The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 7, March, 1835Various
History
The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 7, March, 1835
Various
American literature -- 19th century -- Periodicals
We walked down Piccadilly, and turned into, beyond all comparison, the
most handsome street I ever saw. The Toledo of Naples, the Corso of
Rome, the Kohlmarket of Vienna, the Rue de la Paix and Boulevards of
Paris, have each impressed me strongly with their magnificence, but
they are really nothing to Regent-street. I had merely time to get a
glance at it before dark; but for breadth and convenience, for the
elegance and variety of the buildings, though all of the same scale
and material, and for the brilliancy and expensiveness of the shops,
it seemed to me quite absurd to compare it with any thing between New
York and Constantinople--Broadway and the Hippodrome included.
It is the custom for the king's tradesmen to illuminate their shops on
his majesty's birth-night, and the principal streets on our return
were in a blaze of light. The crowd was immense. None but the lower
order seemed abroad, and I cannot describe to you the effect on my
feelings on hearing my own language spoken by every man, woman and
child about me. It seemed a completely foreign country in every other
respect, different from what I had imagined, different from my own and
all that I had seen, and coming to it last, it seemed to me the
farthest off and strangest country of all--and yet the little sweep,
who went laughing through the crowd, spoke a language that I had heard
attempted in vain by thousands of educated people, and that I had
grown to consider next to unattainable by others, and almost useless
to myself. Still, it did not make me feel at home. Every thing else
about me was too new. It was like some mysterious change in my own
ears--a sudden power of comprehension, such as a man might feel who
was cured suddenly of deafness. You can scarcely enter into my
feelings till you have had the changes of French, Italian, German,
Greek, Turkish, Illyrian, and the mixtures and dialects of each, rung
upon your hearing almost exclusively, as I have for years. I wandered
about as if I were exercising some supernatural faculty in a dream.
A friend in Italy had kindly given me a letter to lady Blessington,
and with a strong curiosity to see this celebrated lady, I called on
her the second day after my arrival in London. It was "deep i' the
afternoon," but I had not yet learned the full meaning of "town
hours."--"Her ladyship had not come down to breakfast." I gave the
letter and my address to the powdered footman, and had scarce reached
home when a note arrived inviting me to call the same evening at ten.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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