Soho

“ By-and-by it would be hot and malodorous here, but just now the sense of summer’s charm found them out even in Soho.
She had asked him about himself. The question had risen naturally enough to her lips, and she had propelled it without diffidence. But when the words actually sounded in her own ears, they frightened her. The inquiry seemed all at once personal to the point of rudeness. The possibility of his resenting her curiosity rose in her mind, and on the instant flared upward into painful certainty. ”

“ At Soho foundry in 1798 Murdock constructed an apparatus which enabled him to exhibit his lighting-plan on a larger scale and to experiment on purifying and burning the gas so as to eliminate odor and smoke. Soho was an unique institution described as a place
to which men of genius were invited and resorted from every civilized country, to exercise and to display their talents. ”

“ Men and women may live there for years, and their antecedents and present modes of life shall be as little known as if they lived in the most remote corner of the earth. Soho is the molehill of the Great City. You may have a thousand pounds a year and spend it in Soho, and your neighbours not only shall not notice it, but shall be as utterly indifferent to you as if you lived on tenpence a day--as hundreds of poor fellows are doing at this present moment. Hard-working mechanics live there ”

“ Wondrous is the inner life of Soho. It is the abode of much seediness and much suffering. Many a poor gentleman eats his bread-and-dripping there, and, if he can afford it, cooks his herring there, and thinks sadly of times, gone by, when his life had its days of sunshine. ”

“ Sofia understood. At eighteen—thanks to the comprehensive visual education in the business of life which she could hardly have failed to assimilate from a coign of vantage overlooking every table of a Soho restaurant—there were precious few things she didn’t understand. But her insight into Papa Dupont’s mind in respect of herself was wholly devoid of sympathy. ”

“ They are still in the grade of office and shop which is immediately below their one-time status of dwellings for well-to-do merchants.
Victoria entered Soho Place from the square, so that she was not too ill impressed. She walked in the middle of the pavement, unconsciously influenced the foreign flavour of Soho. There men and women stand all day in the street, talking, bargaining, quarrelling and making love; when a cab rattles by [Pg 84] they move aside lazily, as a Neapolitan stevedore rolls away on the wharf from the wheels of a passing cart. ”

“ Dazed, I turned back at length into the little room, and I suppose I paid Berthe or Rose for my dinner and luncheon and for Soames's; I hope so, for I never went to the Vingtieme again. Ever since that night I have avoided Greek Street altogether. And for years I did not set foot even in Soho Square, because on that same night it was there that I paced and loitered, long and long, with some such dull sense of hope as a man has in not straying far from the place where he has lost something. ”

“ Miss Ley dined with Frank in shabby little restaurants in Soho, where neither the linen nor the frequenters were of a spotless character; but it entertained her much to watch bearded Frenchmen languishing away from their native land, and to overhear the voluble confidences of ladies whose position in society was scarcely acknowledged. They went together to music-halls over the river or drove on the tops of ’buses, and discussed interminably the weather and eternity, the meaning of life, the foibles of their friends, Shakespeare, and the Bilharzia hæmatobi. ”

“ Untidy, full of Greeks, Ishmaelites, cats, Italians, tomatoes, restaurants, organs, coloured stuffs, queer names, people looking out of upper windows, it dwells remote from the British Body Politic. Yet has it haphazard proprietary instincts of its own, and a certain possessive prosperity which keeps its rents up when those of other quarters go down. For long years Soames' acquaintanceship with Soho had been confined to its Western bastion, Wardour Street. ”

“ In Soho, indeed, I got my first inkling of the factor of replacement that is so important in both the English and the American process.
Even in the West End, in Mayfair and the square, about Pall Mall, Ewart was presently to remind me the face of the old aristocratic dignity was fairer than its substance; here were actors and actresses, here money lenders and Jews, here bold financial adventurers, and I thought of my uncle’s frayed cuff as he pointed out this house in Park Lane and that. ”

“ Dalim told the Europeans that a soho, or flood, called bandjer amongst the Malays, could be extremely dangerous sometimes, for the waters rise suddenly and run with irresistible force. Vessels caught by the soho are frequently carried away and are exposed to the danger of foundering in one of the whirlpools, or of being shattered against the cliffs of the kihams. As soon as they entered the mouth of the soengei Samoehing they landed and drew their boats as high on the shore as possible in order to place them beyond the reach of the flood. ”

“ And into the chilly kiss he placed on her forehead, Soames put more than his usual warmth.
“I have to go down to Robin Hill to-morrow,” he said, “to see young Jolyon on business. He's got a boy at Oxford. I'd like to take Val with me and introduce him. Come down to 'The Shelter' for the week-end and bring the children. Oh! by the way, no, that won't do; I've got some other people coming.” So saying, he left her and turned towards Soho.
CHAPTER IV—SOHO
Of all quarters in the queer adventurous amalgam called London, Soho is perhaps least suited to the Forsyte spirit. ”

“ She had, he knew, but one real ambition—to live on her “rentes” in Paris near her grandchildren. He would buy the goodwill of the Restaurant Bretagne at a fancy price. Madame would live like a Queen-Mother in Paris on the interest, invested as she would know how. (Incidentally Soames meant to put a capable manager in her place, and make the restaurant pay good interest on his money. There were great possibilities in Soho.) On Annette he would promise to settle fifteen thousand pounds (whether designedly or not) , precisely the sum old Jolyon had settled on “that woman.” ”

“ Sokos collect together and make a drumming noise, some say with hollow trees, then burst forth into loud yells, which are well imitated by the natives’ embryotic music. When men hear them, they go to the sokos; but sokos never go to men with hostility. Manyuema say, ‘Soko is a man, and nothing bad in him.’
“If a man has no spear the soko goes away satisfied; but if wounded he seizes the wrist, lops off the fingers and spits them out, slaps the cheeks of his victim, and bites without breaking the skin. ”

“ And when her handmaidens were departed, the two Rabbans rose up, and seized her, and they said unto her, “We wish to lie with thee, and if thou refusest we will be witnesses against thee that we found a man with thee.” And Sosena wept, and said, “I am in affliction in every way: If I do [what ye want] I shall die, and if I do not I cannot be saved. It is better for me to fall into the hand of God than to sin before Him.” And Sosena uttered a cry at the top of her voice, and the Rabbans cried out at her, and one of them ran and opened the doors of the garden. ”

“ The owner-engineer of the Sofala remained very still behind the two seamen of different race, creed, and color; the European with the time-defying vigor of his old frame, the little Malay, old, too, but slight and shrunken like a withered brown leaf blown by a chance wind under the mighty shadow of the other. Very busy looking forward at the land, they had not a glance to spare; and Massy, glaring at them from behind, seemed to resent their attention to their duty like a personal slight upon himself. ”

“ At dark the big Sok goes to bed with the camels and the donkeys and the sheep; man and beast bed down together; and it is an eerie place to pick one’s way through when the night is dark. From choice we lived, when in Tangier, across the big Sok, at the Hôtel Cavilla, and sometimes of an evening, after dinner, would descend the slope, passing through the gates, down the narrow, cobbled streets, to the Soko Chico, with its flaring [86] cafés, to sit perhaps and watch a Moorish kaid pit his skill at chess against a German champion. ”

“ Though the names were beautiful there were no sounds at these magic spots that filtered into the soul of Scobee. Hangchow was a failure.
The venerable walled city of Soochow at which they stopped off on the return to Shanghai was no better. It has been written that the cobble streets of Soochow have been trod by eighty generations of men. Its known history goes back to four centuries before the birth of Christ. Of no city anywhere has the history been written down so painstakingly. Hung Long Tom loved Soochow because it has always been admittedly the literary heart of China. ”

“ The King of Soochow was a
man, eaten up with mad ambitions. He began to tread upon the lands
of the old King, taking now a farmhouse, now a village, and at last a
city, until the poor old King was threatened at his very gateway by the
army of the young man. The young King had strength, but the old
King had guile, so he made a peace with his enemy for one year. He
sent him presents, costly silks and teas, and pearls and jade and
ginseng, and, last and best, a beautiful slave-girl, the most beautiful in
the province. ”

“ Shi Soh you know as ‘Trasmere’ and that, of course, is his name. On the Amur River we called him Shi Soh. I came to this country many years ago and worked in the restaurant of which I am now proprietor. I do not mean the Golden Roof, but the little place in Reed Street. The man who owned it lost all his money at Fan-tan, and I bought it a bargain. You may wonder why a man of education, and the son of a great Clan should be here in this country, playing the humble part of waiter in a Chinese restaurant. ”

“ Here in the Soko is the true frontier between the Christian and the Moslem worlds. Here is the borderland of the real Africa; here couriers from Fez and from the desert region farther south meet the postmen of the European 38 provinces; here surges the murky tide of African humanity; here breaks the last sun-crested wave of continental civilization; here top-hats and turbans mingle; here Europe ends and Africa begins.
THE BE-DRAPED, BE-HOODED CROWD
From the windows of the legation of a European nation which open upon the Soko, there are wafted lively measures of piano melody ”

“ But Somo, the wide-seeing father of the new tribe, had established his boundaries far up in the bush on the shoulders of the lesser mountains, and on each shoulder had planted a village. Only the greatly daring that fled to him had Somo permitted to join the new tribe. The weaklings and cowards they had promptly eaten, and the unbelievable tale of their many heads adorning the canoe-houses was part of the myth. ”

“ No more profoundly pathetic spectacle presents itself in all the drama of Japanese history than the fate of the family of Sogoro, the noble farmer who, because he presented a petition on behalf of his tax-burdened fellow-rustics, was crucified with his wife and two little sons. ”

“ The old gentleman gave Soogy a part of his share, and we did likewise. O’Hara became quite religious, in the true sense of that much misused word. Through the whole day and night we never ceased lifting our weary heads to stare on the skyline. But no vessel passed. The old man placed his large red handkerchief over Soogy. It was a terrible sight, as Soogy’s hands tossed, to see the blisters on the little arms. But it was no use waving to the hot tropic sun as it shone up there in the cloudless sky. ”

“ Soga was hard at work translating, for the benefit of the Natives, the Bible and "Pilgrim's Progress." The Kaffir language is eminently suited to the former; good Kaffir linguists will tell you that many of the Psalms sound better in Mr. Soga's version than in English. His rendering of "Pilgrim's Progress," too, is a masterpiece.
Tiyo Soga was a tall man of slender build and with a stooping figure. Even at the time I tell of a short, hacking cough gave evidence of the consumption which some years later caused his death. ”

“ Still sobbing, but filled with admiration and wonder that a savage could be thus generous, Juanna rose and began to murmur thanks, while the captains stared, and Soa mocked and cursed them both.
“Thank me not,” he said gently. “It seems that you, who can read all hearts, have read mine aright, or perchance you fashioned it as you would have it be. Now, having done with love, let us to war. Woman, what is the secret of that door?”
“Find it for yourself,” snarled Soa. “It is easy to open when once you know the spring—like a woman’s heart, Olfan. ”

“ The soko is represented by some to be extremely knowing, successfully stalking men and women while at their work, kidnapping children, and running up trees with them—he seems to be amused by the sight of the young native in his arms, but comes down when tempted by a bunch of bananas, and as he lifts that, drops the child: the young soko in such a case would cling closely to the armpit of the elder. ”

“ February 3.—Early in the morning two guides on horseback came from Kooniakary to conduct me to the frontiers of Kaarta. I accordingly took leave of Salim Daucari, and parted for the last time from my fellow-traveller the blacksmith, whose kind solicitude for my welfare had been so conspicuous, and about ten o’clock departed from Soolo. We travelled this day through a rocky and hilly country, along the banks of the river Krieko, and at sunset came to the village of Soomo, where we slept. ”

“ Soma was the most sacred sacrifice to the gods, as a juice; it had the intoxicating effect of wine; and the lunar being, Soma, was believed to be still alive, though invisible, and is the chief of the sacerdotal tribe to this day. In the Vishnu Purana, Soma is called “the monarch of Brahmans.” He was the Hindu Bacchus, and is regarded as the guardian of healing plants and constellations. Melchizedek, offering wine to, and as priest of God Most High receiving tribute from, the “High Father” (Abram) , thus bears some resemblance to Soma, the sacerdotal moon-god ”