| Out and About London Contributor(s): Burke, Thomas (Author) |
|
 |
ISBN: 1115414399 ISBN-13: 9781115414395 Publisher: BCR (Bibliographical Center for Research) OUR PRICE: $28.30 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: October 2009 * Not available - Not in print at this time * |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History |
| Physical Information: 0.5" H x 6.14" W x 9.21" (1.02 lbs) 202 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SOHO CARRIES ON Soho Soho 1 Joyous syllables, in early times expressive of the delights of the chase, and even to-day carrying an echo of nights of festivity, though an echo only. How many thousand of provincials, seeing London, have been drawn to those odourous byways that thrust themselves so briskly through the staid pleasure-land of the West End?Greek Street, Frith Street, Dean Street, Old Compton Street: a series of interjections breaking a dull paragraph?where they might catch the true Latin temper and bear away to the smoking- rooms of country Conservative clubs fulsome tales that have made Soho already a legend. Indeed, I know one cautious lad from Yorkshire, whose creed is that You Never Know and You Can't Be Too Careful, who always furnishes himself with a loaded revolver when dining with a town friend in Soho. I am not one to look sourly upon the simple pleasures of the poor; I do not begrudge him his concocted dish of thrills. I only mentionthis trick of his because it proves again the strange resurrective powers of an dft-buried lie. You may sweep, you may garnish Soho if you will; but the scent of adventure will hang round it still. But to-day the scent is very faint. The streets that once rang with laughter and prodigal talk are in A.D. 1917 charged with gloom; their gentle noise is pitched in the minor key. These morsels of the South, shovelled into the swart melancholies of central London, have lost their happy summer tone. Charing Cross Road was always a streak of misery, but, on the most leaden day, its side streets gave an impression of light. Lord knows whence came the light. Not from the skies. Perhaps from the indolently vivacious loungers; perhaps from the flower-boxes on the window-sills, or the variegated shops bowered with pendant polonies, in ra... |
