Nor shall I ever forget that walk. Not only because it was a “first impression,” but because it was the most beautiful piece of pedestrianism that ever fell to my lot.
My clubhouse home was almost at the corner of Hamilton Place, and as I stepped from its portal out into Piccadilly I seemed to breathe the quintessence of London, past, present, and to come.
Meteorologically speaking, the atmosphere was perfect. The reputation for fogginess, that London has somehow acquired, is a base libel. Its air is marked by a dazzling clearness of haze that, more than anything else, “life’s leaden metal into gold transmutes.”
Thus exhilarated at the start, I began my stroll down Piccadilly, and at every step I added to my glowing sense of satisfied well-being. I turned north into Berkeley Street, and thus started on my first sight-seeing tour. And was it not well that I was by myself?
For the most kind and well-meaning cicerone would probably have said,
“Do you not want to see the house where Carlyle died?”
And how embarrassed would I have been to be obliged to make reply:
“No, not especially. But I do want to see where Tomlinson gave up the ghost in his house in Berkeley Square.”
Nor would my guide have been able to point out that perhaps mythical residence. But I had no trouble in finding it. Unerring instinct guided me along Berkeley Square, till I reached what I felt sure was the very house, and since I was satisfied, what mattered it to any one else?
This being accomplished, I next proceeded in a desultory and inconsequent fashion to explore Mayfair.