第82章 XI(5)

I am particularly delighted with this last feature in the preliminary announcement. It is a proof of the high regard in which the estimable and gifted lady who shares her husband's labors is held by the people of their congregation, and the friends who share in their feelings. It is such a master stroke of policy, too, to keep back the principal attraction until the guests must have grown eager for her appearance: I can well imagine how great a saving it must have been to the good lady's nerves, which were probably pretty well tried already by the fatigues and responsibilities of the busy evening. I have a right to say this, for I myself had the honor of attending a meeting at Mr. Haweis's house, where I was a principal guest, as I suppose, from the fact of the great number of persons who were presented to me. The minister must be very popular, for the meeting was a regular jam,--not quite so tremendous as that greater one, where but for the aid of Mr. Smalley, who kept open a breathing-space round us, my companion and myself thought we should have been asphyxiated.

The company was interested, as some of my readers maybe, to know what were the attractions offered to the visitors besides that of meeting the courteous entertainers and their distinguished guests. I cannot give these at length, for each part of the show is introduced in the programme with apt quotations and pleasantries, which enlivened the catalogue. There were eleven stalls, "conducted on the cooperative principle of division of profits and interest; they retain the profits, and you take a good deal of interest, we hope, in their success."

Stall No. 1. Edisoniana, or the Phonograph. Alluded to by the Roman Poet as Vox, et praeterea nihil.

Stall No. 2. Money-changing.

Stall No. 3. Programmes and General Enquiries.

Stall No. 4. Roses.

A rose by any other name, etc. Get one. You can't expect to smell one without buying it, but you may buy one without smelling it.

Stall No. 5. Lasenby Liberty Stall.

(I cannot explain this. Probably articles from Liberty's famous establishment.)

Stall No. 6. Historical Costumes and Ceramics.

Stall No. 7. The Fish-pond.

Stall No. 8.Varieties.

Stall No. 9.Bookstall.

(Books) "highly recommended for insomnia; friends we never speak to, and always cut if we want to know them well."

Stall No. 10. Icelandic.

Stall No. 11. Call Office.

"Mrs. Magnusson, who is devoted to the North Pole and all its works, will thaw your sympathies, enlighten your minds," etc., etc.

All you buy may be left at the stalls, ticketed. A duplicate ticket will be handed to you on leaving. Present your duplicate at the Call Office.

At 9.45, First Concert.

At 10.45, An Address of Welcome by Rev. H. R. Haweis.

At 11 P. M., Bird-warbling Interlude by Miss Mabel Stephenson, U. S. A.

At 11.20, Second Concert.

NOTICE !

Three Great Pictures.

LORD TENNYSON. G. F. Watts, R. A.

JOHN STUART MILL G. F. Watts, R. A.

J0SEPH GARIBALDI Sig. Rondi.

NOTICE !

A Famous Violin.

A world-famed Stradivarius Violin, for which Mr. Hill, of Bond Street, gave L 1000, etc., etc.

REFRESHMENTS.

Tickets for Tea, Coffee, Sandwiches, Iced Drinks, or Ices, Sixpence each, etc., etc.

I hope my American reader is pleased and interested by this glimpse of the way in which they do these things in London.

There is something very pleasant about all this, but what specially strikes me is a curious flavor of city provincialism. There are little centres in the heart of great cities, just as there are small fresh-water ponds in great islands with the salt sea roaring all round them, and bays and creeks penetrating them as briny as the ocean itself. Irving has given a charming picture of such a quasi-provincial centre in one of his papers in the Sketch-Book,--the one with the title "Little Britain." London is a nation of itself, and contains provinces, districts, foreign communities, villages, parishes,--innumerable lesser centres, with their own distinguishing characteristics, habits, pursuit, languages, social laws, as much isolated from each other as if "mountains interposed " made the separation between them. One of these lesser centres is that over which my friend Mr. Haweis presides as spiritual director. Chelsea has been made famous as the home of many authors and artists,--above all, as the residence of Carlyle during the greater part of his life.

Its population, like that of most respectable suburbs, must belong mainly to the kind of citizens which resembles in many ways the better class,--as we sometimes dare to call it,--of one of our thriving New England towns. How many John Gilpins there must be in this population,--citizens of "famous London town," but living with the simplicity of the inhabitants of our inland villages! In the mighty metropolis where the wealth of the world displays itself they practise their snug economies, enjoy their simple pleasures, and look upon ice-cream as a luxury, just as if they were living on the banks of the Connecticut or the Housatonic, in regions where the summer locusts of the great cities have not yet settled on the verdure of the native inhabitants. It is delightful to realize the fact that while the West End of London is flaunting its splendors and the East End in struggling with its miseries, these great middle-class communities are living as comfortable, unpretending lives as if they were in one of our thriving townships in the huckleberry-districts.

Human beings are wonderfully alike when they are placed in similar conditions.