I told
him that the streets on this map were no more monotonous than the
rivers on the map of England. Just as there were no two rivers alike,
every one of them having its own speed, its own windings, depths, and
shallows, its own way with the reeds and grasses, so had every street
its own claim to an especial nymph, forasmuch as no two streets had
exactly the same proportions, the same habitual traffic, the same type
of shops or houses, the same inhabitants. In some cases, of course,
the difference between the `atmosphere' of two streets is a subtle
difference. But it is always there, not less definite to any one who
searches for it than the difference between (say) Hill Street and Pont
Street, High Street Kensington and High Street Notting Hill, Fleet
Street and the Strand. I have here purposely opposed to each other
streets that have obvious points of likeness. But what a yawning gulf
of difference is between each couple! Hill Street, with its staid
distinction, and Pont Street, with its eager, pushful `smartness,' its
air de petit parvenu, its obvious delight in having been `taken up';
High Street Notting Hill, down-at-heels and unashamed, with a placid
smile on its broad ugly face, and High Street Kensington, with its
traces of former beauty, and its air of neatness and self-respect, as
befits one who in her day has been caressed by royalty; Fleet Street,
that seething channel of business, and the Strand, that swollen river
of business, on whose surface float so many aimless and unsightly
objects.
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