But, indeed, he might have learned long ago that there is no life in his storm, and that when thunder comes it wears a different gloom. The worst is that with the authentic darkness of cloud comes so often the imitation, and a town tempest is not only mocked, but hidden and covered, by the pother of mere smoke, so that the citizen does not well learn to distinguish. But he who has ever really known the cloud will not make that ignominious confusion. He knows the difference in storm, and so much more the greater difference in sunshine; he will not call by the name of cloud a thing that shows the dark shadow grimly enough, but never the light sweetly, and is naturally incapable of white.

And yet the artificial climate of London is at its best when it is very obvious, and when it has strong scenes of sunset or storm to deal with. The time when it is insufferable is noonday or full afternoon on a cloudless day in summer, when there is not wind enough to drift it, helpless, out of town, and when it is not thick enough to keep the sun away. It makes the sunshine ugly. No beauty, even artificial or obvious, belongs to the smoke then, and it plays no antic pranks in mimicry of cloud. It has no shadow and no menace; it has no opportunity for stage-plays; it is disconcerted, and cannot make a penny theatre of its London. Every one must know such days, of which the essence should have been their purity, plain and splendid. By their light is the smoke seen to be nothing in the world but a sorry smirch. The horizon is thickened with it, and there it wreaks its chief ‘effects,’ but all near things are also oppressed by it; the spirit of the sunshine is gone, and a blazing sun upon miles of blue slate roofs and yellow houses, with the thin uncleanness of smoke just showing in the blaze, is actually that impossibility—sunshine without beauty.

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UTILITARIAN LONDON.

After this, let us grant the smoke the tragi-comedy of its successes. These are generally connected with Westminster; it finds matter fitted to its manner in the surrounding architecture, and in the westward opening. It suppresses a great deal that is not very presentable, on the working side of the river, and it reveals what is Gothic on the other bank. It has a trick of being ashamed of its origin, for it hustles the long chimneys out of sight. It does really surprising things with the beautiful dome of St. Paul’s; the very formlessness of its presence seems to give more value to that fine form. It has a way of showing the noble tops of clouds while it loses their bases in vagueness, which is not without beauty. You cannot see from what heavenly ranges of highlands those summits tower, and if they stand into the sunshine their isolation is the more remote and splendid. But even this is but a handy bit of scene-shifting; it touches no more than the fancy.

There is another effect of the London climate, besides the effect of sky scenery, and that is the local colour wherewith the characteristic smoke, mingled with a little rain to make a general water-colour, has painted the surfaces of the town in variants of black. The citizen who—unaware of such things as the quarter of the wind—takes his umbrella for fear of the thunderous look of a tremendous smoke-storm to leeward, is apt to take the touch of soot for the touch of time. Nevertheless, the two dark colours are quite unlike; time is browner, and has a depth in the tone, whereas soot is greyer, and at its blackest has no depth. It gives a shallow colour; and even those who love their sky streaked and tumbled into the chaos of smoke should not be allowed to defend the aquarelle that colours their buildings.

It is true that we no longer offer columns of the Doric order for treatment by London water-colours; but all the Doric columns we already have are left subject to this extraordinary substitute for the colouring of a Laconic sun. We have discovered that terra-cotta and tiles resist the work of the climate, and no doubt London at a glance presents a less coal-blackened face than it once wore. But too much of the surface of London is still the work of that dashing impressionist, the climate.