandishments,
before the era of cheap photography? Of what class were their
previous victims, and how victimised? And how did they get, and
how did they pay for, that large collection of likenesses, all
purporting to have been taken inside, with the taking of none of
which had that establishment any more to do than with the taking of
Delhi?
But, these are small oases, and I am soon back again in
metropolitan Arcadia. It is my impression that much of its serene
and peaceful character is attributable to the absence of customary
Talk. How do I know but there may be subtle influences in Talk, to
vex the souls of men who don't hear it? How do I know but that
Talk, five, ten, twenty miles off, may get into the air and
disagree with me? If I rise from my bed, vaguely troubled and
wearied and sick of my life, in the session of Parliament, who
shall say that my noble friend, my right reverend friend, my right
honourable friend, my honourable friend, my honourable and learned
friend, or my honourable and gallant friend, may not be responsible
for that effect upon my nervous system? Too much Ozone in the air,
I am informed and fully believe (though I have no idea what it is),
would affect me in a marvellously disagreeable way; why may not too
much Talk? I don't see or hear the Ozone; I don't see or hear the
Talk. And there is so much Talk; so much too much; such loud cry,
and such scant supply of wool; such a deal of fleecing, and so
little fleece! Hence, in the Arcadian season, I find it a
delicious triumph to walk down to deserted Westminster, and see the
Courts shut up; to walk a little further and see the Two Houses
shut up; to stand in the Abbey Yard, like the New Zealander of the
grand English History (concerning which unfortunate man, a whole
rookery of mares' nests is generally being discovered), and gloat
upon the ruins of Talk. Returning to my primitive solitude and
lying down to sleep, my grateful heart expands with the
consciousness that there is no adjourned Debate, no ministerial
explanation, nobody to give notice of intention to ask the noble
Lord at the head of her Majesty's Government five-and-twenty
bootless questions in one, no term time with legal argument, no
Nisi Prius with eloquent appeal to British Jury; that the air will
to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, remain untroubled by this
superabundant generating of Talk. In a minor degree it is a
delicious triumph to me to go into the club, and see the carpets
up, and the Bores and the other dust dispersed to the four winds.
Again, New Zealander-like, I stand on the cold hearth, and say in
the solitude, 'Here I watched Bore A 1, with voice always
mysteriously low and head always mysteriously drooped, whispering
political secrets into the ears of Adam's confiding children.
Accursed be his memory for ever and a day!'
But, I have all this time been coming to the point, that the happy
nature of my retirement is most sweetly expressed in its being the
abode of Love. It is, as it were, an inexpensive Agapemone:
nobody's speculation: everybody's profit. The one great result of
the resumption of primitive habits, and (convertible terms) the not
having much to do, is, the abounding of Love.
The Klem species are incapable of the softer emotions; probably, in
that low nomadic race, the softer emotions have all degenerated
into flue. But, with this exception, all the sharers of my retreat
make love.
I have mentioned Saville-row. We all know the Doctor's servant.
We all know what a respectable man he is, what a hard dry man, what
a firm man, what a confidential man: how he lets us into the
waiting-room, like a man who knows minutely what is the matter with
us, but from whom the rack should not wring the secret. In the
prosaic "season," he has distinctly the appearance of a man
conscious of money in the savings bank, and taking his stand on his
respectability with both feet. At that time it is as impossible to
associate him with relaxation, or any human weakness, as it is to
meet his eye without feeling guilty of indisposition. In the blest
Arcadian time, how changed! I have seen him, in a pepper-and-salt
jacket--jacket--and drab trousers, with his arm round the waist of
a bootmaker's housemaid, smiling in open day. I have seen him at
the pump by the Albany, unsolicitedly pumping for two fair young
creatures, whose figures as they bent over their cans, were--if I
may be allowed an original expression--a model for the sculptor. I
have seen him trying the piano in the Doctor's drawing-room with
his forefinger, and have heard him humming tunes in praise of
lovely woman. I have seen him seated on a fire-engine, and going
(obviously in search of excitement) to a fire. I saw him, one
moonlight evening when the peace and purity of our Arcadian west
were at their height, polk with the lovely daughter of a cleaner of
gloves, from the door-steps of his own residence, across Saville-
row, round by Clifford-street and Old Burlington-street, back to
Burlington-gardens. Is this the Golden Age revived, or Iron
London?
The Dentist's servant. Is that man no mystery to us, no type of
invisible power? The tremendous individual knows (who else does?)
what is done with the extracted teeth; he knows what goes on in the
little room where something is always being washed or filed; he
knows what warm spicy infusion is put into the comfortable tumbler
from which we rinse our wounded mouth, with a gap in it that feels
a foot wide; he knows whether the thing we spit into is a fixture
communicating with the Thames, or could be cleared away for a
dance; he sees the horrible parlour where there are no patients in
it, and he could reveal, if he would, what becomes of the Every-Day
Book then. The conviction of my coward conscience when I see that
man in a professional light, is, that he knows all the statistics
of my teeth and gums, my double teeth, my single teeth, my stopped
teeth, and my sound. In this Arcadian rest, I am fearless of him
as of a harmless, powerless creature in a Scotch cap, who adores a
young lady in a voluminous crinoline, at a neighbouring billiard-
room, and whose passion would be uninfluenced if every one of her
teeth were false. They may be. He takes them all on trust.
In secluded corners of the place of my seclusion, there are little
shops withdrawn from public curiosity, and never two together,
where servants' perquisites are bought. The cook may dispose of
grease at these modest and convenient marts; the butler, of
bottles; the valet and lady's maid, of clothes; most servants,
indeed, of most things they may happen to lay hold of. I have been
told that in sterner times loving correspondence, otherwise
interdicted, may be maintained by letter through the agency of some
of these useful establishments. In the Arcadian autumn, no such
device is necessary. Everybody loves, and openly and blamelessly
loves. My landlord's young man loves the whole of one side of the
way of Old Bond-street, and is beloved several doors up New Bond-
street besides. I never look out of window but I see kissing of
hands going on all around me. It is the morning custom to glide
from shop to shop and exchange tender sentiments; it is the evening
custom for couples to stand hand in hand at house doors, or roam,
linked in that flowery manner, through the unpeopled streets.
There is nothing else to do but love; and what there is to do, is
done.
In unison with this pursuit, a chaste simplicity obtains in the
domestic habits of Arcadia. Its few scattered people dine early,
live moderately, sup socially, and sleep soundly. It is rumoured
that the Beadles of the Arcade, from being the mortal enemies of
boys, have signed with tears an address to Lord Shaftesbury, and
subscribed to a ragged school. No wonder! For, they might turn
their heavy maces into crooks and tend sheep in the Arcade, to the
purling of the water-carts as they give the thirsty streets much
more to drink than they can carry.
A happy Golden Age, and a serene tranquillity. Charming picture,
but it will fade. The iron age will return, London will come back
to town, if I show my tongue then in Saville-row for half a minute
I shall be prescribed for, the Doctor's man and the Dentist's man
will then pretend that these days of unprofessional innocence never
existed. Where Mr. and Mrs. Klem and their bed will be at that
time, passes human knowledge; but my hatter hermitage will then
know them no more, nor will it then know me. The desk at which I
have written these meditations will retributively assist at the
making out of my account, and the wheels of gorgeous carriages and
the hoofs of high-stepping horses will crush the silence out of
Bond-street--will grind Arcadia away, and give it to the elements
in granite powder. _
Read next: CHAPTER XVII - THE ITALIAN PRISONER
Read previous: CHAPTER XV - NURSE'S STORIES
Table of content of Uncommercial Traveller
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
