Ford Madox Hueffer,
The Soul of London
(1905)
“ He must remember that the thatched, mud-hovels that crowded round the Tower of original London, were just as dull, just as ordinary, just as commonplace; that men in them lived lives, according to their scale, just as squalid and just as unromantic—or just as alert and just as tragic. ”
Ford Madox Hueffer,
The Soul of London
(1905)
“ The author then must be careful not to sentimentalise over the picturesque. His business is to render the actual. His heart may be—it ought to be—torn at the sight of great hoardings, raised for the house-breakers, round narrow courts, old streets, famous houses. He ought to be alive to the glamour of old associations, of all the old associations in all their human aspects.—But he ought to be equally inspired with satisfaction because work is being done; because dark spots are being cleared away; because new haunts are beings formed for new people around whom will congregate new associations. ”
Ford Madox Hueffer,
The Soul of London
(1905)
“ That sense of the picturesque will, however, be both a salvation and a most dangerous stumbling-block. In a turning off an opulent High Street, there is a court with the exterior aspect of which I am very familiar. ”
