Marston or The soldier and statesman Author:George Croly 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: CHAPTER III. " See, my lord, Would you not deem it breath'd, and that those veins Did verily bear blood V " Masterly done ! The fixture of her eye h... more »as motion in't. Are we not mocked with art ? What fine chisel Could ever yet cut breath ?" Shakspeare. I Shall say but little of my first sensations on reaching London. My eyes and ears were in full activity. But the impression upon all who enter this most prodigious of capitals for the first time, is nearly the same. Its perpetual multitude, its incessant movement, its infinite variety of occupations, sights, and sounds, the echo of the whole vast and sleepless machinery of national existence, have been a thousand times the subject of description, and always of wonder. Yet. I must acknowledge, that its first sight repelled me. I had lived in field and forest, and delighted in the freshness and beauty of nature. I had lived in stately halls, and been surrounded by bowing attendants; and now—with my mind full of the calm magnificence of English noble life, I felt myselfflung into the midst of a numberless, miscellaneous, bustling crowd, all rushing on, regardless of every thing but themselves. I had before my glance, myriads of anxious and eager human beings pouring on for ever, through endless lines of gloomy-looking houses; and I, nothing, an atom in the chaos, a grain of dust on the great chariot wheel of society, a lonely and obscure struggler in the mighty current of human life, which rolled along the sullen channels of the most cheerless, though the most majestic, capital of the globe. For the first week, I was absolutely unable to collect my thoughts. All that I learned was, to make my way through the principal thoroughfares, and know the names of their chief buildings. In later days, I took a more practical v...« less