|I hope the two ladies from the country who have been writing to the
newspapers to know what sights they ought to see in London during their
Easter holiday will have a nice time. I hope they will enjoy the tube
and have fine weather for the Monument, and whisper to each other
successfully in the whispering gallery of St Paul's, and see the
dungeons at the Tower and the seats of the mighty at Westminster, and
return home with a harvest of joyful memories. But I can promise them
that there is one sight they will not see. They will not see me. Their
idea of a holiday is London. My idea of a holiday is forgetting there is
such a place as London.
Not that I dislike London. I should like to see it.
I have long promised myself that I would see it. Some day, I have said,
I will surely have a look at this place. It is a shame, I have said, to
have lived in it so long and never to have seen it. I suppose I am not
much worse than other Londoners. Do you, sir, who have been taking the
morning bus from Balham for heaven knows how many years--do you, when
you are walking down Fleet Street, stand still with a shock of delight
as the dome of St Paul's and its cross of gold burst on your astonished
sight? Do you go on a fine afternoon and take your stand on Waterloo
Bridge to see that wondrous river façade that stretches with its
cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces from Westminster to St Paul's?
Do you know the spot where Charles was executed, or the church where
there are the best Grinling Gibbons carvings? Did you ever go into
Somerset House to see the will of William Shakespeare, or--in short, did
you ever see London? Did you ever see it, not with your eyes merely, hut
with your mind, with the sense of revelation, of surprise, of discovery?
Did you ever see it as those two ladies from the country will see it
this Easter as they pass breathlessly from wonder to wonder? Of course
not. You need a holiday in London as I do. You need to set out with
young Tom (aged ten) on a voyage of discovery and see all the sights of
this astonishing city as though you had come to it from a far country.
That is how I hope to visit it--some day. But not this Easter, not when
I know the beech woods are dressing themselves in green and the cherry
blossoms are out in the orchards and the great blobs of the chestnut
tree are ready to burst, and the cuckoo is calling all day long and the
April meadows are “smoored wi' new grass,” as they say in the Yorkshire
dales. Not when I know that by putting down a bit of paper at the magic
casement at Paddington I can be whisked between sunset and dawn to the
fringe of Dartmoor and let loose--shall it be from Okehampton or Bovey
Tracy or Moreton Hampstead? what matter the gate by which we enter the
sanctuary?--let loose, I say, into the vast spaces of earth and sky
where the moorland streams sing their ancient runes over the boulders
and the great tors stand out like castles of the gods against the
horizon and the Easter sun dances, as the legend has it, overhead and
founders gloriously in the night beyond Plymouth Sound.
Or, perhaps, ladies, if you come from the North, I may pass you
unawares, and just about the time when you are cracking your breakfast
egg in the boarding house at Russell Square--heavens, Russell
Square!--and discussing whether you shall first go down the deepest
lift or up the highest tower, or stand before the august ugliness of
Buckingham Palace, or see the largest station or the smallest church,
I shall be stepping out from Keswick, by the lapping waters of Derwent
water, hailing the old familiar mountains as they loom into sight,
looking down again--think of it!--into the' Jaws of Borrowdale, having
a snack at Rosthwaite, and then, hey for Styehead! up, up ever the rough
mountain track, with the buzzard circling with slow flapping wings about
the mountain flanks, with glorious Great Gable for my companion on the
right hand and no less glorious Scafell for my companion on the left
hand, and at the rocky turn in the track--lo! the great amphitheatre of
Wasdale, the last Sanctuary of lakeland.
And at this point, ladies, you may as you crane your neck to see the
Duke of York at the top of his column--wondering all the while who the
deuce the fellow was that he should stand so high--you may, I say, if
you like, conceive me standing at the top of the pass, taking my hat
from my head and pronouncing a terrific curse on the vandals who would
desecrate the last temple of solitude by driving a road over this
fastness of the mountains in order that the gross tribe of motorists may
come with their hoots and their odours, their hurry and vulgarity, and
chase the spirit of the mountains away from us for ever.... And then
by the screes of Great Gable to the hollow among the mountains. Or
perchance, I may turn by Sprinkling Tam and see the Pikes of Langdale
come into view and stumble down Rossett Ghyll and so by the green
pastures of Langdale to Grasmere.
In short, ladies, I may be found in many places. But I shall not tell
you where. I am not quite sure that I could tell you where at this
moment, for I am like a fellow who has come into great riches and
is doubtful how he can squander them most gloriously. But, I repeat,
ladies, that you will not find me in London. I leave London to you. May
you enjoy it.
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