———
BY FREDERIKA BREMER.
———
London! great, magnificent, wonderful London! was the thought which presented itself again and again, during my peregrinations and my visits to various districts of this immense city, and at the contemplation of its rich, varied physiognomy. From the city, where trade lives, strives, and posts its books, speculates and battles for life and death in smoky, gloomy streets and alleys, to Hampstead, where the country joins the town, and children ride upon asses over green hills and dales; from the crowded, noisy Strand, which you can scarcely cross for the throngs of omnibuses and carriages which are unceasingly driving along it, to the silent, elegant Belgravia; from the closely built portions of the city, where human beings live in crowded courts and wretched dens, like moles in the earth, without pleasure and without light, to the immense, magnificent parks—justly called the “lungs of London,” where people wander calmly beneath green trees, or beside the clear little lakes, on which rare water-birds swim rejoicingly; from Westminster to the Tower, from St. Paul’s to Pall Mall and Piccadilly, and so on; all along the Thames, the broad Thames, with its affluent life, with its splendid bridges, with its steam-boats, swift as arrows, which bow down their chimneys as they shoot onward under these bridges—what an abundance of great, characteristic and strong feature is here combined with beautiful detail!—the splendid palaces, the elegant detached houses, with their gardens before them, the markets, with their flowing fountains, the numerous small green inclosures, with their trees and bushes, which are met with every here and there as a refreshment to the eye of the wanderers—these, and many other similar objects. And on all hands that great preponderance of substantial, wealthy, handsome, well-built, well-arranged houses.
In especial must I remark the way in which London, and, in fact, in which all English towns go out into, or up into, the country. It is not, as in many other nations, by the houses becoming smaller, uglier, by smoky chimneys becoming more numerous, marshes more extensive, the refuse of the city more perceptible. No! on the contrary, the gardens become more numerous and more extensive, the houses handsomer and more open, the streets of the town expand and become rows of beautiful villas and cottages, stone becomes less rare, flowers more frequent, the gray is changed into green; one remarks a something “con amore” in the care which is bestowed upon every dwelling, upon every grass-plot, in the luxuriant growth of every creeper which is trained up the walls of the houses and which engarlands their windows; in every iron palisade, which at once incloses and ornaments every plot of garden ground, and by the meaning of that English word comfort being above all things made evident to the mind of the observer.
In the midst of the city itself one does not think so much of this; other interests have here their life or—death. Because the great, closely-built city, where human beings live in dense masses, where they live, so to say, one upon another, in secret or open warfare for bread or the means of existence—the city becomes always, in a certain respect, a home of death for humanity.
When God, however, created man, he placed him not in a city, but in a garden; and people have now begun to be aware of this in England. Men of high cultivation, and even of high birth, deliver lectures and print pamphlets on the evils of great cities with their densely-built habitations, and on the injurious effects which they produce on the human soul, as well as on physical life. And people are already taking measures by which, as cities grow, breathing room may grow also, and are preparing for the inhabitants the means by which, even here, they may preserve health, cleanliness, and the fresh enjoyments of life.
London, though in cleanliness, fresh air, general regulations, and the great number of detached houses standing in their gardens, which in this respect far exceeds most other great towns, has yet not been able to avoid the curse of the great city: I saw that—I saw behind the magnificent quarters, behind the stately palaces, streets and markets, where the luxury and pomp of city and aristocratic life flourished in their fullest extent, that there were hidden regions, streets and lanes where might be seen the very opposite of all this—haunts of human wretchedness, of human tatters both outward and inward. I wished also to see these with my own eyes; to see St. Giles’s and the dirty quarters behind Westminster; because I endeavor to see, every where, the best and the worst, the heaven and the hell of existence in all spheres of life. I wished to see it also in the life of London; and I saw it.
I began to speak of the city’s bright side when I described the Great Exhibition with its cheerful life, and I will yet linger a few moments over this side of London life and over some of its gay scenes—namely, those which may be enjoyed by all, or by nearly all classes, and which are therefore properly the people’s pleasures.
Of these, none were more agreeable to me than the promenades in the great parks—Hyde Park, the Green Park, Regent’s Park, which last, alone, is several English miles in circumference. On Sundays, one sees them crowded with well-dressed people, mostly of the working classes; children tumble about freely on the green turf, which remains green and fresh notwithstanding, or feed with bread the beautiful swans or other aquatic birds which swim about on the river-like winding pieces of water. There stands also in one corner of St. James’ Park a row of cows, from which, if the pedestrians choose, they can drink new milk, and thus taste the pleasures of rural life; neither do other refreshments fail; but the best refreshment here is, after all, the fresh air, the wandering beneath green trees, the sight of the pleasure-takers, of the sports of the children, and the views which are obtained of beautiful palaces and churches. Queen Victoria may often enjoy from her royal residence of Buckingham Palace, the cheerful sight of her people thus wandering for their pleasure. Yes, it is to be feared that she, like other queens and kings, sees too much of this side of the life of her people, and thereby comes to forget that there is any other.