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LONDON

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LONDON

BY
G. K. CHESTERTON

WITH TEN PHOTOGRAPHS BY
ALVIN  LANGDON  COBURN



LONDON:   PRIVATELY   PRINTED   FOR
ALVIN     LANGDON     COBURN     AND
EDMUND D. BROOKS & THEIR FRIENDS

1914

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LONDON

THERE is an old London story that has never lost its loveliness for me.It was about a stout old lady from the country, who travelled round andround the Underground Railway in a circle, because at each station shetried to get out backwards, and at each station the guard pitched her inagain, under the impression that she was trying to get in. It is abeautiful story; doing honour alike to the patience of the female sexand the prompt courtesy of the male; it is a song without words. Butthere is another and milder version (perhaps we might dare to say a moreprobable version) of the same story. It describes an aged farmer and hisdaughter travelling the same sad circle, and failing to alight anywhere,partly because of the impedimenta of country parcels, but partly alsobecause they were almost satisfied with the staring names of the placesset up on the Underground Railway. They thought the “Mansion House” wasrather a dark place for{8} the Lord Mayor to live in. They could detect nobridges through the twilight of “Westminster Bridge,” nor any promisingpark in “St. James’ Park Station.” They could only suppose that theywere in the crypts of “The Temple”; or buried under the foundations of“The Tower.”

Nevertheless, I am not quite so certain that this cockney tale againstcountrymen scores so much as is supposed. The rustic saw the names atleast; and nine times out of ten the names are nobler than the things.Let us suppose him as starting westward from the Mansion House, where hecommiserated the dim captivity of the Lord Mayor. He would come toanother equally gloomy vault in which he would read the word“Blackfriars.” It is not a specially cheery word; but it goes back, Iimagine, to that great movement, at once dogmatic and democratic, whichgave to its followers the fierce and fine name of the “Dogs of God.” Butat the worst, the mere name of Blackfriars Station is more dignifiedthan the Blackfriars Road. He would pass on to the Temple; and surelythe mere word “Temple” is more essential and eternal than either therich lawyers in its courts, or the poor vagabonds on its Embankment. Hewill go on to Charing Cross,{9}

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