In point of fact, it is
generally the most pitiable little holes and corners that bear the
most ambitiously beautiful names. To any one who has studied London,
such a title as `Paradise Court' conjures up a dark fetid alley, with
untidy fat women gossiping in it, untidy thin women quarrelling across
it, a host of haggard and shapeless children sprawling in its mud, and
one or two drunken men propped against its walls. Thus, were there an
official nomenclator of streets, he might be tempted to reject such
names as in themselves signify anything beautiful. But his main
principle would be to bestow whatever name first occurred to him, in
order that he might save time for thinking about something that really
mattered.
I have yet to fulfil the second part of my promise: show the futility
of trying to commemorate a hero by making a street his namesake. By
implication I have done this already. But, for the benefit of the less
nimble among my readers, let me be explicit. Who, passing through the
Cromwell Road, ever thinks of Cromwell, except by accident? What
journalist ever thinks of Wellington in Wellington Street? In
Marlborough Street, what policeman remembers Marlborough? In St.
James's Street, has any one ever fancied he saw the ghost of a pilgrim
wrapped in a cloak, leaning on a staff? Other ghosts are there in
plenty.
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