It stood well back from the road,
and was built of a good yellow brick; it was narrow for its height,
like the tower of some Border robber; and over the front door
was carved in large letters, "1908." That last burst of sincerity,
that superb scorn of antiquarian sentiment, overwhelmed me finally.
I closed my eyes in a kind of ecstasy. My friend (who was helping me
to lean on the gate) asked me with some curiosity what I was doing.
"My dear fellow," I said, with emotion, "I am bidding farewell
to forty-three hansom cabmen."
"Well," he said, "I suppose they would think this county rather
outside the radius."
"Oh, my friend," I cried brokenly, "how beautiful London is!
Why do they only write poetry about the country? I could turn
every lyric cry into Cockney.
"'My heart leaps up when I behold
A sky-sign in the sky,'
"as I observed in a volume which is too little read, founded on
the older English poets. You never saw my 'Golden Treasury Regilded;
or, The Classics Made Cockney'--it contained some fine lines.
"'O Wild West End, thou breath of London's being,'
"or the reminiscence of Keats, beginning
"'City of smuts and mellow fogfulness.';
"I have written many such lines on the beauty of London;
yet I never realized that London was really beautiful till now.
Do you ask me why? It is because I have left it for ever."
"If you will take my advice," said my friend, "you will humbly
endeavour not to be a fool.
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