The London of the "sixties" was a very dark and dingy place. The
streets were sparingly lit with the dimmest of gas-jets set very
far apart: the shop-windows made no display of lights, and the
general effect was one of intense gloom.
Until I was seven years old, I had never left the United Kingdom.
We then all went to Paris for a fortnight, on our way to the
Riviera. I well remember leaving London at 7 a.m. on a January
morning, in the densest of fogs. So thick was the fog that the
footman had to lead the horses all the way to Charing Cross
Station. Ten hours later I found myself in a fairy city of clean
white stone houses, literally blazing with light. I had never
imagined such a beautiful, attractive place, and indeed the
contrast between the dismal London of the "sixties" and this
brilliant, glittering town was unbelievable. Paris certainly
deserved the title of "La Ville Lumiere" in a literal sense. I
like the French expression, "une ville ruisselante de lumiere," "a
city dripping with light." That is an apt description of the Paris
of the Second Empire, for it was hardly a manufacturing city then,
and the great rim of outlying factories that now besmirch the
white stone of its house fronts had not come into existence, the
atmosphere being as clear as in the country.
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