Water Valley progress., 1897-05-01
Inc Water Valley Proc
5. B. BROWN, p
MISSISSIPPI
JHARM OF LONDON.
ne City To-Day More Interesting
Than Ever in the Past.

GlOTe DedlilluI tIidh IL iioW IL, "ii0u III
the times of the Plantagenets and
Tudors a great line of palaces along
the banks of the Thames connected
the city with Westminster, and that
he hoped it might become again more
beautiful than it now is, when our
streets shall be Giving storehouses of
history" instead Of long blanks of
stuceo, and he ventured to differ wide
" from Sir Walter Besant's assertion
that London had never been more
beautiful than it now is. And very
likely Lord Rosebery is right, if we
Use the word beautiful in its ordi
nary sense of that which delights the
eye by its symmetry and fairness.
There are certainly many eastern
cities-Damascus, for instance, and
Observation-Disclosures gardens and
groves present far more picturesque
appearance than London can ever pre-
sent with its huge population. For
let the streets become Giving store
houses of history as much as they
may, the vast crowds which now
swarm through the mighty city will
effectually drive the palaces more and
more into the distance.
But if, instead of the beauty of Lon
don, we should speak of the charm Of
London, we should be inclined to say
that London had never welded so
great charm as it does at the present
time in spite of its long stretches of
succeed streets. For charm depends
on the sense of power even more than
on the sense of beauty. MichaelAn-
gelo exerts even greater charm than
Rafael, and Alexander a greater
charm than Hannibal. So London,
an the nineteenth century, with its
crowds of ordered or orderly labor, its
storehouses Of wealth, it's treasures of
learning, its mighty avenues of iron
roads raging out to the ends of the
kingdom, and with its great river
which carries the ships of all nations
tethe sea, exerts a far mightier charm
fn the imagination At this end of the
ninet .fs-e-ntrry{{ ban it Seeld eysk
have eXerted before. London has,
Yeed, a mental atmosphere. awhicE
yesses With IA fsEsfeater force on the
,4 AZ FL than thatwith which the physic-
r. M atmosphere s,.si sting
se1Mlbly stirred by the consciousness
offoree, of which the evidence streams
IN ON one at every pore. There is
KIND OF magnetism in the mere prox-
unity OF SO much energy and vivacity.
The man who enters London from
the country is sensible of new stimu-
lusandaclearer consciousness of what
Life means and what it may produce
than he had before. All this exerts
spell which cannot be welded by
groves of dates and gardens of roses.
nor even by stately piles Of marble
architecture. London in the times of
the Plantagenets and Tudors, London
as Sir Walter Scott imagined it dur
ing the aater Stuarts, never possessed
such a,charm as is put forth by the vast
city OF the present day, where genius
and skill and knowledge and industry
are all represented by hosts of minds
acting In concert with each other to
produce result such as the world has
not elsewhere toshow. Even the thick
air which so sadly impairs the beauty
OF London has sometimes had an i'm
Aginative charm of sits own. Mr..
Lowell used to say that there was
nothing more delightful than the fog |
sy sunsets Of London, and Wadsworth |
ielt its attraction when he said to
Crabbe:
-tOur naughty Iife II crowned with dsrk-
ness
Like London with Its own blackened
On which with thee. o Crabbe. forth
docking,
heath"
Morris that theonly testimony which
Wadsworth a solitary-minded man
who lived chiefly among the noun
ia'ns and lakes, and cared nothing for
the world gave to London testi-
mony, not called forth 80 much by its
beauty as BY its marvellous concen-
trati0n Of hnman force and LIE. n
the famous sonnet on London. seen
from Westminster bridge III the still
meas of summer dawn, he dwelt on
the latent power of the vision even
more than ifs mere beauty
slgeser ~ never felt /. csy,,, - x..
The river el1detb ct his own svveef MI,
Lear aoa! the very houses seem asleep.
And Al that mighty heart is lying sfiiii"j
There is the charm Of London. Nthat
mighty hna,-f y 1aoo ~, Z. - II ~. e -----