"And what do you think of Glasgow?" said the pretty lady interviewer--I
have the right to say she was pretty because she said in print that I
wasn't. I replied that of course Glasgow wasn't pretty but--and here
would have followed an amiable dissertation upon the municipal
superiority of Glasgow. "But," hastily interrupted the lady interviewer,
"have you seen the fine vista of St. Vincent Street, the Great Western
Road, the finest thoroughfare in Europe, the charming residential
districts of Pollokshields West and Dowanhill, the wide view from the
South Side Park or picturesque Camphill?" I tried to edge in an abashed
"No," for a monosyllable is the most one can hope to secure of the
conversation in an interview; but the pretty lady interviewer went on
reproachfully: "Have you seen that stately hill of the dead, the
Necropolis, from Cathedral Square? It is itself a quaint and beautiful
medley of architecture past and present. Have you seen beautiful
Kelvingrove, through which flows the classic Kelvin? In many world-famous
cities have I been and yet seen nothing more beautiful than the view on
one side of Partick Bridge." I apologised to Glasgow, inwardly
confounding the eminent Scotch _littérateur_ who had assured me that
Glasgow was the most loathsome den north of Tweed, almost the only such
den,--his malison upon Glasgow! But although I feel personally nothing
but gratitude to Glasgow and its noisy University students, I cannot
honestly award it the apple for beauty. After all it is the centre of the
town that one naturally gravitates to, and no charm of suburbs can remove
the general impression of commercial dinginess.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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