parlour windows, or secretly consorting underground with the dustbin
and the water-cistern.
In the Burlington Arcade, I observe, with peculiar pleasure, a
primitive state of manners to have superseded the baneful
influences of ultra civilisation. Nothing can surpass the
innocence of the ladies’ shoe-shops, the artificial-flower
repositories, and the head-dress depots. They are in strange hands
at this time of year – hands of unaccustomed persons, who are
imperfectly acquainted with the prices of the goods, and
contemplate them with unsophisticated delight and wonder. The
children of these virtuous people exchange familiarities in the
Arcade, and temper the asperity of the two tall beadles. Their
youthful prattle blends in an unwonted manner with the harmonious
shade of the scene, and the general effect is, as of the voices of
birds in a grove. In this happy restoration of the golden time, it
has been my privilege even to see the bigger beadle’s wife. She
brought him his dinner in a basin, and he ate it in his arm-chair,
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Dickens, Charles – The Uncommercial Traveller
and afterwards fell asleep like a satiated child. At Mr.
Truefitt’s, the excellent hairdresser’s, they are learning French
to beguile the time; and even the few solitaries left on guard at
Mr. Atkinson’s, the perfumer’s round the corner (generally the most
inexorable gentleman in London, and the most scornful of three-andsixpence),
condescend a little, as they drowsily bide or recall
their turn for chasing the ebbing Neptune on the ribbed sea-sand.
From Messrs. Hunt and Roskell’s, the jewellers, all things are
absent but the precious stones, and the gold and silver, and the
soldierly pensioner at the door with his decorated breast. I might
stand night and day for a month to come, in Saville-row, with my
tongue out, yet not find a doctor to look at it for love or money.
The dentists’ instruments are rusting in their drawers, and their
horrible cool parlours, where people pretend to read the Every-Day
Book and not to be afraid, are doing penance for their grimness in
white sheets. The light-weight of shrewd appearance, with one eye
always shut up, as if he were eating a sharp gooseberry in all
seasons, who usually stands at the gateway of the livery-stables on
very little legs under a very large waistcoat, has gone to
Doncaster. Of such undesigning aspect is his guileless yard now,
with its gravel and scarlet beans, and the yellow Break housed
under a glass roof in a corner, that I almost believe I could not
be taken in there, if I tried. In the places of business of the
great tailors, the cheval-glasses are dim and dusty for lack of
being looked into. Ranges of brown paper coat and waistcoat bodies
look as funereal as if they were the hatchments of the customers
with whose names they are inscribed; the measuring tapes hang idle
on the wall; the order-taker, left on the hopeless chance of some
one looking in, yawns in the last extremity over the book of
patterns, as if he were trying to read that entertaining library.
The hotels in Brook-street have no one in them, and the staffs of
servants stare disconsolately for next season out of all the
windows. The very man who goes about like an erect Turtle, between
two boards recommendatory of the Sixteen Shilling Trousers, is
aware of himself as a hollow mockery, and eats filberts while he
leans his hinder shell against a wall.
Among these tranquillising objects, it is my delight to walk and
meditate. Soothed by the repose around me, I wander insensibly to
considerable distances, and guide myself back by the stars. Thus,
I enjoy the contrast of a few still partially inhabited and busy
spots where all the lights are not fled, where all the garlands are
not dead, whence all but I have not departed. Then, does it appear
to me that in this age three things are clamorously required of Man
in the miscellaneous thoroughfares of the metropolis. Firstly,
that he have his boots cleaned. Secondly, that he eat a penny ice.
Thirdly, that he get himself photographed. Then do I speculate,
What have those seam-worn artists been who stand at the photograph