I have said that this eccentricity, amounting to secrecy, remains in the very building of London. Some of the finest glimpses of it are got as if through the crack of a door. Our fathers gained freedom of vision through the gap in a fence; just as they often gained freedom of speech through a flaw in an Act of Parliament. In their glorious visions of height or distance, there is always something of the keyhole; just as in their glorious fights for law or liberty, there was always something of the quibble. There is no finer effect than St. Paul’s from the foot of its hill in delicate and native weather; for the English climate (I may remark) is the finest in the world. I assume, of course, that the spectator is a serious mystic (that is, a materialist also) and appreciates the bodily beauty of heights, which should always be seen from below. The Devil takes us to the top of an exceeding high mountain, and makes us dizzy; but God lets us look at the mountain. Yet this mountain made by man can only be seen in London by “sighting;” by getting it between two houses, as a pilot steers between two rocks. Get the sighting wrong and you will see only a public-house, or (what is much worse) a shop full of newspapers. Had either a French or a Prussian temple commanded such an eminence, the whole hill would have been swept bare as with a sabre and studded with statues and gardens, that it might be seen from afar. Only I should not like it so much. But then I was born in London. PLATES LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS I. THE MANSION HOUSE. II. THE TOWER. III. THE TEMPLE. IV. THE EMBANKMENT. V. WESTMINSTER BRIDGE. VI. PARLIAMENT FROM THE RIVER. VII. BIG BEN. VIII. ST. PAUL’S FROM BANKSIDE. IX. THE THAMES. X. “ST. PAUL’S FROM THE FOOT OF ITS HILL.” [Illustration: I] [Illustration: II] [Illustration: III] [Illustration: IV] [Illustration: V] [Illustration: VI] [Illustration: VII] [Illustration: VIII] [Illustration: IX] [Illustration: X] CHISWICK PRESS: CHAS. WHITTINGHAM AND CO. TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON. THE ILLUSTRATIONS WERE PRINTED BY THE MEZZOGRAVURE COMPANY, LONDON. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of London, by G. K. Chesterton