Non-Fiction > Books > London, 1887 - Virginibus Puerisque, and other papers

Ordered South 135
for the tracery of the frost upon his window-
panes at morning, the reluctant descent of
the first flakes, and the white roofs relieved
against the sombre sky. And yet the stuff
of which these yearnings are made, is of the
flimsiest : if but the thermometer fall a little
below its ordinary Mediterranean level, or a
wind come down from the snow-clad Alps
behind, the spirit of his fancies changes upon
the instant, and many a doleful vignette of
the grim wintry streets at home returns to
him, and begins to haunt his memory. The
hopeless, huddled attitude of tramps in door-
ways ; the flinching gait of barefoot children
on the icy pavement ; the sheen of the rainy
streets towards afternoon; the meagreanatomy
of the poor defined by the clinging of wet
garments ; the high canorous note of the
North-easter on days when the very houses
seem to stiffen with cold : these, and such as
these, crowd back upon him, and mockingly
substitute themselves for the fanciful winter
scenes with which he had pleased himself a
while before. He cannot be glad enough