Non-Fiction > Books > London, 1881 - Virginibus Puerisque, and other papers

290 A Plea for Gas Lamps.
suppered but bedless, occult from guidance, and
sorrily wading in the kennels. As if gamesome
winds and gamesome youths were not sufficient,
it was the habit to sling these feeble luminaries
from house to house above the fairway. There,
on invisible cordage, let them swing ! And
suppose some crane-necked general to go speed-
ing by on a tall charger, spurring the destiny of
nations, red-hot in expedition, there would
indubitably be some effusion of military blood,
and oaths, and a certain crash of glass ; and
while the chieftain rode forward with a purple
coxcomb, the street would be left to original
darkness, unpiloted, unvoyageable, a province
of the desert night.
The conservative, looking before and after,
draws from each contemplation the matter for
content. Out of the age of gas lamps he
glances back slightingly at the mirk and
glimmer in which his ancestors wandered ; his
heart waxes jocund at the contrast ; nor do his