last, those growing on the trunk below disappearing long before those on
the spire, which bends to every blast. The keys of the hornbeam come
twirling down: the hornbeam and the birch are characteristic trees of
the London landscape--the latter reaches a great height and never loses
its beauty, for when devoid of leaves the feathery spray-like branches
only come into view the more.
The abundant bird life is again demonstrated as the evening approaches.
Along the hedgerows, at the corners of the copses, wherever there is
the least cover, so soon as the sun sinks, the blackbirds announce their
presence by their calls. Their "ching-chinging" sounds everywhere; they
come out on the projecting branches and cry, then fly fifty yards
farther down the hedge, and cry again. During the day they may not have
been noticed, scattered as they were under the bushes, but the dusky
shadows darkening the fields send them to roost, and before finally
retiring, they "ching-ching" to each other.
Then, almost immediately after the sun has gone down, looking to the
south-west the sky seen above the trees (which hide the yellow sunset)
becomes a delicate violet. Soon a speck of light gleams faintly through
it--the merest speck. The first appearance of a star is very beautiful;
the actual moment of first contact as it were of the ray with the eye is
always a surprise, however often you may have enjoyed it, and
notwithstanding that you are aware it will happen. Where there was only
the indefinite violet before, the most intense gaze into which could
discover nothing, suddenly, as if at that moment born, the point of
light arrives.
So glorious is the night that not all London, with its glare and smoke,
can smother the sky; in the midst of the gas, and the roar and the
driving crowd, look up from the pavement, and there, straight above, are
the calm stars. I never forget them, not even in the restless Strand;
they face one coming down the hill of the Haymarket; in Trafalgar
Square, looking towards the high dark structure of the House at
Westminster, the clear bright steel silver of the planet Jupiter shines
unwearied, without sparkle or flicker.
Apart from the grand atmospheric changes caused by a storm wave from the
Atlantic, or an anti-cyclone, London produces its own sky. Put a
shepherd on St. Paul's, allow him three months to get accustomed to the
local appearances and the deceptive smoke clouds, and he would then tell
what the weather of the day was going to be far more efficiently than
the very best instrument ever yet invented. He would not always be
right; but he would predict the local London weather with far more
accuracy than any one reading the returns from the barometers at
Valentia, Stornoway, Brest, or Christiansand.
The reason is this--the barometer foretells the cloud in the sky, but
cannot tell where it will burst. The practised eye can judge with very
considerable accuracy where the discharge will take place. Some idea of
what the local weather of London will be for the next few hours may
often be obtained by observation on either of the bridges--Westminster,
Waterloo, or London Bridge: there is on the bridges something like a
horizon, the best to be got in the City itself, and the changes announce
themselves very clearly there. The difference in the definition is
really wonderful.
From Waterloo Bridge the golden cross on St. Paul's and the dome at one
time stand out as if engraved upon the sky, clear and with a white
aspect. At the same time, the brick of the old buildings at the back of
the Strand is red and bright. The structures of the bridges appear
light, and do not press upon their arches. The yellow straw stacked on
the barges is bright, the copper-tinted sails bright, the white wall of
the Embankment clear, and the lions' heads distinct. Every trace of
colour, in short, is visible.
At another time the dome is murky, the cross tarnished, the outline dim,
the red brick dull, the whiteness gone. In summer there is occasionally
a bluish haze about the distant buildings. These are the same changes
presented by the Downs in the country, and betoken the state of the
atmosphere as clearly. The London atmosphere is, I should fancy, quite
as well adapted to the artist's uses as the changeless glare of the
Continent. The smoke itself is not without its interest.
Sometimes upon Westminster Bridge at night the scene is very striking.
Vast rugged columns of vapour rise up behind and over the towers of the
House, hanging with threatening aspect; westward the sky is nearly
clear, with some relic of the sunset glow: the river itself, black or
illuminated with the electric light, imparting a silvery blue tint,
crossed again with the red lamps of the steamers. The aurora of dark
vapour, streamers extending from the thicker masses, slowly moves and
yet does not go away; it is just such a sky as a painter might give to
some tremendous historical event, a sky big with presage, gloom,
tragedy. How bright and clear, again, are the mornings in summer! I once
watched the sun rise on London Bridge, and never forgot it.
In frosty weather, again, when the houses take hard, stern tints, when
the sky is clear over great part of its extent, but with heavy
thunderous-looking clouds in places--clouds full of snow--the sun
becomes of a red or orange hue, and reminds one of the lines of
Longfellow when Othere reached the North Cape--
"Round in a fiery ring
Went the great sun, oh King!
With red and lurid light."
The redness of the winter sun in London is, indeed, characteristic.
A sunset in winter or early spring floods the streets with fiery glow.
It comes, for instance, down Piccadilly; it is reflected from the smooth
varnished roofs of the endless carriages that roll to and fro like the
flicker of a mighty fire; it streaks the side of the street with
rosiness. The faces of those who are passing are lit up by it, all
unconscious as they are. The sky above London, indeed, is as full of
interest as above the hills. Lunar rainbows occasionally occur; two to
my knowledge were seen in the direction and apparently over the
metropolis recently.
When a few minutes on the rail has carried you outside the hub as it
were of London, among the quiet tree-skirted villas, the night reigns as
completely as in the solitudes of the country. Perhaps even more so, for
the solitude is somehow more apparent. The last theatre-goer has
disappeared inside his hall door, the last dull roll of the brougham,
with its happy laughing load, has died away--there is not so much as a
single footfall. The cropped holly hedges, the leafless birches, the
limes and acacias are still and distinct in the moonlight. A few steps
farther out on the highway the copse or plantation sleeps in utter
silence.
But the tall elms are the most striking; the length of the branches and
their height above brings them across the light, so that they stand out
even more shapely than when in leaf. The blue sky (not, of course, the
blue of day), the white moonlight, the bright stars--larger at midnight
and brilliant, in despite of the moon, which cannot overpower them in
winter as she does in summer evenings--all are as beautiful as on the
distant hills of old. By night, at least, even here, in the still
silence, Heaven has her own way.
When the oak leaves first begin to turn buff, and the first acorns drop,
the redwings arrive, and their "kuk-kuk" sound in the hedges and the
shrubberies in the gardens of suburban villas. They seem to come very
early to the neighbourhood of London, and before the time of their
appearance in other districts. The note is heard before they are seen;
the foliage of the shrubberies, still thick, though changing colour,
concealing them. Presently, when the trees are bare, with the exception
of a few oaks, they have disappeared, passing on towards the west. The
fieldfares, too, as I have previously observed, do not stay. But
missel-thrushes seem more numerous near town than in the country.
Every mild day in November the thrushes sing; there are meadows where
one may be certain to hear the song-thrush. In the dip or valley at Long
Ditton there are several meadows well timbered with elm, which are the
favourite resorts of thrushes, and their song may be heard just there in
the depth of winter, when it would be possible to go a long distance on
the higher ground without hearing one. If you hear the note of the
song-thrush during frost it is sure to rain within a few hours; it is
the first sign of the weather breaking up.
Another autumn sign is the packing (in a sense) of the moorhens. During
the summer the numerous brooks and ponds about town are apparently
partially deserted by these birds; at least they are not to be seen by
casual wayfarers. But directly the winter gets colder they gather
together in the old familiar places, and five or six, or even more, come
out at once to feed in the meadows or on the lawns by the water.
Green plovers, or peewits, come in small flocks to the fields recently
ploughed; sometimes scarcely a gunshot from the walls of the villas. The
tiny golden-crested wrens are comparatively numerous near town--the
heaths with their bramble thickets doubtless suit them; so soon as the
leaves fall they may often be seen.
HERBS
A great green book, whose broad pages are illuminated with flowers, lies
open at the feet of Londoners. This volume, without further preface,
lies ever open at Kew Gardens, and is most easily accessible from every
part of the metropolis. A short walk from Kew station brings the visitor
to Cumberland Gate. Resting for a moment upon the first seat that
presents itself, it is hard to realise that London has but just been
quitted.
Green foliage around, green grass beneath, a pleasant sensation--not
silence, but absence of jarring sound--blue sky overhead, streaks and
patches of sunshine where the branches admit the rays, wide, cool
shadows, and clear, sweet atmosphere. High in a lime tree, hidden from
view by the leaves, a chiffchaff sings continually, and from the
distance comes the softer note of a thrush. On the close-mown grass a
hedge-sparrow is searching about within a few yards, and idle insects
float to and fro, visible against the background of a dark yew
tree--they could not be seen in the glare of the sunshine. The peace of
green things reigns.
It is not necessary to go farther in; this spot at the very entrance is
equally calm and still, for there is no margin of partial
disturbance--repose begins at the edge. Perhaps it is best to be at once
content, and to move no farther; to remain, like the lime tree, in one
spot, with the sunshine and the sky, to close the eyes and listen to
the thrush. Something, however, urges exploration.
The majority of visitors naturally follow the path, and go round into
the general expanse; but I will turn from here sharply to the right, and
crossing the sward there is, after a few steps only, another enclosing
wall. Within this enclosure, called the Herbaceous Ground, heedlessly
passed and perhaps never heard of by the thousands who go to see the
Palm Houses, lies to me the real and truest interest of Kew. For here is
a living dictionary of English wild flowers.
The meadow and the cornfield, the river, the mountain and the woodland,
the seashore, the very waste place by the roadside, each has sent its
peculiar representatives, and glancing for the moment, at large, over
the beds, noting their number and extent, remembering that the specimens
are not in the mass but individual, the first conclusion is that our own
country is the true Flowery Land.
But the immediate value of this wonderful garden is in the clue it gives
to the most ignorant, enabling any one, no matter how unlearned, to
identify the flower that delighted him or her, it may be, years ago, in
faraway field or copse. Walking up and down the green paths between the
beds, you are sure to come upon it presently, with its scientific name
duly attached and its natural order labelled at the end of the patch.
Had I only known of this place in former days, how gladly I would have
walked the hundred miles hither! For the old folk, aged men and
countrywomen, have for the most part forgotten, if they ever knew, the
plants and herbs in the hedges they had frequented from childhood. Some
few, of course, they can tell you; but the majority are as unknown to
them, except by sight, as, the ferns of New Zealand or the heaths of the
Cape. Since books came about, since the railways and science destroyed
superstition, the lore of herbs has in great measure decayed and been
lost. The names of many of the commonest herbs are quite forgotten--they
are weeds, and nothing more. But here these things are preserved; in
London, the centre of civilisation and science, is a garden which
restores the ancient knowledge of the monks and the witches of the
villages.
Thus, on entering to-day, the first plant which I observed is
hellebore--a not very common wild herb perhaps, but found in places, and
a traditionary use of which is still talked of in the country, a use
which I must forbear to mention. What would the sturdy mowers whom I
once watched cutting their way steadily through the tall grass in June
say, could they see here the black knapweed cultivated as a garden
treasure? Its hard woody head with purple florets lifted high above the
ground, was greatly disliked by them, as, too, the blue scabious, and
indeed most other flowers. The stalks of such plants were so much harder
to mow than the grass.
Feathery yarrow sprays, which spring up by the wayside and wherever the
foot of man passes, as at the gateway, are here. White and lilac-tinted
yarrow flowers grow so thickly along the roads round London as often to
form a border between the footpath and the bushes of the hedge.
Dandelions lift their yellow heads, classified and cultivated--the same
dandelions whose brilliant colour is admired and imitated by artists,
and whose prepared roots are still in use in country places to improve
the flavour of coffee.
Groundsel, despised groundsel--the weed which cumbers the garden patch,
and is hastily destroyed, is here fully recognised. These
harebells--they have flowered a little earlier than in their wild
state--how many scenes they recall to memory! We found them on the tops
of the glorious Downs when the wheat was ripe in the plains and the
earth beneath seemed all golden. Some, too, concealed themselves on the
pastures behind those bunches of tough grass the cattle left untouched.
And even in cold November, when the mist lifted, while the dewdrops
clustered thickly on the grass, one or two hung their heads under the
furze.
Hawkweeds, which many mistake for dandelions; cowslips, in seed now, and
primroses, with foreign primulas around them and enclosed by small
hurdles, foxgloves, some with white and some with red flowers, all these
have their story and are intensely English. Rough-leaved comfrey of the
side of the river and brook, one species of which is so much talked of
as better forage than grass, is here, its bells opening.
Borage, whose leaves float in the claret-cup ladled out to thirsty
travellers at the London railway stations in the hot weather; knotted
figwort, common in ditches; Aaron's rod, found in old gardens; lovely
veronicas; mints and calamints whose leaves, if touched, scent the
fingers, and which grow everywhere by cornfield and hedgerow.
This bunch of wild thyme once again calls up a vision of the Downs; it
is not so thick and strong, and it lacks that cushion of herbage which
so often marks the site of its growth on the noble slopes of the hills,
and along the sward-grown fosse of ancient earthworks, but it is wild
thyme, and that is enough. From this bed of varieties of thyme there
rises up a pleasant odour which attracts the bees. Bees and humble-bees,
indeed, buzz everywhere, but they are much too busily occupied to notice
you or me.
Is there any difference in the taste of London honey and in that of the
country? From the immense quantity of garden flowers about the
metropolis it would seem possible for a distinct flavour, not perhaps
preferable, to be imparted. Lavender, of which old housewives were so
fond, and which is still the best of preservatives, comes next, and
self-heal is just coming out in flower; the reapers have, I believe,
forgotten its former use in curing the gashes sometimes inflicted by the
reap-hook. The reaping-machine has banished such memories from the
stubble. Nightshades border on the potato, the flowers of both almost
exactly alike; poison and food growing side by side and of the same
species.
There are tales still told in the villages of this deadly and enchanted
mandragora; the lads sometimes go to the churchyards to search for it.
Plantains and docks, wild spurge, hops climbing up a dead fir tree, a
well-chosen pole for them--nothing is omitted. Even the silver weed, the
dusty-looking foliage which is thrust aside as you walk on the footpath
by the road, is here labelled with truth as "cosmopolitan" of habit.
Bird's-foot lotus, another Downside plant, lights up the stones put to
represent rockwork with its yellow. Saxifrage, and stone-crop and
house-leek are here in variety. Buttercups occupy a whole patch--a
little garden to themselves. What would the haymakers say to such a
sight? Little, too, does the mower reck of the number, variety, and
beauty of the grasses in a single armful of swathe, such as he gathers
up to cover his jar of ale with and keep it cool by the hedge. The
bennets, the flower of the grass, on their tall stalks, go down in
numbers as countless as the sand of the seashore before his scythe.
But here the bennets are watched and tended, the weeds removed from
around them, and all the grasses of the field cultivated as
affectionately as the finest rose. There is something cool and pleasant
in this green after the colours of the herbs in flower, though each
grass is but a bunch, yet it has with it something of the sweetness of
the meadows by the brooks. Juncus, the rush, is here, a sign often
welcome to cattle, for they know that water must be near; the bunch is
cut down, and the white pith shows, but it will speedily be up again;
horse-tails, too, so thick in marshy places--one small species is
abundant in the ploughed fields of Surrey, and must be a great trouble
to the farmers, for the land is sometimes quite hidden by it.
In the adjoining water tank are the principal flowers and plants which
flourish in brook, river, and pond. This yellow iris flowers in many
streams about London, and the water-parsnip's pale green foliage waves
at the very bottom, for it will grow with the current right over it as
well as at the side. Water-plantain grows in every pond near the
metropolis; there is some just outside these gardens, in a wet ha-ha.
The huge water-docks in the centre here flourish at the verge of the
adjacent Thames; the marsh marigold, now in seed, blooms in April in the
damp furrows of meadows close up to town. But in this flower-pot, sunk
so as to be in the water, and yet so that the rim may prevent it from
spreading and coating the entire tank with green, is the strangest of
all, actually duckweed. The still ponds always found close to cattle
yards, are in summer green from end to end with this weed. I recommend
all country folk who come up to town in summer time to run down here
just to see duckweed cultivated once in their lives.
In front of an ivy-grown museum there is a kind of bowling-green, sunk
somewhat below the general surface, where in similar beds may be found
the most of those curious old herbs which, for seasoning or salad, or
some use of superstition, were famous in ancient English households. Not
one of them but has its associations. "There's rue for you," to begin
with; we all know who that herb is for ever connected with.
There is marjoram and sage, clary, spearmint, peppermint, salsify,
elecampane, tansy, assafoetida, coriander, angelica, caper spurge,
lamb's lettuce, and sorrel. Mugwort, southernwood, and wormwood are
still to be found in old gardens: they stand here side by side.
Monkshood, horehound, henbane, vervain (good against the spells of
witches), feverfew, dog's mercury, bistort, woad, and so on, all seem
like relics of the days of black-letter books. All the while
greenfinches are singing happily in the trees without the wall.
This is but the briefest resume; for many long summer afternoons would
be needed even to glance at all the wild flowers that bloom in June.
Then you must come once at least a month, from March to September, as
the flowers succeed each other, to read the place aright. It is an index
to every meadow and cornfield, wood, heath, and river in the country,
and by means of the plants of the same species to the flowers of the
world. Therefore, the Herbaceous Ground seems to me a place that should
on no account be passed by. And the next place is the Wilderness--that
is, the Forest.
On the way thither an old-fashioned yew hedge may be seen round about a
vast glasshouse. Outside, on the sward, there are fewer wild flowers
growing wild than might perhaps be expected, owing in some degree, no
doubt, to the frequent mowing, except under the trees, where again the
constant shadow does not suit all. By the ponds, in the midst of trees,
and near the river, there is a little grass, however, left to itself, in
which in June there were some bird's-foot lotus, veronica, hawkweeds,
ox-eye daisy, knapweed, and buttercups. Standing by these ponds, I heard
a cuckoo call, and saw a rook sail over them; there was no other sound
but that of the birds and the merry laugh of children rolling down the
slopes.
The midsummer hum was audible above; the honey-dew glistened on the
leaves of the limes. There is a sense of repose in the mere aspect of
large trees in groups and masses of quiet foliage. Their breadth of form
steadies the roving eye; the rounded slopes, the wide sweeping outline
of these hills of green boughs, induce an inclination, like them, to
rest. To recline upon the grass and with half-closed eyes gaze upon them
is enough.
The delicious silence is not the silence of night, of lifelessness; it
is the lack of jarring, mechanical noise; it is not silence but the
sound of leaf and grass gently stroked by the soft and tender touch of
the summer air. It is the sound of happy finches, of the slow buzz of
humble-bees, of the occasional splash of a fish, or the call of a
moorhen. Invisible in the brilliant beams above, vast legions of insects
crowd the sky, but the product of their restless motion is a slumberous
hum.
These sounds are the real silence; just as a tiny ripple of the water
and the swinging of the shadows as the boughs stoop are the real
stillness. If they were absent, if it was the soundlessness and
stillness of stone, the mind would crave for something. But these fill
and content it. Thus reclining, the storm and stress of life
dissolve--there is no thought, no care, no desire. Somewhat of the
Nirvana of the earth beneath--the earth which for ever produces and
receives back again and yet is for ever at rest--enters into and soothes
the heart.
The time slips by, a rook emerges from yonder mass of foliage, and idly
floats across, and is hidden in another tree. A whitethroat rises from a
bush and nervously discourses, gesticulating with wings and tail, for a
few moments. But this is not possible for long; the immense magnetism of
London, as I have said before, is too near. There comes the quick short
beat of a steam launch shooting down the river hard by, and the dream is
over. I rise and go on again.
Already one of the willows planted about the pond is showing the yellow
leaf, before midsummer. It reminds me of the inevitable autumn. In
October these ponds, now apparently deserted, will be full of moorhens.
I have seen and heard but one to-day, but as the autumn comes on they
will be here again, feeding about the island, or searching on the sward
by the shore. Then, too, among the beeches that lead from hence towards
the fanciful pagoda the squirrels will be busy. There are numbers of
them, and their motions may be watched with ease. I turn down by the
river; in the ditch at the foot of the ha-ha wall is plenty of duckweed,
the Lemna of the tank.