railway stations, I am not sure that the prospect here is not even
finer than in Fleet Street. See how they belch forth puffing
trains as the breath of their nostrils, gorging and disgorging
incessantly those human atoms whose movement is the life of the
city. How like it all is to some great bodily mechanism of which
the people are the blood. And then, above all, see the ineffable
St. Paul's. I was once on Waterloo Bridge after a heavy
thunderstorm in summer. A thick darkness was upon the river and
the buildings upon the north side, but just below I could see the
water hurrying onward as in an abyss, dark, gloomy, and mysterious.
On a level with the eye there was an absolute blank, but above, the
sky was clear, and out of the gloom the dome and towers of St.
Paul's rose up sharply, looking higher than they actually were, and
as though they rested upon space.

Then as for the neighbourhood within, we will say, a radius of
thirty miles. It is one of the main businesses of my life to
explore this district. I have walked several thousands of miles in
doing so, and I mark where I have been in red upon the Ordnance
map, so that I may see at a glance what parts I know least well,
and direct my attention to them as soon as possible. For ten
months in the year I continue my walks in the home counties, every
week adding some new village or farmhouse to my list of things
worth seeing; and no matter where else I may have been, I find a
charm in the villages of Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, which in its way
I know not where to rival.

I have ventured to say the above, because during the remainder of
my book I shall be occupied almost exclusively with Italy, and wish
to make it clear that my Italian rambles are taken not because I