BEAUTY OF THE TOWN 37 the Serpentine, I had round me a little group who seemed most attentive in picking up my brushes or colour tubes, or anything I dropped. At last one of them whispered to me that the others were stealing my brushes. Then there was a stampede. I bribed the informer with some pennies to run after the thieves and capture my brushes; but he returned breathless after a long and unsuccessful chase, and so I was minus the brushes and the pennies. In my rambles about London, a feeling of terror has been forced upon me by the apathy that seems to surround one as regards what is true and beautiful. In poetry, sculpture, painting, how few there seem to be who have any appreciation of what is good! Still sadder is it to see men and women of education passing by and ignoring the thousands of things around them, in this great London of ours, that are the works of God--and in being so are necessarily perfect. After the dreary rains and fogs of winter, what light and life come back to one in the first days of spring! Shelley says:- Oh wind, If winter comes, can spring be long behind? And how very beautiful are the words in the Song of Solomon : 38 FAMILIAR LONDON My beloved spake, and said unto me, For lo, the winter is past, The rain is over and gone ; The flowers appear on the earth; The time of the singing birds is come. These words may, perhaps, be applied to London. What glorious sunsets I have seen in the Park! A friend of mine once said to me: "A sunset in London reminds me of the love of God. I see the smoke of the great city, that has overshadowed all our lives during the day, sinking down and dying out; and behind it, and around it, and over it, come that beautiful light and glory which are always really near us, though we sometimes, in the weakness of our human sight, see them but so imperfectly." Nightingale says, "Burlington House was left to the Devonshire family, on the express condition that it should not be demolished." He also says, "The first good house that was built in this street (Piccadilly) was Burlington House, the noble founder of which said that he placed it there because he was certain no one would build beyond him." I believe, however, that Sir John Denham was really the founder of Burlington House. The old turnpike gate stood originally close by here; |