The sound of London rolls on like a river--a river that ebbs
sometimes, but rarely floods above its normal banks; it impresses
one as the necessary breathing of a grunting and burdened monster
who has a mighty job on his hands and is taking his own good time
about doing it.
In London, mind you, the newsboys do not shout their extras. They
bear in their hands placards with black-typed announcements of the
big news story of the day; and even these headings seem designed
to soothe rather than to excite--saying, for example, such things
as Special From Liner, in referring to a disaster at sea, and
Meeting in Ulster, when meaning that the northern part of Ireland
has gone on record as favoring civil war before home rule.
The street venders do not bray on noisy trumpets or ring with bells
or utter loud cries to advertise their wares. The policeman does
not shout his orders out; he holds aloft the stripe-sleeved arm
of authority and all London obeys. I think the reason why the
Londoners turned so viciously on the suffragettes was not because
of the things the suffragettes clamored for, but because they
clamored for them so loudly. They jarred the public peace--that
must have been it.
I can understand why an adult American might go to Paris and stay
in Paris and be satisfied with Paris, if he were a lover of art
and millinery in all their branches; or why he might go to Berlin
if he were studying music and municipal control; or to Amsterdam
if he cared for cleanliness and new cheese; or to Vienna if he
were concerned with surgery, light opera, and the effect on the
human lungs of doing without fresh air for long periods of time;
or to Rome if he were an antiquarian and interested in ancient
life; or to Naples if he were an entomologist and interested in
insect life; or to Venice if he liked ruins with water round them;
or to Padua if he liked ruins with no water anywhere near them.
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