One never loses one's fondness for canals. The
boats glide like the days, and the toiling horse is a symbol! how he
strains, sticking his toes into the path!
There are visits to pay. Three hours pass--of course women, always
women. But at six I am free, and I resume my meditations in declining
light as the cab rolls through the old brick streets that crowd round
Golden Square; streets whose names you meet in old novels; streets
full of studios where Hayden, Fuseli, and others of the rank
historical tribe talked art with a big A, drank their despair away,
and died wondering why the world did not recognise their genius.
Children are scrambling round a neglected archway, striving to reach
to a lantern of old time. The smell of these dry faded streets is
peculiar to London; there is something of the odour of the original
marsh in the smell of these streets; it rises through the pavement and
mingles with the smoke. Fancy follows fancy, image succeeds image;
till all is but a seeming, and mystery envelops everything. That white
Arch seems to speak to me out of the twilight. I would fain believe it
has its secret to reveal. London wraps herself in mists; blue scarfs
are falling--trailing. London has a secret! Let me peer into her
veiled face and read.
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