J. A. Hammerton

“ All in a death-dumb, autumn-dripping gloom, comes to mind in Buenos Ayres on one of these days, but, alas, the autumn dripping is not from branchy trees to fragrant, leaf-laden loam, nor is it “death-dumb.” It drips from gaunt iron frames, from broken plastered walls, from tram-cars, from horses’ harness. A billiard cue taken from the rack will feel as though it had been lying in the bath, and the boots which you have not been wearing for a few days will show patches of white and green mould.
But it is true that between April and November there may be many days of sunshine ”

“ How futile it sounded when, as with a new revelation, the young man saw and loved at sight the good, rude health of his father and his sisters, living as bits of Nature, and standing not up to rail at Fate, but without whimpering playing their tiny parts in the drama of life. ”

“ On the occasion of my first visit, a beautiful calm day of winter sunshine changed in an instant, on the rising of a sharp wind, to the greyness of a London fog, but ten thousand times more abominable in character than any fog could ever be, for the greyness came from dense clouds of finest dust, raised in such abundance from the sand-laden streets that even the great public buildings, one of which I was in the act of photographing, were suddenly blotted from sight, and everybody out of doors was making a desperate dash for shelter. ”

“ We had left behind us all the tree-bearing slopes, and the river now ran in a great chasm of volcanic cliffs, shooting their fantastic pinnacles a thousand feet into the darkling sky, and presenting many an outline that might have been mistaken for the towers and bastions of some eerie stronghold. Not a soul was passed on all the miles of road, no sound was heard but the varying noise of the water, nothing moved in our path except an occasional bat, that zigzagged its noiseless flight across the road. ”

“ Vague and confused were the thoughts of Henry as the 'bus lumbered its way by historic Drury Lane and across Holborn, to his door in Bloomsbury. A 'bus ride was still full of romance to him, and the glimmering lamps of London were dearer to his mind than "the swing of Pleiades"; every jingling cab that passed, every lighted window, was touched with romance in his eyes. ”

“ There are hundreds of projecting shops-signs, in which changing electric lights are now revealed and now occluded, and the great warehouses are all illuminated as though it were another centenario, news vendors are calling La Razon, El Diario, Caras y Caretas, or Fray Mocho, and the whole has the atmosphere of some brilliant bazaar, rather than of the highway of a great city. It is a feast of light, but not of gaiety, for the Argentines are not given to joyousness and are strangely lacking in humour; everybody is frightfully formal and all are obviously conscious of being well dressed. ”

“ There are some towns that ask of you only to wander their streets, and others that challenge you to closer acquaintance with their sights. Paris or Brussels, for example, pours its bright life through boulevard and park, and you are charmed to walk about with no urgent call to any place in particular; but who can linger in Princes Street of Edinburgh with the grey old castle inviting him to climb up to it, or the Calton Hill boldly advertising itself with its mock Roman remains? ”

“ To the untravelled British provincial, who has shipped straight from some English port to the River Plate, I can well imagine the Argentine metropolis is the greatest wonder of the world. The most devoted admirer of Buenos Ayres that I met during my stay there was a gentleman from Kilmarnock, Scotland. He had never seen London; had never previously been out of his native Scotland; but his ten years in the Argentine capital had convinced him that it stood unique in the world and in all time as the most glorious example of the power of man in the making of cities. ”

“ Henry was silent because of his inability to understand the mystery of pain—a mystery to older heads than his.
"I have searched the world for a principle, for a law of life," exclaimed Mr. P., stopping suddenly and looking the journalist straight in the face, "and I have never scented one."
"We are told to love one another," said Henry, almost timidly.
"Well, do you find that principle at work? I find hate, malice, inhumanity, wherever I turn my eyes. That is what I meant by the butcher's shop. I find ministers preaching the gospel of peace and buttressing the policy of war and plunder. ”

“ The rambler in old France can seldom undertake a little journey during the summer without coming upon some town where a fair is in progress. At least, that has been my own experience, and in the course of wide wanderings through the highways and by-ways of the most delightful land in Europe I have witnessed many fairs in towns so far apart as Morlaix and Montluçon, Orleans and Beaucaire, Rennes and Lisieux. Nowhere does the distinctive character of a people show itself more strongly than in its public fairs and rejoicings. ”

“ Laughter and tears mingle a good deal in the landing of these poor people from the Old World. Huddled almost like cattle in the steerage of the steamers, their condition at sea presents what seems an unbridgable abyss between their lives and those of the saloon passengers. Day after day I have watched them sitting aimlessly on deck in their dirty, faded clothes, the effluvia from the mass of them, even tempered by the sea breeze, suggesting conditions of horror when they “turned in” at night, that might recall the Black Hole of Calcutta. ”

“ A bright morning in June saw us gliding on our wheels along the excellent route nationale that carries us thither on a long, easy gradient. The town seen at a distance is a mere huddle of grey houses stuck on the side of a bleak, treeless upland, and at close quarters it presents few allurements to the traveller. But it is typical of the mountain villages of France, and rich in the rugged, unspoilt character of its inhabitants. Stevenson tells us that it is "notable for the making of lace, for drunkenness, for freedom of language, and for unparalleled political dissension." ”

“ The scenery is by no means sensational in its beauty, as the train threads its way among the gentler valleys watered by the River Mendoza for some forty or fifty kilometres westward of the city. But as the ascent becomes more precipitous and the clatter of the rack and pinion slackens to the slowest of tunes, while the engine crawls, with much puffing, laboriously upwards, the panorama of the mountain heights grows very beautiful, and unlike most mountain scenery of Europe. ”