London Impressions

by Stephen Crane

CHAPTER ILondon at first consisted of a porter with the most charming manners inthe world, and a cabman with a supreme intelligence, both observing myprofound ignorance without contempt or humor of any kind observable intheir manners. It was in a great resounding vault of a place where therewere many people who had come home, and I was displeased because theyknew the detail of the business, whereas I was confronting theinscrutable. This made them appear very stony-hearted to the sufferingsof one of whose existence, to be sure, they were entirely unaware, and Iremember taking great pleasure in disliking them heartily for it. I wasin an agony of mind over my baggage, or my luggage, or my--perhaps it iswell to shy around this terrible international question; but I rememberthat when I was a lad I was told that there was a whole nation that saidluggage instead of baggage, and my boyish mind was filled at the timewith incredulity and scorn. In the present case it was a thing that Iunderstood to involve the most hideous confessions of imbecility on mypart, because I had evidently to go out to some obscure point and espyit and claim it, and take trouble for it; and I would rather have had mypockets filled with bread and cheese, and had no baggage at all.Mind you, this was not at all a homage that I was paying to London. Iwas paying homage to a new game. A man properly lazy does not like newexperiences until they become old ones. Moreover, I have been taughtthat a man, any man, who has a thousand times more points of informationon a certain thing than I have will bully me because of it, and pour hisadvantages upon my bowed head until I am drenched with his superiority.It was in my education to concede some license of the kind in this case,but the holy father of a porter and the saintly cabman occupied themiddle distance imperturbably, and did not come down from their hills toclout me with knowledge. From this fact I experienced a criminalelation. I lost view of the idea that if I had been brow-beaten byporters and cabmen from one end of the United States to the other end Ishould warmly like it, because in numbers they are superior to me, andcollectively they can have a great deal of fun out of a matter thatwould merely afford me the glee of the latent butcher.This London, composed of a porter and a cabman, stood to me subtly as abenefactor. I had scanned the drama, and found that I did not believethat the mood of the men emanated unduly from the feature that there wasprobably more shillings to the square inch of me than there wereshillings to the square inch of them. Nor yet was it any manner ofpalpable warm-heartedness or other natural virtue. But it was a perfectartificial virtue; it was drill, plain, simple drill. And now was I gladof their drilling, and vividly approved of it, because I saw that it wasgood for me. Whether it was good or bad for the porter and the cabman Icould not know; but that point, mark you, came within the pale of myrespectable rumination.I am sure that it would have been more correct for me to have alightedupon St. Paul's and described no emotion until I was overcome by theThames Embankment and the Houses of Parliament. But as a matter of factI did not see them for some days, and at this time they did not concernme at all. I was born in London at a railroad station, and my new visionencompassed a porter and a cabman. They deeply absorbed me in newphenomena, and I did not then care to see the Thames Embankment nor theHouses of Parliament. I considered the porter and the cabman to be moreimportant.CHAPTER IIThe cab finally rolled out of the gas-lit vault into a vast expanse ofgloom. This changed to the shadowy lines of a street that was like apassage in a monstrous cave. The lamps winking here and there resembledthe little gleams at the caps of the miners. They were not verycompetent illuminations at best, merely being little pale flares of gasthat at their most heroic periods could only display one fact concerningthis tunnel--the fact of general direction. But at any rate I shouldhave liked to have observed the dejection of a search-light if it hadbeen called upon to attempt to bore through this atmosphere. In it eachman sat in his own little cylinder of vision, so to speak. It was not sosmall as a sentry-box nor so large as a circus tent, but the walls wereopaque, and what was passing beyond the dimensions of his cylinder noman knew.It was evident that the paving was very greasy, but all the cabs thatpassed through my cylinder were going at a round trot, while the wheels,shod in rubber, whirred merely like bicycles. The hoofs of the animalsthemselves did not make that wild clatter which I knew so well. New Yorkin fact, roars always like ten thousand devils. We have ingenuous andsimple ways of making a din in New York that cause the stranger toconclude that each citizen is obliged by statute to provide himself witha pair of cymbals and a drum. If anything by chance can be turned into anoise it is promptly turned. We are engaged in the development of ahuman creature with very large, sturdy, and doubly, fortified ears.It was not too late at night, but this London moved with the decorum andcaution of an undertaker. There was a silence, and yet there was nosilence. There was a low drone, perhaps a humming contributed inevitablyby closely-gathered thousands, and yet on second thoughts it was to mesilence. I had perched my ears for the note of London, the sound madesimply by the existence of five million people in one place. I hadimagined something deep, vastly deep, a bass from a mythical organ, butfound as far as I was concerned, only a silence.New York in numbers is a mighty city, and all day and all night it criesits loud, fierce, aspiring cry, a noise of men beating upon barrels, anoise of men beating upon tin, a terrific racket that assails the abjectskies. No one of us seemed to question this row as a certain consequenceof three or four million people living together and scuffling for coin,with more agility, perhaps, but otherwise in the usual way. However,after this easy silence of London, which in numbers is a mightier city,I began to feel that there was a seduction in this idea of necessity.Our noise in New York was not a consequence of our rapidity at all. Itwas a consequence of our bad pavements.Any brigade of artillery in Europe that would love to assemble itsbatteries, and then go on a gallop over the land, thundering andthundering, would give up the idea of thunder at once if it could hearTim Mulligan drive a beer wagon along one of the side streets of cobbledNew York.CHAPTER IIIFinally a great thing came to pass. The cab horse, proceeding at a sharptrot, found himself suddenly at the top of an incline, where through therain the pavement shone like an expanse of ice. It looked to me as ifthere was going to be a tumble. In an accident of such a kind a hansombecomes really a cannon in which a man finds that he has paid shillingsfor the privilege of serving as a projectile. I was making a rapidcalculation of the arc that I would describe in my flight, when thehorse met his crisis with a masterly device that I could not haveimagined. He tranquilly braced his four feet like a bundle of stakes,and then, with a gentle gaiety of demeanor, he slid swiftly andgracefully to the bottom of the hill as if he had been a toboggan. Whenthe incline ended he caught his gait again with great dexterity, andwent pattering off through another tunnel.I at once looked upon myself as being singularly blessed by this sight.This horse had evidently originated this system of skating as adiversion, or, more probably, as a precaution against the slipperypavement; and he was, of course the inventor and sole proprietor--twoterms that are not always in conjunction. It surely was not to besupposed that there could be two skaters like him in the world. Hedeserved to be known and publicly praised for this accomplishment. Itwas worthy of many records and exhibitions. But when the cab arrived ata place where some dipping streets met, and the flaming front of amusic-hall temporarily widened my cylinder, behold there were many cabs,and as the moment of necessity came the horses were all skaters. Theywere gliding in all directions. It might have been a rink. A greatomnibus was hailed by a hand under an umbrella on the side walk, and thedignified horses bidden to halt from their trot did not waste time inwild and unseemly spasms. They, too, braced their legs and slid gravelyto the end of their momentum.It was not the feat, but it was the word which had at this time thepower to conjure memories of skating parties on moonlit lakes, withlaughter ringing over the ice, and a great red bonfire on the shoreamong the hemlocks.CHAPTER IVA Terrible thing in nature is the fall of a horse in his harness. It isa tragedy. Despite their skill in skating there was that about thepavement on the rainy evening which filled me with expectations ofhorses going headlong. Finally it happened just in front. There was ashout and a tangle in the darkness, and presently a prostrate cab horsecame within my cylinder. The accident having been a complete success andaltogether concluded, a voice from the side walk said, "_Look_ out,now! _Be_ more careful, can't you?"I remember a constituent of a Congressman at Washington who had tried invain to bore this Congressman with a wild project of some kind. TheCongressman eluded him with skill, and his rage and despair ultimatelyculminated in the supreme grievance that he could not even get nearenough to the Congressman to tell him to go to Hades.This cabman should have felt the same desire to strangle this man whospoke from the sidewalk. He was plainly impotent; he was deprived of thepower of looking out. There was nothing now for which to look out. Theman on the sidewalk had dragged a corpse from a pond and said to it,"_Be_ more careful, can't you, or you'll drown?" My cabman pulledup and addressed a few words of reproach to the other. Three or fourfigures loomed into my cylinder, and as they appeared spoke to theauthor or the victim of the calamity in varied terms of displeasure.Each of these reproaches was couched in terms that defined the situationas impending. No blind man could have conceived that the precipitatephrase of the incident was absolutely closed."_Look_ out now, cawn't you?" And there was nothing in his mindwhich approached these sentiments near enough to tell them to go toHades.However, it needed only an ear to know presently that these expressionswere formulae. It was merely the obligatory dance which the Indians hadto perform before they went to war. These men had come to help, but as aregular and traditional preliminary they had first to display to thiscabman their idea of his ignominy.The different thing in the affair was the silence of the victim. Heretorted never a word. This, too, to me seemed to be an obedience to arecognized form. He was the visible criminal, if there was a criminal,and there was born of it a privilege for them.They unfastened the proper straps and hauled back the cab. They fetcheda mat from some obscure place of succor, and pushed it carefully underthe prostrate thing. From this panting, quivering mass they suddenly andemphatically reconstructed a horse. As each man turned to go his way hedelivered some superior caution to the cabman while the latter buckledhis harness.CHAPTER VThere was to be noticed in this band of rescuers a young man in eveningclothes and top-hat. Now, in America a young man in evening clothes anda top-hat may be a terrible object. He is not likely to do violence, buthe is likely to do impassivity and indifference to the point where theybecome worse than violence. There are certain of the more idle phases ofcivilization to which America has not yet awakened--and it is a matterof no moment if she remains unaware. This matter of hats is one of them.I recall a legend recited to me by an esteemed friend, ex-Sheriff of TinCan, Nevada. Jim Cortright, one of the best gun-fighters in town, wenton a journey to Chicago, and while there he procured a top-hat. He wasquite sure how Tin Can would accept this innovation, but he relied onthe celerity with which he could get a six-shooter in action. One SundayJim examined his guns with his usual care, placed the top-hat on theback of his head, and sauntered coolly out into the streets of Tin Can.Now, while Jim was in Chicago some progressive citizen had decided thatTin Can needed a bowling alley. The carpenters went to work the nextmorning, and an order for the balls and pins was telegraphed to Denver.In three days the whole population was concentrated at the new alleybetting their outfits and their lives.It has since been accounted very unfortunate that Jim Cortright had notlearned of bowling alleys at his mother's knee or even later in themines. This portion of his mind was singularly belated. He might havebeen an Apache for all he knew of bowling alleys.In his careless stroll through the town, his hands not far from his beltand his eyes going sideways in order to see who would shoot first at thehat, he came upon this long, low shanty where Tin Can was betting itselfhoarse over a game between a team from the ranks of Excelsior HoseCompany No. 1 and a team composed from the _habitues_ of the "RedLight" saloon.Jim, in blank ignorance of bowling phenomena, wandered casually througha little door into what must always be termed the wrong end of a bowlingalley. Of course, he saw that the supreme moment had come. They were notonly shooting at the hat and at him, but the low-down cusses were usingthe most extraordinary and hellish ammunition. Still, perfectlyundaunted, however, Jim retorted with his two Colts, and killed three ofthe best bowlers in Tin Can.The ex-Sheriff vouched for this story. He himself had gone headlongthrough the door at the firing of the first shot with that simplecourtesy which leads Western men to donate the fighters plenty of room.He said that afterwards the hat was the cause of a number of otherfights, and that finally a delegation of prominent citizens was obligedto wait upon Cortright and ask him if he wouldn't take that thing awaysomewhere and bury it. Jim pointed out to them that it was his hat, andthat he would regard it as a cowardly concession if he submitted totheir dictation in the matter of his headgear. He added that he purposedto continue to wear his top-hat on every occasion when he happened tofeel that the wearing of a top-hat was a joy and a solace to him.The delegation sadly retired, and announced to the town that JimCortright had openly defied them, and had declared his purpose offorcing his top-hat on the pained attention of Tin Can whenever hechose. Jim Cortright's plug hat became a phrase with considerablemeaning to it.However, the whole affair ended in a great passionate outburst ofpopular revolution. Spike Foster was a friend of Cortright, and one day,when the latter was indisposed, Spike came to him and borrowed the hat.He had been drinking heavily at the "Red Light," and was in a supremelyreckless mood. With the terrible gear hanging jauntily over his eye andhis two guns drawn, he walked straight out into the middle of the squarein front of the Palace Hotel, and drew the attention of all Tin Can by ablood-curdling imitation of the yowl of a mountain lion.This was when the long suffering populace arose as one man. The top-hathad been flaunted once too often. When Spike Foster's friends came tocarry him away they found nearly a hundred and fifty men shooting busilyat a mark--and the mark was the hat.My informant told me that he believed he owed his popularity in Tin Can,and subsequently his election to the distinguished office of Sheriff, tothe active and prominent part he had taken in the proceedings.The enmity to the top-hat expressed by the convincing anecdote exists inthe American West at present, I think, in the perfection of itsstrength; but disapproval is not now displayed by volleys from thecitizens, save in the most aggravating cases. It is at present usually amatter of mere jibe and general contempt. The East, however, despite agreat deal of kicking and gouging, is having the top-hat stuffed slowlyand carefully down its throat, and there now exist many young men whoconsider that they could not successfully conduct their lives withoutthis furniture.To speak generally, I should say that the headgear then supplies themwith a kind of ferocity of indifference. There is fire, sword, andpestilence in the way they heed only themselves. Philosophy shouldalways know that indifference is a militant thing. It batters down thewalls of cities, and murders the women and children amid flames and thepurloining of altar vessels. When it goes away it leaves smoking ruins,where lie citizens bayoneted through the throat. It is not a children'spastime like mere highway robbery.Consequently in America we may be much afraid of these young men. Wedive down alleys so that we may not kowtow. It is a fearsome thing.Taught thus a deep fear of the top-hat in its effect upon youth, I wasnot prepared for the move of this particular young man when the cab-horse fell. In fact, I grovelled in my corner that I might not see thecruel stateliness of his passing. But in the meantime he had crossed thestreet, and contributed the strength of his back and some advice, aswell as the formal address, to the cabman on the importance of lookingout immediately.I felt that I was making a notable collection. I had a new kind ofporter, a cylinder of vision, horses that could skate, and now I added ayoung man in a top-hat who would tacitly admit that the beings aroundhim were alive. He was not walking a churchyard filled with inferiorheadstones. He was walking the world, where there were people, manypeople.But later I took him out of the collection. I thought he had rebelledagainst the manner of a class, but I soon discovered that the top-hatwas not the property of a class. It was the property of rogues, clerks,theatrical agents, damned seducers, poor men, nobles, and others. Infact, it was the universal rigging. It was the only hat; all other formsmight as well be named ham, or chops, or oysters. I retracted myadmiration of the young man because he may have been merely a rogue.CHAPTER VIThere was a window whereat an enterprising man by dodging two placardsand a calendar was entitled to view a young woman. She was dejectedlywriting in a large book. She was ultimately induced to open the window atrifle. "What nyme, please?" she said wearily. I was surprised to hearthis language from her. I had expected to be addressed on a submarinetopic. I have seen shell fishes sadly writing in large books at thebottom of a gloomy acquarium who could not ask me what was my "nyme."At the end of the hall there was a grim portal marked "lift." I pressedan electric button and heard an answering tinkle in the heavens. Therewas an upholstered settle near at hand, and I discovered the reason. Adeer-stalking peace drooped upon everything, and in it a man couldinvoke the passing of a lazy pageant of twenty years of his life. Thedignity of a coffin being lowered into a grave surrounded the ultimateappearance of the lift. The expert we in America call the elevator-boystepped from the car, took three paces forward, faced to attention andsaluted. This elevator boy could not have been less than sixty years ofage; a great white beard streamed towards his belt. I saw that the lifthad been longer on its voyage than I had suspected.Later in our upward progress a natural event would have been anestablishment of social relations. Two enemies imprisoned togetherduring the still hours of a balloon journey would, I believe, suffer amental amalgamation. The overhang of a common fate, a great principalfact, can make an equality and a truce between any pair. Yet, when Idisembarked, a final survey of the grey beard made me recall that I hadfailed even to ask the boy whether he had not taken probably three tripson this lift.My windows overlooked simply a great sea of night, in which wereswimming little gas fishes.CHAPTER VIII have of late been led to reflect wistfully that many of theillustrators are very clever. In an impatience, which was donated by acertain economy of apparel, I went to a window to look upon day-litLondon. There were the 'buses parading the streets with the miens ofelephants There were the police looking precisely as I had been informedby the prints. There were the sandwich-men. There was almost everything.But the artists had not told me the sound of London. Now, in New Yorkthe artists are able to portray sound because in New York a dray is nota dray at all; it is a great potent noise hauled by two or more horses.When a magazine containing an illustration of a New York street is sentto me, I always know it beforehand. I can hear it coming through themails. As I have said previously, this which I must call sound of Londonwas to me only a silence.Later, in front of the hotel a cabman that I hailed said to me--"Are yougowing far, sir? I've got a byby here, and want to giv'er a bit of ablough." This impressed me as being probably a quotation from an earlyEgyptian poet, but I learned soon enough that the word "byby" was thename of some kind or condition of horse. The cabman's next remark wasaddressed to a boy who took a perilous dive between the byby's nose anda cab in front. "That's roight. Put your head in there and get itjammed--a whackin good place for it, I should think." Although the tonewas low and circumspect, I have never heard a better off-handeddeclamation. Every word was cut clear of disreputable alliances with itsneighbors. The whole thing was clean as a row of pewter mugs. Theinfluence of indignation upon the voice caused me to reflect that wemight devise a mechanical means of inflaming some in that constellationof mummers which is the heritage of the Anglo-Saxon race.Then I saw the drilling of vehicles by two policemen. There were fourtorrents converging at a point, and when four torrents converge at onepoint engineering experts buy tickets for another place.But here, again, it was drill, plain, simple drill. I must not falter insaying that I think the management of the traffic--as the phrase goes--to be distinctly illuminating and wonderful. The police were not ruffledand exasperated. They were as peaceful as two cows in a pasture.I can remember once remarking that mankind, with all its boasted modernprogress, had not yet been able to invent a turnstile that will commutein fractions. I have now learned that 756 rights-of-way cannot operatesimultaneously at one point. Right-of-way, like fighting women, requiresspace. Even two rights-of-way can make a scene which is only suited tothe tastes of an ancient public.This truth was very evidently recognized. There was only one right-of-way at a time. The police did not look behind them to see if theirorders were to be obeyed; they knew they were to be obeyed. These fourtorrents were drilling like four battalions. The two blue-cloth menmaneuvered them in solemn, abiding peace, the silence of London.I thought at first that it was the intellect of the individual, but Ilooked at one constable closely and his face was as afire withintelligence as a flannel pin-cushion. It was not the police, and it wasnot the crowd. It was the police and the crowd. Again, it was drill.CHAPTER VIIII have never been in the habit of reading signs. I don't like to readsigns. I have never met a man that liked to read signs. I once inventeda creature who could play the piano with a hammer, and I mentioned himto a professor in Harvard University whose peculiarity was Sanscrit. Hehad the same interest in my invention that I have in a certain kind ofmustard. And yet this mustard has become a part of me. Or, I have becomea part of this mustard. Further, I know more of an ink, a brand of hams,a kind of cigarette, and a novelist than any man living. I went by trainto see a friend in the country, and after passing through a patentmucilage, some more hams, a South African Investment Company, a Parisianmillinery firm, and a comic journal, I alighted at a new and originalkind of corset. On my return journey the road almost continuously ranthrough soap.I have accumulated superior information concerning these things, becauseI am at their mercy. If I want to know where I am I must find thedefinitive sign. This accounts for my glib use of the word mucilage, aswell as the titles of other staples.I suppose even the Briton in mixing his life must sometimes consult thelabels on 'buses and streets and stations, even as the chemist consultsthe labels on his bottles and boxes. A brave man would possibly affirmthat this was suggested by the existence of the labels.The reason that I did not learn more about hams and mucilage in New Yorkseems to me to be partly due to the fact that the British advertiser isallowed to exercise an unbridled strategy in his attack with his newcorset or whatever upon the defensive public. He knows that thevulnerable point is the informatory sign which the citizen must, ofcourse, use for his guidance, and then, with horse, foot, guns, corsets,hams, mucilage, investment companies, and all, he hurls himself at thepoint.Meanwhile I have discovered a way to make the Sanscrit scholar heed mycreature who plays the piano with a hammer.

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