The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 67, May, 1863: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
General
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 67, May, 1863: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
The steamer terminates its trip at Chelsea, an old town endowed with a
prodigious number of pot-houses, and some famous gardens, called the
Cremorne, for public amusement. The most noticeable thing, however, is
Chelsea Hospital, which, like that of Greenwich, was founded, I believe,
by Charles II., (whose bronze statue, in the guise of an old Roman,
stands in the centre of the quadrangle,) and appropriated as a home for
aged and infirm soldiers of the British army. The edifices are of three
stories with windows in the high roofs, and are built of dark, sombre
brick, with stone edgings and facings. The effect is by no means that
of grandeur, (which is somewhat disagreeably an attribute of Greenwich
Hospital,) but a quiet and venerable neatness. At each extremity of the
street-front there is a spacious and hospitably open gateway, lounging
about which I saw some gray veterans in long scarlet coats of an antique
fashion, and the cocked hats of a century ago, or occasionally a modern
foraging-cap. Almost all of them moved with a rheumatic gait, two or
three stumped on wooden legs, and here and there an arm was missing.
Inquiring of one of these fragmentary heroes whether a stranger could be
admitted to see the establishment, he replied most cordially, "Oh,
yes, Sir,--anywhere! Walk in, and go where you please,--up-stairs,
or anywhere!" So I entered, and, passing along the inner side of the
quadrangle, came to the door of the chapel, which forms a part of the
contiguity of edifices next the street. Here another pensioner, an old
warrior of exceedingly peaceable and Christian demeanor, touched his
three-cornered hat and asked if I wished to see the interior; to which I
assenting, he unlocked the door, and we went in.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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