But this was only whispered in a humorous “aside” for me, who know how much he likes Hamlet, and how much he likes other people to like Hamlet.
At the door of the Brunswick we find a sleigh, pair of horses, smart-looking driver, a heap of rugs and furs, under which we ensconce ourselves. The weather is bitterly cold, the sky blue; the windows of the houses in the fine streets of the Back Bay district flash icily; the air is sharp, and the sleigh-bells ring out aggressively as the horses go away.
The snow is too deep for rapid sleighing; there has been no time for it to solidify. It is white and pure as it has fallen, and when we get out into the suburbs it is dazzling to the eyes, almost painful. Crossing the Charles river the scene is singularly picturesque: a cumbersome old barge in the foreground; on the opposite shore a long stretch of red-brick buildings, vanishing at the point where the heights of Brookline climb away, in white and green and grey undulations, to the bright blue sky. As we enter Cambridge there are fir-trees growing out of the snow, their sombre greens all the darker for the white weight that bows their branches down to the drifts that wrap their trunks high up; for here and there the snow has drifted until there are banks of it five and six feet deep.
“Very pretty, these villas; nearly all wood,—do you notice?—very comfortable, I am sure; lined with brick, I am told, some of them. Nearly all have balconies or verandas; and there are trees and gardens everywhere,—must be lovely in summer; good enough now, for that matter. One thing makes them look a trifle lonely,—no smoke coming from the chimneys. They burn anthracite coal,—good for this atmosphere,—excellent and clean; but how a bit of blue smoke curling up among the trees finishes and gives poetry to a landscape,—suggests home and cosey firesides, eh?”
“Yes. New York owes some of its clear atmosphere to its smokeless coal.”
“What a pity we don’t have it in London! Only fancy a smokeless London,—what a lovely city!”
“It may come about one day, either by the adoption of smokeless coal or the interposition of the electrician. Last summer I spent some time in the Swansea Valley, England, not far from Craig-y-nos, the British home of Patti. One day I suddenly noticed that there was no smoke over the villages; none at some local ironworks, except occasional bursts of white steam from the engine-houses; nothing to blemish the lovely sky that just slightly touched the mountain-tops with a grey mist. I was near Ynyscedwyn, the famous smokeless-coal district of South Wales. London need not burn another ounce of bituminous coal; there is enough anthracite in Wales to supply all England for a thousand years.”
“What a blessing it would be if London were to use nothing else!”
Through Cambridge, so intimately associated with Longfellow, past its famous colleges, we skirted Brookline, and returned to our head-quarters in Clarendon street, meeting on the way many stylish sleighs and gay driving-parties.
On another day Irving took luncheon with a little party of undergraduates in Common hall, was received by the President of the college, inspected the gymnasium, saw the theatre, and had long talks with several of the professors.