Some of the rich Dahlias, too, still remain, unless the killing frosts have come; and the Geraniums, that have been turned out of their winter homes into the open earth, still keep flowering profusely. But a single night’s frost makes sad havoc among both these bright ornaments of the Autumn Flower-garden; and what is to-day a rich cluster of green leaves, interspersed with gay groups of flowers, may to-morrow become, by an invisible agency, an unsightly heap of corruption.
London is so perfect an antithesis to the Country in all things, that whatever is good for the one is bad for the other. Accordingly, as the Country half forgets itself this month, so London just begins to know itself again. Not that I would insinuate any thing so injurious to the reputation of the high fashionables, as that they have as yet began to entertain the remotest thought of throwing themselves into the arms of one another, merely because they have become wearied of themselves. On the contrary, persons of fashion are perpetual martyrs to the selfdenying principles on which they act, of doing every thing for or with a reference to other people. Every body knows, that if there is a month of the year in which the Country puts forth less claims than usual to the undivided love of her admirers, it is November. But people of fashion never yet pretended either to love or admire any thing—even themselves;—any thing but that abstraction of abstractions from which they take their title. Accordingly, to them the Country is as much the Country in November as ever it was, simply because London is not yet London. In short, to be in London, is to be in the world; and to be in the Country, or any where else but in London, is to be out of the world; and therefore, to say that one is “in the Country,” when it is not decorous to be in London, is a mere façon de parler, exactly equivalent to that of “not at home,” when one does not choose to be seen; so that there is no difficulty whatever in being “in town” all the year round, and yet “out of town,” exactly when it is proper and becoming to be so.
But if the world of fashion belongs exclusively to London, luckily London does not belong exclusively to the world of fashion; and if that has not yet began to enlighten London with its presence, all the other worlds have. Accordingly, now its streets revive from their late suspended animation, and are alive with anxious faces, and musical with the mingled sounds of many wheels.
Now, the Shops begin to shine out with their new Winter wares; though as yet the chief profits of their owners depend on disposing of the “Summer stock” at fifty per cent. under prime cost.
Now, the Theatres, admonished by their no longer empty benches, try which shall be the first to break through that hollow truce on the strength of which they have hitherto been acting only on alternate nights.
Now, during the first week, the citizens see visions and dream dreams, the burthens of which are Barons of Beef; and the first eight days are passed in a state of pleasing perplexity, touching their chance of a ticket for the Lord Mayor’s Dinner on the ninth.
Now, all the little boys give thanks in their secret hearts to Guy Faux, for having attempted to burn “the Parliament” with “Gunpowder, treason, and plot,” since the said attempt gives them occasion to burn every thing they can lay their hands on,—their own fingers included: a bonfire being, in the eyes of an English schoolboy, the true “beauteous and sublime of human life.”
Finally,—now the atmosphere of London begins to thicken overhead, and assume its natural appearance—preparatory to its becoming, about Christmas time, that “palpable obscure” which is one of its proudest boasts; and which, among its other merits, may reckon that of engendering those far-famed Fogs of which everybody has heard, but to which no one has ever done justice. A London Fog in November is a thing for which I have a sort of natural affection;—to say nothing of an acquired one, the result of a Hackney-coach adventure, in which the fair part of the fare threw herself into my arms for protection, amidst the pleasing horrors of an overthrow.—As an affair of mere breath, there is something tangible in a London Fog. In the evanescent air of Italy, a man might as well not breathe at all, for any thing he knows of the matter. But in a well-mixed Metropolitan Fog there is something substantial, and satisfying. You can feel what you breathe, and see it too. It is like breathing water,—as we may fancy the fishes to do. And then the taste of it, when dashed with a due seasoning of sea-coal smoke, is far from insipid. It is also meat and drink at the same time; something between egg-flip and omelette soufflée, but much more digestible than either. Not that I would recommend it medicinally,—especially to persons of queasy stomachs, delicate nerves, and afflicted with bile. But for persons of a good robust habit of body, and not dainty withal—(which such, by the by, never are)—there is nothing better in its way. And it wraps you all round like a cloak, too—a patent water-proof one, which no rain ever penetrated.
No—I maintain that a real London Fog is a thing not to be sneezed at—if you can help it.