English Hours

It is, no doubt, not the taste of every one, but for the real London-lover the mere immensity of the place is a large part of its savour.

A small London would be an abomination, as it fortunately is an impossibility, for the idea and the name are beyond everything an expression of extent and number.

Practically, of course, one lives in a quarter, in a plot; but in imagination and by a constant mental act of reference the accommodated haunter enjoys the whole-and it is only of him that I deem it worth while to speak.

He fancies himself, as they say, for being a particle in so unequalled an aggregation; and its immeasurable circumference, even though unvisited and lost in smoke, gives him the sense of a social, an intellectual margin.

There is a luxury in the knowledge that he may come and go without being noticed, even when his comings and goings have no nefarious end.

I don't mean by this that the tongue of London is not a very active member; the tongue of London would indeed be worthy of a chapter by itself.