[-35-]
CHAPTER IV
AFTER THE SEASON AND LONDON WEATHER
FROM a social point of view the space of one short week produces a remarkable
change in London. Some millions of its population remain, but society disbands
and it is customary to say that everybody has left town. By the first of August
those who thronged the drawing-rooms of· the West End have scattered, betaking
themselves to Scotland, or Norway, or Switzerland; and the thoroughfares are
left to the tourist and the common people who are unable to migrate. Houses in
Park Lane and Belgravia have the blinds drawn, and in fashionable
"Mansions," maids "on board wages" engage in uninterrupted
flirtation with the high official who stands at the entrance, like a liveried
species of Peri. The club windows along Piccadilly and Pall Mall are also in
eclipse, for it appears that only an in considerable number of these clubs are
perennial. Many are closed during the shooting season until autumn that they may
be "turned out and done over," which innocent phrase is English for
the deadliest sort of house-cleaning - scrubbing and scouring, combined with
painting and decorating - that drags along interminably.
In spite of the permanent millions who stay in town, the
crowds in the streets are noticeably diminished; there are fewer passengers in
the omnibuses; the hansom driver has many less fares than were his portion when
the season was in full swing; and there is a falling off in the traffic of the
under-ground railway, which is left largely, at least during the middle of the
day, to its own black smoke and [-36-] stifling
gas. Still, to the visitor seeing London for the first time, the panorama that
unrolls itself along Piccadilly is a never-failing delight. There are few smart
turn-outs, with the incomparable groom and coachman, with pretty women in gowns
that speak eloquently of Felix and bonnets that proclaim themselves the
handiwork of Pingat; but, irreverent though it may be to compare them, there are
delightful costermonger carts drawn by tiny, mouse-colored donkeys, the carts,
or harrows, as they are called, being heaped with flowers and greenery from
Covent Garden. Here and there stately natives of India mingle with the passing
throng, in robes of dazzling white, with towering turbans of scarlet silk; the
pupil of Christ's Hospital - the famous Blue Coat
school, soon, alas! to be removed from London - in his apprentice dress of the
time of Edward VI, adds a pleasing touch to the picture: he trots along, ruddy,
clean and bare-headed, his coat of dark blue fluttering about his heels, the
long, full, pleated skirt attached to a tight fitting body, with a leather strap
about the waist and white cambric bands at the throat, the costume completed by
brilliant orange stockings and buckled shoes.
There are other interesting lads-tiny chaps wearing the
Oxford cap and the neatest of jackets and trousers, others from Eton and Harrow
arrayed with equal care and distinguished by their broad collars and top hats;
scarlet-coated detachments from the Duke of York's school rival a procession
from a girl's school, the daughters of soldiers, uniformed in scarlet dresses,
blue jackets and sailor hats, who make quite a streak of color in the shady
street.
The autumn comes on very rapidly in England. If the season
has been dry, the leaves begin to fall by the middle of September; if it is wet,
the foliage remains unchanged somewhat longer, but the floods that descend from
the low, [-37-] dull clouds make one long for
frost, instead. The first fogs usually appear in September,
and the preliminary phenomenon is described as "a meadow mist." The
name, which rather pleases the fancy and brings to mind the soft haze of a
summer morning, is in reality an ill-smelling mixture of smoke and vapor,
changing from yellow to deep brown and greenish grey, through which the sun
appears like a brazen ball. As winter approaches the fogs increase - if it is to
be a foggy season - which does not always happen, and as more fuel is consumed
and thicker and blacker smoke ascends from millions of chimneys, it changes its
complexion and becomes thick darkness. Night appears to be pressing close
against the windowpanes at noon-day; lamps are lighted upon passing cabs, in
houses, in the shops and along the streets. Traffic is not interrupted, although
daylight is completely extinguished - so long as the pall remains above the
housetops. When it descends to the surface of the ground, the discreet remain
indoors; belated pedestrians are conducted home by link-boys, like fine ladies
and gentlemen in the days of the Stuarts; cabmen lead their horses, and vehicles
moving at a snail's pace frequently come to grief; the driver of the tram-car is
often unable to see his horses, and the conductor is hardly able to distinguish
the hand that passes the fare. It is estimated that a black fog of this
description costs many thousands of pounds per day for additional gas, which can
do little more than make darkness visible; and there is an immediate increase in
the death-rate, especially among people predisposed to pulmonary disease. It is
difficult to understand how the enormous business of London could be carried on
in the face of such an apparently insurmountable difficulty, and there is little
doubt that had Americans to contend with such conditions, some means of
lessening the difficulty would have been found and the breathless pall have been
[-38-] rendered at least opaque. The fog itself can never be entirely
obliterated, but it might be made at least translucent with a little ingenuity,
which, doubtless, will be accomplished when fuel gas or electricity comes into
general use and the English chimney can be dispensed with. This is an
architectural adjunct which the British builder has never learned how to
construct. One may see upon the inside walls of buildings that are being
dismantled, shallow, serpentine channels; these are flues. Why they are made
serpentine one is puzzled to know. There is hardly space for the passage of
smoke, so that in a short time the chimney becomes foul and clogged, and one is
roused at daybreak by an uproar that wakes him from his sleep and makes him
wonder if the house is tumbling about his ears. He learns that it is only the
sweep on one of his quarterly visitations which the law requires, which, if
omitted, renders the householder liable to a fine, and which threatens daily and
hourly conflagration. There are few or no London chimneys that do not smoke in
some prevailing wind. I had a variety - one from which nothing could be
expected, as a matter of course when the wind was in the south-west; another
that sulked when the wind was in the north, at which seasons the room had to be
vacated until the fire could be extinguished; still others had to be placated by
opening a window or leaving a door ajar. When it was stated that American
chimneys rarely or never smoked, and that a chimney-sweep was a person whom few
Americans had ever seen and whose services were not required in the United
States, the proud boast was received with marked incredulity by even the most
polite. With the smoke, the unheated or insufficiently heated houses are
uncomfortable to Americans, who, it must be acknowledged, go to the other
extreme and bake themselves in the super-heated temperature which they prefer.
It is true that the mercury [-39-] in London rarely
reaches zero, but the cold of the damp autumn and winter is penetrating and
paralyzing. The lodger is taxed six pence for each scuttle of coal, although
bought in bulk it is much cheaper; but anyone who would brave the wrath of the
land-lady by purchasing his own supply would be considered a being of consummate
meanness. Bed rooms and corridors are rarely heated, and a kerosene lamp or a
gas jet is considered sufficient to raise the temperature of a bath-room to a
necessary and comfortable degree.
But whatever the inconveniences and uncomfortable-ness of the
English winter may be, there is measureless compensation in the loveliness of
the spring and summer. By the latter part of April the meadows are like velvet,
and primroses are thick and yellow in the copses. The sky lark returns, and
later the nightingale is heard in the depths of the wood. The hedge-rows are
white with blossom, and gardens are purple with the lilacs and aflame with the
laburnum; and London street-corners are fragrant with mounds of velvety
wall-flowers.
By the first of July the
heated term makes itself felt - not the glaring, torrid heat with winds like the
simoon - but humid, stifling weather, during which the sky is occasionally
veiled in pale grey clouds. For some occult reason the temperature at 85 degrees
is much more oppressive, even to Americans who are inured to the tropics, than a
greater degree of heat in the United States. And if the sojourning American
feels discomfort, the native Londoner perspires, and gasps, and even dies from
sunstroke, or what he calls "heat apoplexy." He resorts to every means
of relief of which he can avail himself, except the use of ice. One may
perceive, however, that prejudice even in this last extreme is giving way.
American "ice-cream soda" is now offered in various fashionable
restaurants in Regent Street and elsewhere, and, with the [-40-]
throngs of American tourists that frequent them, partaking of the
familiar refreshment of their native land, increasing numbers of English may be
seen also consuming the cooling beverage with somewhat disapproving
satisfaction. Most significant of all - I saw a lad, one blazing August morning,
hauling a block of ice in a hand-cart down Sloane street. It was remarkable to
see the ice in the first place, and there was an added touch of the unique in
the fact that upon the crystal tube had been fastened, in some manner, a neat
placard bearing the name and address of the purchaser. This was a precaution
which had been taken to secure its safe delivery to the proper owner, as the
average Englishman would not receive under his roof that which we consider one
of the necessaries of life and to which he attributes the whole of our national
dyspepsia.
While recent shipments of California fruit have sold readily
enough in the London market, it is doubtful if it will ever attain very high
favor; it is thought that its flavor has been sacrificed to size, and that it is
hardly equal to the native fruit which appeals less pleasingly to the eye. The
English fruit crop is comparatively small, but that which is produced cannot be
surpassed for delicate and exquisite flavor. English and Scotch strawberries are
beyond compare, so large that one berry will furnish several mouthfuls, sweet as
honey and almost seedless. The goose-berry, which we scarcely respect, is
luscious and delicious, as big as plums and almost as sweet as the strawberry.
The English are much too sensible to cook fruit, except that
which is buried in the yawning caverns of the tart; the most of it comes to the
table in the natural state, in plates prettily decorated with a border of
leaves. Fruit constitutes what is technically called the dessert - a term which
we use indiscriminately - as distinguished from the [-41-]
sweets that precede it - the starchy blanc mange, jelly stiffened with Irish
moss, the solid and uncompromising pudding, and the tart aforesaid. English
apples, except a few choice and costly varieties are altogether contemptible in
appearance, but are very deceiving. They are like plain girls of whom it is
said, "they are not pretty, but they are good." The smallest,
knottiest and most unpromising may be found to possess qualities that many of
our larger and more richly colored varieties wholly lack, and they are as
fragrant as sweet-briar.
In 1895 an unprecedented crop was produced; the boughs bent
and broke under the weight of fruit and the ground was thickly strewn with it,
but prices were so low that the farmer could make nothing by sending it to
market. Hundreds of bushels went to waste, for cider making is now almost an
unknown industry, so rare are the seasons in which it is practicable.
English plums cannot be surpassed; I saw a tree weighted down
with what, from a fleeting glimpse through a railway carriage window, appeared
to be crimson pears. They were plums with a pinkish crimson skin, a rich yellow
pulp within, sweet and finely flavored. English pears, especially those grown
upon espaliers, are fully equal to our own best varieties. Peaches and grapes
which ripen only under glass are beautiful in form and color, but they are
disappointing, the peaches especially being somewhat insipid. English vegetables
are exceptionally good, lettuce and celery being crisp and with a nutty
sweetness. As to the food in general, it is all good, but there is a sameness,
even in its very excellence, of which one tires. There are few valid grounds for
complaint; one would like once in a while to find fault with heavy rolls or sour
bread; tough steak, tough chops and stringy beef are also apparently unknown;
one may find some relief in criticising the potatoes which are seldom thoroughly
cooked and [-42-] denouncing the practice of
stewing mint with peas - a combination that is thoroughly distasteful to the
untrained palate. The soup is above reproach; so is the fish with its inevitable
egg sauce; the fowl with its attendant bread sauce, its gizzard neatly tucked
under one wing and the liver under the other, throwing a flood of light on that
unintelligible phrase, "the liver wing," which occurs in English
novels. The English tart has been mentioned, but apparently it will not down; it
might be described as of the Tudor style of architecture, and is so big and
strong and solid that it impresses the unfamiliar mind as having been built by
government contract.
It is a matter of some wonder to the American why the English
should enjoy an apparent monopoly of two things that ought to be within reach of
all people of limited means - sharp knives and thin bread and butter. Both are
practically unknown on our side of the Atlantic, and I remember reading in
Crabbe Robinson's Diary how he vainly endeavored to instruct his Spanish friend,
Madame Mosquera, in the art of cutting bread and butter, when she was called
upon to entertain Lord and Lady Holland who arrived unexpectedly in Corrunna
with the English fleet.
"That there might be no mistake," he writes,
"I requested a loaf to be brought and I actually cut a couple of slices as
thin as wafers, directing that a plate should be filled with such."
Notwithstanding his efforts, he goes on to relate that "after the guests
arrived a huge salver was set forth resembling in size the charger on which the
head of John the Baptist is usually brought by Herod's step daughter. On this
was a huge silver dish piled up with great pieces of bread and butter an inch
thick, sufficient to feed Westminster school."
English bread and butter, like English lawns, must be
regarded as hereditary and indigenous - the outgrowth of [-43-]
national character and of centuries of custom. English tea, to those who
like tea, is delicious, but a cup of good coffee is a thing almost unknown.
Except the tiny cup of black coffee which is brought into the drawing-room after
dinner, people rarely drink it. That which comes upon the breakfast table is
usually of a pale purplish hue, of attenuated weakness and with a faint flavor
of licorice; for general unpalatableness it can be matched only in our Western
farm houses, where the art of cooking is still rudimentary. A vivacious American
who lived in certain Kensington Mansions remarked, with an extravagance of
speech that one need not accept literally:
"I am so tired of joints, and boiled vegetables, and
milky puddings that I would give my immortal soul for a good American
dinner."
She expressed herself strongly, but she had lived in London
five years and was homesick. The aversion to our cookery is just as marked on
the part of visiting English, and there are very few who do not long for the
roast beef of their own land: Sala - an epicure of pronounced fastidiousness -
liked nothing but our oysters; and a young English girl who sojourned for a time
in Kansas made this confession: "The food was absolutely uneatable, don't
you know; and it was served in a lot of little dishes like birds'
bath-tubs."
The fish in the London markets are unsurpassed, salmon, sole
and plaice being the preferred varieties; the oysters, even the much-vaunted
native, are small and coppery.
The ham and bacon deserve their reputation, and fresh eggs
are good when they are what they profess to be. There was once a belief that the
date stamped in blue letters on an egg related to the date upon which it was
removed from the nest, but there have been occasions when there was self-evident
reason to believe that the date had nothing to do with the actual age of the
egg. It should [-44-] be said that the practice of
breaking an egg into a cup and mixing it up, white and yolk, with salt and
pepper, at table, is looked upon as a barbarous and sickening proceeding, and
Americans aspiring to shine in English society should take a careful course of
instruction in eating their eggs according to established usage, before buying
their steamer ticket.