Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
1
One of the many curious things about London is that, whilst it has been well served by
poets and artists, it has not been intimately associated with the work of a great artist or poet
in the way that Paris of the 1850s is synonymous with Meryon and with Baudelaire. For
some reason, no one has dreamed out of London those memorable subjects of architecture,
troubled and solemn, fixed unerringly by these artists - Meryon in his etchings, Baudelaire
in verse:
Souvent, à la clarté rouge d'un réverbère
Dont le vent bat la flamme et tourmente le verre,
Au cœur d'un vieux faubourg, labyrinthe fangeux
Où l'humanité grouille en ferments orageux,
On voit un chiffonnier qui vient, hochant la tête,
Buttant, et se cognant aux murs comme un poëte;
Et, sans prendre souci des mouchards, ses sujets,
Épanche tout son cœur en glorieux projets.
London has not as yet inspired such realism, though there is no intrinsic reason why it has
not done so. This is, however, by the way. The point I am coming to is that Meryon was
recording Paris at the right time; whatever may have been the social or political need, the
boulevards arbitrarily imposed by Haussmann changed the character of the city. For this
reason, London, which owes an immeasurable debt to Wren, was better off without his
street plan, drawn up immediately after the Fire; it was logical and arbitrary, like Hauss-
mann's avenues, but out of touch with the genius of the city. Even more out of sympathy are
the newer developments in London - the road-widening schemes. Motor traffic is destroy-
ing London. Such considerations are not, however, the purpose of this topic. I mention them
here because these roads, lacking the architectural genius of Nash, are eroding the quality
of London. Behind these soulless developments looms the city of the machine-made man.
'Let's all go down the Strand' was a popular music-hall song. There was some point in
doing so then, for it was replete with interest in the form of music-halls - the Gaiety and the
