That makes two ors, as I figger on’t.
Wall, here is another one jest as big or bigger; set them New Yorkers, them very Broadwayers, down in a London street, and you’ll have another or jest as big to add as the two foregoin’ ones.
The crowd is jest as much immenser, the roar jest as much louder, the jam, and push, and pull, and drive, and yell, and crash, and scramble, and roar, and rattle jest as much more enormouser.
Why, imagine the slate stuns down to the Jonesville creek all springin’ up into men and wimmen, and horses and wagons, and carriages and drays, etc., etc., etc., and you may have a faint idee of the countless number on ’em; and then imagine over all that seen a deep, black curtain of fog descended down sudden, and out of that roar the crowds of vehicles of all kinds, the yells of drivers, and most probble the yells of skairt-out females a-blendin’ in it—imagine it if you can; wall, that is a London street.
I wuz considerable interested in the bridges of London that crossed the Thames, and I meditated every time I crossed one on ’em on Old London Bridge, and what a seen, what a seen that wuz for centuries; with houses built on each side on’t, merchants and dealers in everything, and artists and preachers, for all I know. I know, anyway, one on ’em wuz a good preacher—the immortal Bunyan. How he must have meditated as he see the throng surge past him—old and young, beggars and princes, velvet and rags!
How he must have thought of the hard journey to the Celestial City, and what a hard tussle it wuz to git there!
Hogarth lived here at one time, and mebby got the idee of his “Rake’s Progress” from some of the endless crowd he see go past. Anyway, he probble see rakes enough, if that wuz all, for they have permeated every field of life, a-rakin’ up all that is vile, and leavin’ the flowers and sweet blades of grass as they raked on.
Holbein lived here.
Life on that old bridge must have been a sight to contemplate, havin’ a good time on it some of the time, most probble, jest as we do in America and Jonesville. But in times of highest prosperity a-knowin’ that under ’em wuz a deep, black current a-flowin’, jest as we know it in Jonesville, only the current of Human Life is more mysteriouser and vague.
Poor William Wallace had his head stuck up here—good creeter, it wuz a shame after all he went through: a-losin’ his first wife and a-fightin’ so for freedom. And Thomas More, and Bolingbroke, and lots of others—middlin’ good creeters, all on ’em. And then there wuz traitors, Jack Cade, etc., etc., etc. I d’no but their heads did less trouble here than when they wuz on their bodies, so fur as the world wuz concerned, but I spoze it come tough on ’em, a-seein’ these heads wuz the only one they had.