Flannels in summer and in winter, in Glasgow and in Jamaica; this is one of the ten commandments which few Englishmen care to transgress. But their conservative tendencies which cause them to cling to the habits in which they were reared, lead them into the absurdity of adhering to an English mode of life even when fate or trade have flung them to the furthermost corners of the earth. I understand that English drawing-rooms at Gibraltar are as carefully carpeted as the drawing-rooms of London and Edinburgh. The British drink their port and sherry under the torrid zone; their porter and stout follow them to the foot of the Himalaya. And they do all this, not because they cannot be comfortable without their old habits; but because they protest and devoutly believe, that in all the various climates the English mode of living is most conducive to health.
The proper cultivation of the body is a matter of great importance in England. A French labourer is happy with the most frugal dinner, if, in the evening, he can but afford to take a place and laugh or weep at a vaudeville theatre. The Englishman wants meat, good meat, and plenty of it. The lower classes care little or nothing for “the feast of the soul.” John Bull laughs at the starvelings, the French frog-eaters. He has no idea that the French ouvrier is, after all, a more civilised creature than he is, exactly because to the Frenchman his Sunday dinner is not, as is the case with the lower classes of the English, the most important part of the Sunday.
These material tendencies are, of course, fostered by education and society. Originally they result from the climate. The frugality of the Paris ouvrier could not, for any length of time, resist the stomach-inspiriting effect of a fresh sea-breeze.
“A beautiful morning, Sir.” “A splendid day, Sir.” Such-like phrases are stereotyped formulas for the proper commencement of an acquaintanceship. The English are so accustomed to these meteorological remarks, and these remarks appear so important (because everybody and everything here depends upon the weather), that they rarely, if ever, neglect making them.
“Very pleasant weather, Sir;” or, “Very wet to-day,” mutters the cabman as he shuts the door upon you. The same remarks greet you from the lips of the omnibus-driver as you take your seat at his side, or from those of the shopwoman, as a preliminary to that awful “Any other article, Sir?” And the words are always pronounced in that grave, monotonous, business tone which is peculiar to the English even in treating of the most important subjects. It may be sunshine or rain, the tone is always the same. And it has been surmised, that the English residents on the continent are such egregious bores and bears only because the greater constancy of the weather deprives them of those magic formulas, without which they cannot open their minds. How, indeed, is it possible to make the acquaintance of any one unless there is rain, storm, fog, and sunshine at least twice in the course of the four and twenty hours?
CHAP. IX.
The City Capitol.
THE LORD MAYOR’S RETREAT.—THE NINTH OF NOVEMBER.—CITY PROCESSIONS.—“THE TIMES” AND THE CITY.—THE STOCK EXCHANGE.—A PIECE OF SELF-GOVERNMENT.—LLOYD’S.—RETURN TO SIR JOHN, AND SOME OF THE OPINIONS OF THAT WORTHY.
OUR road to-day lies to the east. Seated on the roof of an omnibus, we ride down the Strand, through Temple-bar and Fleet-street, and pass St. Paul’s. The road and the pavements are crowded in the extreme; the din is deafening; but the shrill voices of the costermongers in the side-streets are heard even above the thunders of the City.
We stop for one moment at the foot of Ludgate-hill, and look back. We see part of Fleet-street, and as far as our eyes can reach, there is nothing but a dark, confused, quickly-moving mass of men, horses, and vehicles; not a yard of the pavement is to be seen—nothing but heads along the rows of houses, and in the road, too, an ocean of heads, the property of gentlemen on the roofs of omnibuses, which crowd the City more than any other part of the town.
These are the streets whose excess of traffic makes the strongest impression upon the stranger; and this part of London is moreover specially dear to the historian. We, too, propose to take our time with it and to walk through it leisurely. But to-day we are bound farther eastward. We shall leave the omnibus at the further end of Cheapside.