Sometimes the brickwork of the chimneys is built from one angle to another above the roof; like a zigzag, and then surmounted on the same building with chimney-pots of different designs and heights, pointing, too, in different directions, and again capped with many weird contrivances to make them draw. They are certainly out of drawing, as any artist will confess.
There are machines that whirl in the wind and by their mad circling withdraw the smoke, and there are cowls that move with the wind, swinging in such a direction that the wind cannot blow down the chimney. There are hoods, and tin monstrosities that rear their ugliness over palaces, and there are chimneys that have been built up so much higher than the original ending, that in their fresh start to the sky they spoil the sky view as well as the contour of the building. There are beautiful chimneys, which begin well, but have to be assisted to do their work by horrible tin extensions soaring into the air.
These hideous makeshifts disfigure the dwellings of the rich and the poor alike with a deadly equality of utility unrelieved by any beauty. To see it all stretching out beneath you from the Monument fills you with disappointment at the wretched discord. I believe there are experts in chimneys in London, men who doctor them. If one could be found with an artistic soul, who could make them beautiful, he would deserve well of his country.
But it would never do to take all these ugly things down, for uniformity and even beauty may cost too much. A house full of smoke would, added to the London fog, be intolerable. 'Handsome is as handsome does.'
The housewife says 'Ours is a beautiful chimney. It draws so well.' When you sit by the bright fire on a winter's night, you do not think of the ugly chimney aloft except as a plain-featured but dear friend.
But, for all that, these chimney-pots of London are a sad commentary on our human nature. Our architecture and building goes wrong just where it comes into contact with rough nature, with its treacherous tempest and veering winds. The architect plans a beautiful Gothic mansion and everything goes right. It is a dream, a vision of harmony, until he comes to the chimneys—then brief and tragic experience demands a distorted chimney or a tin contrivance, and the plan is spoiled.
So we build our lives up to a point. It is to be a Gothic career for the noble son. What Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Oxford, or Cambridge can do for him is done. The Church, the Army—Society (with a big 'S') lend a hand, and he is turned out true to sample—the right accent, the right dress, the right manner. But, alas! when he comes into contact with the intricate promptings of nature and the subtle temptings of the world, some strain, inherited from the days of the Conqueror, makes him wobble. He marries the wrong woman, or doesn't marry her at all, misses the bus, or catches the wrong one. His career is altogether different from plan and specification, and yet he may be quite a good sort!
Here is another case. We set out to build a really artistic life. She, the favoured creature, is nurtured amid culture and reared in the atmosphere of poetry. Listening to smart conversation in epigram and lightning-sketch style, she goes out into the world without a practical notion; and because these things 'require money,' drifts into a business-like marriage with an unpoetic person, who makes glue or blue. Settles down—a Queen Anne villa with Mary Ann chimneys.
These are mild cases. How few of us live up to our fond parents' hopes and prayers! How many of us end far otherwise than our education, advantages, and associations seemed to promise. We have power of choice, we are not made uniform, and we do wobble a lot when we are turned loose among the currents and storms of life.
We overseas Britons are apt to expect too much of dear old London.