The London Times

“ Dined at the Ritz. A large party, including Lady Cunard and Lady Diana Manners. The Princess of X. was present and I found her intelligent. Afterwards to Lady Y.'s for bridge. The cards were mad, but we had some wonderful rubbers, the four best players in London being concerned.
Wrote one of my best articles, on the importance of eating and drinking and being merry during great national crises. Urged among other things the addition of restaurant cars to all trains, even those on the Tubes. It is madness to encourage seriousness, as The Times is doing. ”

“ Enter Matter Totty, and Shrimp.
Tot. Lord! Lord! What a hugeous Place this London is? I thank you heartily, Sir, for taking Care of me; for I shou'd ha' quite lost my self, and then, perhaps, some strange Person might ha' taken me up, and ha' kept me; but what makes People in such a hurry here, as if at Lincoln, the Mayor and Aldermen were going to a Bull-baiting; at other times Folks in the Country walk more slowly, as tho' they were going to Church.
Shr. London, Master, is the Seat of Business, People do ev'ry thing in a hurry here, except paying their Debts, and lying with their Wives ”

“ Nothing shows more strikingly, how remote we of this twentieth century are from the cruelty and harshness of only a century ago, than the short extracts which it is the custom of some of the older London newspapers, The Times and The Observer among them, to reprint from their issues of a hundred years back. ”

“ By this time the “Times” has become tight and replete with matter, as one who has dined well and copiously. Nothing is wanting: city correspondence, sporting intelligence, markets, state of the weather, prices of stocks and railway shares, parliamentary summary, law and police reports, mysterious advertisements, and births, deaths, and marriages. ”

“ Others, as well as ourselves, will, it may be, lie awake upon their beds, and listen to the murmurs going to and fro within the great heart of London, and, thinking on the half-forgotten days of the nineteenth century, wonder perhaps whether, in these olden times, we too heard the sound of “Hot Cross Buns.” ”

“ Mall or Bond-street, or see them near to you at a crowded rout, without a possibility of approaching.
“It is from this cause, that those who live in London are so totally indifferent to each other; the waves follow so quick, that every vacancy is immediately filled up, and the want is not perceived. The well-bred civility of modern times, and the example of some 'very popular people,' it is true, have introduced a shaking of hands, a pretended warmth, a dissembled cordiality, into the manners of the cold and warm, alike the dear friend and the acquaintance of yesterday. ”

“ They are accessible to what is called the public opinion of the day - that isto say public opinon manufactured in London by great editors, and clubs, who are at all times formidable, and a great power for the purposes of the moment, but who are a greater power and become an overwhelming power when they are backed by the threefold forces of the military and literary authorities and the social circles of London. ”

“ If we still remain true to ourselves, and resolutely shut our ears to the complaints of these interested and mercenary writers, both at home and abroad, the time will soon come when our people will be saved entirely from all literary drudgery, and even our newspapers be re-publications of London Times' and Chronicles, as some of our Magazines already are of London and Edinburgh and Dublin monthlies. ”

“ The last dodge exposed for making money is amusing. A writer in the Times wanted to know how it was we see advertisements in London papers for a million of postage-stamps. A writer in reply says all the stories about severe papas, who will not let their daughters marry till they have papered a room with them, are false. ”

“ Each thought himself, especially since this last promotion, to be indispensably necessary to the formation of London society, and was comfortable in a conviction that he had thoroughly succeeded in life by acquiring the privilege of sitting down to dinner three times a week with peers and peeresses. ”

“ London is the epitome of our times, and the Rome of to-day. ”

“ So gladly did our valiant and victorious kings of the olden times avail themselves of every opportunity to do honour to the liberality, courage, and fidelity of the wealthy and intelligent burgesses of London.
After various unsuccessful attempts to establish a representative form of government, it was at length decided, in the seventh year of Richard II., at a special convocation of the whole community of citizens, that there should be both a deliberative and an elective assembly. ”

“ The appearance presented by the streets of London an hour before sunrise, on a summer’s morning, is most striking even to the few whose unfortunate pursuits of pleasure, or scarcely less unfortunate pursuits of business, cause them to be well acquainted with the scene. There is an air of cold, solitary desolation about the noiseless streets which we are accustomed to see thronged at other times by a busy, eager crowd, and over the quiet, closely-shut buildings, which throughout the day are swarming with life and bustle, that is very impressive. ”

“ See what Honesty and Industry will do for us. Half the great Men in London, I am told, have made themselves by this Means, and who would but be honest and industrious, when it is so much our Interest and our Duty. ”

“ I prefer to appeal to you, the people of London. It's a disgrace—a public disgrace—that you people should allow such a man as myself to walk the streets without food! (A voice. "Why don't yer work?") Work? Am I not working? Am I not in my proper place here to-night?
The Crowd (with hearty unanimity) . No!
The Orator (with exultation) . Then support me in the name of all you hold dear! I have my work to accomplish, and I shall accomplish it by the aid of the People's pence, by the aid of the People's sixpences,—aye, and by the aid of the People's shillings! ”

“ Then his old friends of the ‘Morning Intelligence’ once more begged that he would be good enough to contribute a series of signed and headed articles to their columns, on the slums and fever dens of poverty-stricken London. ”

“ You embark on speculations on my advice only, and I’m in a position to judge, as well as any other expert in the City of London, what things are genuine and what things are not worth a wise man’s attention. ”

“ WANTED—-A SOCIETY FOR THE PROTECTION OF "CELEBRITIES."
When some years ago EDMUNDUS ED. MUNDI first introduced to London the gentle art of Interviewing, the idea was in a general way a novelty in this country. It "caught on," and achieved success. Some public men affected, privately, not to like the extra publicity given to their words and actions ”

“ As a news story, it is an event to test the news-gathering ability of the greatest newspaper. The dramatic repetition, on a modern stage, of feudal forms and priestly rites, may never again be repeated. The Herald’s best writers are already in London. ”

“ There is a calmness and fairness and depth in conversation here which one seldom meets with in London, where people are too much taken up by the present to dwell upon the past, or look forward to the future--and where consequently passion and prejudice are mixed up with most that one hears. ”

“ My reason for so thinking is contained in the following interesting item, culled from a well-known daily newspaper:—
"There is in London one man at least who works hard every day and has to lay prone to do it. ”

“ The men have no style; the women, who are fidgety and talk too much, have it only in their coiffure, where they have it superabundantly. But I console myself with the greater bonhomie. Have you ever arrived at an English country-house in the dusk of a winter's day? Have you ever made a call in London, when you knew nobody but the hostess? People here are more expressive, more demonstrative; and it is a pleasure, when one comes back (if one happens, like me, to be no one in particular) , to feel one's social value rise. They attend to you more ”

“ For ages have science, and nature, and man been preparing its way. Society had to become intellectual—letters had to be invented—types had to be formed—paper had to be substituted for papyrus—the printing-press had to become wedded to steam—the electric-telegraph had to be discovered, and the problem of liberty had to be solved, in a manner more or less satisfactory, before a newspaper, as we understand the word, could be; and that we have the fruit of all this laid on our breakfast-table every morning, for at the most five-pence, and at the least one-penny, is wonderful indeed. ”

“ That cultivated class is large and ever enlarging. It is computed that, with titles and without, there are seventy thousand of these people coming and going in London, who make up what is called high society. ”

“ A man has come all the way from London to see you; he wants to interview you for one of the London newspapers. You see, having succeeded in exposing that German plot, and causing the arrest of a lot of dangerous people, you have been the talk of the country. ”

“ It is the middle class whose inexhaustible patience fills the observer with admiration and amazement as he beholds it waiting in the fog at a London terminus for three hours beyond the advertised time, and then raising a cheer, half joyful, half ironical, when the melancholy train at last emerges from the darkness. ”

“ For one who sees and thinks life in terms of shares and coupons, it is certainly overdrawn. But for one who sees and thinks life in terms of manhood and womanhood, it cannot be overdrawn. Such hordes of beastly wretchedness and inarticulate misery are no compensation for a millionaire brewer who lives in a West End palace, sates himself with the sensuous delights of London’s golden theatres, hobnobs with lordlings and princelings, and is knighted by the king. ”

“ Far removed from the busy centres of civilisation, where the battle of life breeds keen wits and deep interests, it is still, in the opinion of its inhabitants, next to London, the most important place in the United Kingdom. ”

“ You do not escape these things for long even by so catastrophic a proceeding as flying to London with a young lady of no wealth and inferior social position. The mists of noble emotion swirl and pass, and there you are, divorced from all your deities and grazing in the meadows under the Argus eyes of the social system, the innumerable mean judgments you feel raining upon you, upon your clothes and bearing, upon your pretensions and movements. ”

“ I do not think there is anything deserving the name of society to be found out of London: and that for the two following reasons. ”

“ If you think that the columns of the People's Banner are to be bought, you must have opinions respecting the press of the day which make me pity you as one grovelling in the very dust. The daily press of London is pure and immaculate. ”

“ It is easy to laugh at the dulness and vulgarity of a London citizen, who divides his time between his counting-house and his villa, or at the coarseness and rusticity of an English country squire; but there is no description of men to whom the national character of our country is more deeply indebted. ”

“ Politicians in crowds, leaders of fashion, an actress or two, an Indian prince, a great explorer—they made groups which seemed to express the many-sidedness of London, to be the thousand tributaries that swell the great stream of its society. ”

“ Once upon a time, that is to say, in this our time,—the exact year, month, and day are of no matter,—there dwelt in the city of London a substantial citizen, who united in his single person the dignities of wholesale fruiterer, alderman, common-councilman, and member of the worshipful Company of Patten-makers ”

“ A clear and earnest-minded writer gets a commission from the Morning Chronicle newspaper, and reports upon the state of our poor in London; he goes amongst labouring people and poor of all kinds—and brings back what? ”

“ It is not these kind of little arrangements I fear, but a mésalliance; and there are scandals even in London—yes, even in the mighty world of London, though there they soon die; they don't live and take root, as in the so-called purer air of the country. ”

“ The English theory may be in itself almost as simple, but different and much more complex forces have ruled the application of it; so much does the goodness of talk depend on what there may be to talk about. There are more things in London, I think, than anywhere in the world; hence the charm of the dramatic struggle reflected in my book, the struggle somehow to fit propriety into a smooth general case which is really all the while bristling and crumbling into fierce particular ones. ”

“ By some strange law of compensation, this man, who sees a very dark side of human nature,—sees it in its low intrigues, unworthy pursuits, falsehoods, and depravities,—who sees even the “great” in their moods of meanness,—this man, I say, has the very keenest relish for life, and especially the life of London. ”

“ A persuasion has taken possession of my mind that the smooth and prosperous course of my affairs since I have been in London is too smooth and prosperous to last. There is something oppressing me to-night, which is more than the oppression of the heavy London air. ”

“ They had taken too much for granted that their life together required, as people in London said, a special "form"—which was very well so long as the form was kept only for the outside world and was made no more of among themselves than the pretty mould of an iced pudding, or something of that sort, into which, to help yourself, you didn't hesitate to break with the spoon. ”

“ Butts, and I have permitted her to send it to you also. We often wish that we could unite again in society, and hope that the time is not distant when we shall do so, being determined not to remain another winter here, but to return to London. ”