The Complete Writings, vol 2 | Page 6

not be so strong as it was, but it is hard to say on which side is the
most ignorance and contempt of the other.
It must be the Channel: that is enough to produce a physical
disagreement even between the two coasts; and there cannot be a

greater contrast in the cultivated world than between the two lands
lying so close to each other; and the contrast of their capitals is even
more decided,--I was about to say rival capitals, but they have not
enough in common to make them rivals. I have lately been over to
London for a week, going by the Dieppe and New Haven route at night,
and returning by another; and the contrasts I speak of were impressed
upon me anew. Everything here in and about Paris was in the green and
bloom of spring, and seemed to me very lovely; but my first glance at
an English landscape made it all seem pale and flat. We went up from
New Haven to London in the morning, and feasted our eyes all the way.
The French foliage is thin, spindling, sparse; the grass is thin and light
in color--in contrast. The English trees are massive, solid in substance
and color; the grass is thick, and green as emerald; the turf is like the
heaviest Wilton carpet. The whole effect is that of vegetable luxuriance
and solidity, as it were a tropical luxuriance, condensed and hardened
by northern influences. If my eyes remember well, the French
landscapes are more like our own, in spring tone, at least; but the
English are a revelation to us strangers of what green really is, and
what grass and trees can be. I had been told that we did well to see
England before going to the Continent, for it would seem small and
only pretty afterwards. Well, leaving out Switzerland, I have seen
nothing in that beauty which satisfies the eye and wins the heart to
compare with England in spring. When we annex it to our sprawling
country which lies out-doors in so many climates, it will make a
charming little retreat for us in May and June, a sort of garden of
delight, whence we shall draw our May butter and our June roses. It
will only be necessary to put it under glass to make it pleasant the year
round.
When we passed within the hanging smoke of London town, threading
our way amid numberless railway tracks, sometimes over a road and
sometimes under one, now burrowing into the ground, and now running
along among the chimney-pots,--when we came into the pale light and
the thickening industry of a London day, we could but at once contrast
Paris. Unpleasant weather usually reduces places to an equality of
disagreeableness. But Paris, with its wide streets, light, handsome
houses, gay windows and smiling little parks and fountains, keeps up a
tolerably pleasant aspect, let the weather do its worst. But London, with

its low, dark, smutty brick houses and insignificant streets, settles down
hopelessly into the dumps when the weather is bad. Even with the sun
doing its best on the eternal cloud of smoke, it is dingy and gloomy
enough, and so dirty, after spick-span, shining Paris. And there is a
contrast in the matter of order and system; the lack of both in London is
apparent. You detect it in public places, in crowds, in the streets. The
"social evil" is bad enough in its demonstrations in Paris: it is twice as
offensive in London. I have never seen a drunken woman in Paris: I
saw many of them in the daytime in London. I saw men and women
fight in the streets,--a man kick and pound a woman; and nobody
interfered. There is a brutal streak in the Anglo-Saxon, I fear,--a
downright animal coarseness, that does not exhibit itself the other side
of the Channel. It is a proverb, that the London policemen are never at
hand. The stout fellows with their clubs look as if they might do service;
but what a contrast they are to the Paris sergents de ville! The latter,
with his dress-coat, cocked hat, long rapier, white gloves, neat, polite,
attentive, alert,--always with the manner of a jesuit turned soldier,--you
learn to trust very much, if not respect; and you feel perfectly secure
that he will protect you, and give you your rights in any corner of Paris.
It does look as if he might slip that slender rapier through your body in
a second, and pull it out and wipe it, and not move a muscle; but I don't
think he would do it unless he were directly ordered to. He would not
be likely to knock you down and drag you out, in mistake for the rowdy
who was