Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/691

1885.] is assuredly better, more endurable for those who dislike it, more delightful for those who love it, in the beginning of summer, which is also the beginning of the season, than at any other time of the year. It is no caprice of fashion, but a sound judgment, which guides the stream away from town in the dark autumnal days when London, to all save those who in every season prefer her almost to Paradise, is a kind of Pandemonium lying under low skies of deepest grey, the outlines of her houses, the spectres of her trees, marked out in Indian ink against the dark background, with sometimes the incident of a fog no longer grey, but yellow, to vary the scene; a sun looking in from time to time pale, without strength enough in him to restore a little colour to the surroundings – or red, like a great globe of fire amid the lurid clouds. St James's Park is a pretty scene in a summer morning; but in November it is all Indian ink, the gleam of the water giving that tone of whitish reflection which is the highest light possible – the trees standing out in deepest gloom – the ghosts of Westminster falling off pale in the distance – the greater and darker silhouette of Buckingham Palace, on the other hand, in unmitigated blackness against the sky. The misty distance in the streets, and the yellow tones that are so often in the air, give a kind of weird poetry to the most commonplace scenes; but it is distracting to live in this perpetual shadow, to feel that there is no more light than this to be hoped for day after day, and that the only variety probable is the enwrapping veil of a fog which will isolate every house from its fellows, and make the best-accustomed Londoner lose his way at mid-day on the most familiar pavements. There are thousands who like it, let us not attempt to deny, – who hug themselves, poor wretches! in their blindness, and declare that town is most delightful when the agitations of the season are still afar – when man has his club and woman her drawing-room to themselves and their friends – when the dinners are friendliest and the play at its best, and there is no compulsion upon any one to look at pictures or listen to music save at his own will and pleasure. Genial no-season! which the devotees love – but for us who prefer to see the sun most days of our lives, and breathe something else than fog, and love a landscape which has colour in it not attainable by Indian ink, a doleful period, scarcely to be redeemed by any social delights.

Therefore, we repeat, there is reason in the seeming caprice which draws the world, even from the country in its sweetest bloom, to town in May. For if we are to make a point of town at all, it is well to do it when town is at its best; and this is at the time when all the world is at its best – when the fog-demon is most under control, and the air cannot choose but be sweet, nor the sun refuse to shine – by times, at least. Then those trees, which once were of Indian ink, accomplish a miracle and grow green, as if they lived in parks and woods out of the din of men. And all the squares and openings, in which London is so rich, have heard the sound of the spring. The parks stretch out gay as if there was no end to them, shaking out of their husks millions of fluttering leaves, casting dancing shadows upon Piccadilly and the cabs as if it was a road through a wood; spreading carpets of green under the foot, and making of Rotten Row a fête