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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
ness , as they do at all seasons , it is as well to stay while the idle flit , that we may the more quietly ' see this great sight ; evoke the spirits of the dead to hold communion with them , and tax them to tell us more of the mysteries of our nature and our destiny . Whomsoever autumn may drive away from London , London itself is left ; and that is a goodly portion to leave to the deserted .
A metaphysician talked of the mind ' s containing nothing but itself ; were that the case with London , it would yet bea ( measureless content . ' What the Scotch call self-containing houses ' always let high at Edinburgh , and London can never be despised while it is a self-containing city . Is it not pleasant to stand on Ben Arthur , and tell the old story of some Duke of Argyle ^ who travelled in search of the picturesque , and was told by an Italian that the finest of all views was that from his own forsaken
mountain ? He knows not what scenery is , who cannot find it in London . Let him hunt where he likes , he will never catch it . * The earth will say , it is not in me ; and the sea will say , it is not in me ; ' and they will both mean that it is not in him . It is the sight and the sense that are wanting . Let him take * Hughson ' s Walks in London' for the guide-book of his next tour , and do them regularly , one every day ; let him go round Regent ' s Park ,
across to Bayswater , through Kensington Gardens , up Oxfordstreet , along Regent-street to the Quadrant , then by Waterlooplace , and through the Green Park to Hyde Park corner ; let him stand on the bridges , any one of them "; and get into Southward on purpose to come on the iron bridge at that end ; let him look up at St . Paul ' s from the bottom of Ludgate-hill , when there are mountains of black clouds and a bright full moon besides
him look at the Abbey anywhere and any when ; let him take a boat , and go down the river , and then come up the river . No scenery , indeed ! but there would be , though ; and the stage direction for it should be—Scene , a splendid city with temples , towers , palaces , and a majestic river ; enter a blind Soul , and exit hastily . There are some fine old chestnuts at Kensington , close by the bridge ( stand on that too , and look both ways ) , whose
embossed and fretted trunks seem wrought by nature as a triumphant challenge to human architect and sculptor . We know what trees are ; we have seen oaks in the New Forest which waved their branches in the Conqueror ' s days , and others whose limbs were clubs for Hercules ; we have seen the ash upon the mountain side , gracefully bending in the blast , and have stretched ourselves in
the shade and gathered woodnffe beneath the birks of Aberfeldy ; but fitter pillars than these chestnuts for the gates of paradise we never saw . Now do not say all these are fixtures ; we shall find them when we return . These are not what people live in London for , or think to look at ; they are independent of fashion ; they are in addition to the unfathomable stores of art , and history , and science treasured here . We ourselves might not have seen them
Untitled Article
664 Autumn inn Lodon .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1832, page 664, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1822/page/16/
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