ETCHING " 12

THE LAST BOAT PHOTOGRAVURE " 19

BELOW BRIDGE Do. " 22

A BACK STREET Do. " 24

A COFFEE STALL Do. " 26

RAIN, SMOKE, AND TRAFFIC Do. " 29

WESTMINSTER ETCHING " 31

LIST OF ESSAYS

PAGE

THE LONDON SUNDAY 1

A PILGRIM 4

THE EFFECT OF LONDON 6

THE CLIMATE OF SMOKE 9

THE TREES 12

CHELSEA REACH 16

THE SPRING 19

BELOW BRIDGE 22

THE ROADS 26

THE SMOULDERING CITY 29

[Illustration: THE RIVER.]

THE LONDON SUNDAY

This seems to be a thing that all exclaim against, and but few see. The
phrase is never varied--a sure sign of lack of experience. One cries, 'Oh,
the London Sunday!' and another, 'It must be too dreadful for foreigners!'
and before the topic disappears something yet vaguer has been said, in a
flickering manner, as to the Boulevards. But in fact London Sunday is
little understood even by those who know its aspect, and the greater
number do not know even so much.

[Illustration: _A Forgotten Corner._]

Obviously, it is one thing in the summer of livelong sunshine, and another
thing in winter. When the tops of the steeples fly a blue and white sky as
far as the eye may see--a broad flag for the streets, and a narrow,
wavering pennon for the alleys; when the reluctant faces of grey houses
are compelled by the fires of the day to bandy reflections with the grey
houses opposite; when the sun himself is lodged in every window, so that
the town multiplies his very face, and sets up suns to the west in the
morning and to the east in the evening--suns in rows, and suns that run
fluctuating along the windows of a long, unequal street; when the
plane-tree is fresh and the leaf of the elm already dry, the London
Sunday, from beginning to end, is passed by the London people out of
doors. For this reason it is difficult to understand it; you cannot tell
whither these streams of people are bound. They all have the gait of
making for some end; they do not stroll, and there is doubtless some
excursion afoot. The number of young men, in proportion to the numbers of
older men, of women, gir