Letitia Elizabeth Landon

“ If they do, an eastern poet might gain new ideas about coolness and fragrance, while enjoying the coloured coldnesses at Grange's. Towards the close, flowers begin to pass away; you are not met at every second step in Regent's Street by a bunch of moss-roses—a little faded, it is true, allegories by the way of our pleasures, but sweet notwithstanding. Dark-eyed pinks no longer heap the stands in such profusion; but then fruit is come in, such fruit as London only can furnish. ”

“ Just, however, at this season, the Malay tongue might be used in London. How many sweet, bright, and lovely faces pass us by! Most women look well in their bonnets; and as for the other sort of flowers, we have them in profusion and perfection—such exquisite violets, such delicate lilies of the valley, such a rainbow world of hyacinths as now fill the rooms with perfume. ”

“ How often at the end of morning with the fashionable world—afternoon with the more quiet part of the community—and evening with the very respectable indeed—a young cavalier may be seen curbing a horse "impatient of the rein," at the nursery-grounds of the King's Road, till a bouquet of the most fragrant exotics is brought out. It does not ask much imagination to read a history of sighs, smiles, and blushes on every leaf. But I have less to say for the spring than for any other season; it has a name, which is tantamount to everything in this world—all know the pretensions of a London spring . ”

“ The air is heavy, as if that fine and subtle element were, by some strange process, becoming palpable. The shop-windows are dim, and the most familiar objects take unknown and strange shapes; the lights have a red and sullen glare; a hurrying multitude passes along; vehicles and passengers jostle together; there is neither rest nor quiet; you speak, and hear not your own voice. There seems no such thing as sympathy or relaxation in the world; it is given up wholly to business. The hardships and the labour of life oppress you with their visible presence. ”

“ A clear and softened atmosphere is immediately above you; a few light clouds are flushed with lights of fugitive red; a deep purple hue is upon the Serpentine, along which are floating, still as shadows, snowy as spirits, two or three white swans. They alone share with you the silence and the solitude to be found even in London. ”

“ Summer.—Nothing can be so pleasant as London in the summer. It is so cool, putting Piccadilly, from two till five, out of the question: there is always shade on one side or other of the street, a shade which you doubly enjoy, on the principle of contrast. It is satisfactory to think how hot the people must be opposite: then, though I do not eat ice myself, I can suppose other people doing it. ”

“ First, among the pleasures to which it is my agreeable task to draw attention, is that of not getting up in the morning. In the country, early rising is a duty; in town, it is a fault. Ah! I appeal to all who have any sensibility—for themselves—how delightful it is to be called in the morning, yet not to obey that call. It combines two of the greatest enjoyments of which our nature is susceptible—obstinacy and indolence. "Your early risers know not what they lose." A London day requires to be well aired before it is ventured into. ”

“ Spanish chestnuts, which bring to mind the stately trees where they grew, and all the wild tales of muleteers, guitars, and moonlight, which last seems made on purpose for Spain; but, of all, commend me to those Eastern treasures—dates. I never see one of those slender straw baskets filled with "the desert fruit" without losing myself in a delicious remembrance of those "Arabian Nights" which made so many a former day too short. I am no great believer in the superior happiness of childhood—it has its troubles. ”

“ The atmosphere is weighed down by toiling days and anxious nights. The crowd jostle on; they reck not of each other;—the careworn are always the careless. The great current of life flows through those restless streets, turbulent and unresting. ”

“ Pass along the centre arcade, and it is lined with trophies of the parterre or of the orchard, and you may look upon the early roses, and grow sentimental about
"The blush that ever haunted early love,"
or become unsophisticated, and go back to the innocent enjoyments of your childhood while gazing on the crimson-sided apples. I like, too, Hungerford Market; it gives one the idea of a Dutch picture. People wear mere bargaining faces; fruit and flowers have their price, but fish were sent into the world, at least, into the market, to be cheapened. ”

“ Autumn.—London now must rely on its own resources. It is such a thing to have resources in yourself, as people say when they waste a little fortune in having their daughters taught music and drawing, though all experience shows,—in vain though, of course, as experience always does,—that the chances are that the piano will never be opened, nor the pencil touched, when the young lady has once passed the age of exhibition. ”

“ As I sat out with being candid, I must now confess to the only want at the close of the London winter; snow-drops cannot be enjoyed in their full perfection. That we dwellers in town have the most beautiful as well as the greatest delight in flowers, I intend proving during the next season. ”

“ I hate one of those clear bright mornings, when the sun looks out coldly and mockingly, like wit sharpening at your expense; when you feel your very heart shrivelled within you, and think with respect of your ancestors, who rode and walked in black velvet masks. ”

“ But I believe that the sphere of action will be made more intense by its wider range; there will always be passion, crime, and sorrow enough in the human heart for tragic materials. But I was going to speak of the pantomimes—those visions of fairy-land—those legacies left us by the genii of old. Talk of travelling, who needs to travel while Stanfield and Grieve are greater than Mahomet, for they bring the mountain to us. I have seen the Falls of Niagara—I have looked on the Pyramids of Egypt—I am acquainted with old London Bridge. Take your children to the play by all means ”

“ Everybody beats down the price of a fresh pair of soles, or a fine turbot. It is just the sort of place for a new edition of the old anecdote of a well-known legal peer, who, feeling the necessity of reform among fishmongers, and retrenchment in their bills, determined on "shaming the rogues." He took his station at the dinner-table in all the triumph of a good bargain, that ovation of daily life, when "there was a place where the turbot was not." ”

“ If she has red hair, he brings her home pink ribbons: he buys a cap at the Bazaar or a bonnet in the Arcade,—not that I mean the least disrespect to those two very pretty places;—but certainly the crimsons and yellows, the blues and greens, which ornament the fabrics there exhibited, meant to decorate "the human face divine,"—to say nothing of size or shape,—do require a considerable degree of moral courage in the wearer. ”

“ If, even at three years old, we turn to the pleasures of memory, the less that is asserted about the felicity of childhood, the less there will be to dispute. Still it is the period when the Arabian Nights were first read, and that is enough to make up for a horde of catechisms of history, mythology, botany, &c., almost for the multiplication-table itself. ”

“ Female patriotism is a thing utterly beyond my comprehension. Her father had been a kind father to her; and the claims even of a nation are, to a woman, little in comparison with those of home. The reader may or may not think so; he can turn the subject over in his mind while he pursues the dim and chestnut-shaded walk which brings him again to the Park. During this time the sun has been setting; the fine old trees stand still and solemn in the crimson air ”

“ The moral of this story is,—we English people delight in a moral—not a moral to be deduced or inferred, but a nice, rounded, little moral, in all the starch of set sentences, and placed just at the end,—the moral of this is, let no man think of buying bargains. Alas for the unfortunate woman whose husband delights in surprises and presents! ”

“ CALENDAR OF THE LONDON SEASONS.
January.—Philosophers are moral, and poets are picturesque about the country. Sheridan Knowles, as the climax to the merits of his charming Julia, makes her declare to her lover, "Who weds with me must lead a country life." From the first shop in Piccadilly to the last on Ludgate-hill, "the farther-looking hope" that hovers over the counter is a dream of some rural retirement. I never heard a naval or military man speak of the future but as to be passed in some dwelling which held out the delights of growing their own vegetables and killing their own mutton. ”

“ The eye being glad to get away as soon as possible, wanders into the distance, and rests on the old towers of Westminster Abbey, shining through a golden haze, which hangs around it like the glory of past ages. ”

“ Some friend, with a constitution like that of China, which has lasted from the time of Confucius to the present dynasty, catches you just as you are hastily turning some exposed corner, and stops you with the wind in your face to remark, "What beautiful weather for the time of year!" ”

“ I pass over a horde of other miseries, such as stooping in the sun, thorns, dirt, &c., and will only observe, that fruit never looks to such an advantage as it does on china, whether Dresden, Sevres, or even Worcester. ”

“ Common people and carts have consciences; cabriolets have none. But now the lovers of the picturesque may indulge their tastes without risking their lives, as if they were ascending Mont Blanc, or traversing the desert, surrounded by Bedouin Arabs. First comes the early walk along Piccadilly. ”

“ In the centre is a cannon, and against it there is leaning a youth in a blue jacket and black handkerchief—the beau ideale of our nation's beau ideale—"a true British sailor." A little beyond is a fruiterer's shop. ”

“ She has retreated before the commercial interests. The Thames is wanted for the world: not for what is called the "great world." Wharfs have taken the place of the gardens. Still I must regret the noble dwellings of Henry and Elizabeth's times; the days of terraces and barges, when the court went by water to Greenwich, and the fine old houses in the Strand had pleasure-grounds sloping down to the river. ”

“ If they do not, we congratulate them: life has yet a pleasure in store; they have "Emma" to read. Now is the period for really seeing the streets; at other times, one's own personal safety has to be consulted. ”