London is the central wonder, but wonderful also in spirit and suggestion are those old places which ring it round: these I often frequent at every season, and carry their portraits over my heart. Let a man once learn to know them, and his memory shall never starve; he will never forget the hour when first they yielded him up their secret. Many moments of intimate delight do I treasure in remembrance, moments when I was suddenly aware that all previous impressions were the poor gatherings of purblind eyes; but I will only tell you of one, which may suffice to show what riches lie ever open to those who roam in solitude. It was mid-April and the close of a cloudless day. I had been to the Observatory hill at Greenwich to see the sun set over London, looking for such a transfiguration of the grey city as should reveal its line of warehouses lying along the horizon in a mist of splendour like the walls of the New Jerusalem. So I had seen it before, marvellous and refined in unearthly fire: but to-day, in a sadder mood, and hungering more deeply for the vision, I looked out to the west in vain. For the wind had set in from the east, and driven back upon the town a zone of iron-grey smoke, ragged along its upper edge like a great water blown to spray, but merging below with those gloomy and innumerable buildings. Upon this the sun, which all day had ridden in a clear air, was slowly falling, losing radiance with every minute, until as it approached that gloomy spray it was luminous no more, but a dull red orb whose light, like a flame withdrawn into the consumed heart of coals, glows for awhile beneath a gathering film of grey. In a few minutes it descended, as if sadly and of resolution, into the murky sea, where for a moment its red curves seemed to refine the smoke into translucency; but at last the dun waves gathered upon it dark and voluminous, drowning it so deeply that the clearer sky above was instantly robbed of the wonted after-glow. Some pale reflection there was in the upper heaven, ensuring a time of twilight, but no glory; and smitten with a congruous sadness, I went down to the river. But there, pacing to and fro as if upon a quarter-deck, with the water lapping upon the wall beneath, I lived one of the happy hours of life, redeemed from disappointment, and carried far into a magical world.