but Hyde Park was still a robust sanctuary for horsemen running their animals through the rigors of daily exercise.
And of course the Crystal Palace, brainchild of the Royal Gardener, which has been so much in the papers of late. When the structure was first proposed last summer, I, like others, dismissed it as a hoax. A palace crafted of glass and steel, covering eighteen acres! Why, the jarring footpads of a hundred people milling about inside would be enough to rattle the panes and send them crashing down in ballistic shards. Now, as the frame of tubular steel begins to take shape, I see that the hoax has become a near reality. Sophie and I, standing south of the structure near the park’s edge, quietly compared Paxton’s startling new conception to an elaborate greenhouse.
By ten o’clock, a crowd had begun to gather, ruining the placidity of our morning’s sojourn in the park. Some heckled the labourers for presuming to build a veritable Tower of Babel. “Who’s s’posed to be cleaning all them winders?” one of them shouted. Others ruminated aloud about the grandeur of the imagination responsible for this edifice. The workmen themselves went about their exertions in indubitable silence, never intimating their thoughts on the utter madness or the sheer sublimity of Joe Paxton’s vision.
Sophie, being seventeen, is in love with Mr. Paxton’s creation. She is the daughter most like Jane, and in many ways she has become Jane, caring for me and the children, preparing meals, worrying over the household finances. I fear that dear Jane’s passing will prove too much for Sophie in the end, that she will develop some nervous complaint owing to the weight of the burden she has chosen to bear. In the last months, I have tried to find opportunities for her to be away from the house and the children so that she might relax and be her seventeen-year-old self again. When asked, her inclination has often been to see the progress of the glass emporium.
On this day, however, Sophie was discomfited by the obvious presence of footpadders and cadgers milling about the crowd, and she suggested that we take our picnic elsewhere in the park. As we were leaving the Palace, I heard a shrill voice call my name: “Em! Em!” Sophie and I both turned to see Sally, a dol lymop I know, careening towards us. She had a large tatty shawl covering her dress. She carried her infant, God knows by what father, in one arm and a basket of hand-sewn pincushions in her other hand. She must have been hawking the cushions to onlookers. As she neared us, Sally caught sight of Sophie and stopped dead in her tracks, too late for Sophie not to have seen the surprise in her face. Fortunately, Sally has a nimble mind to match her nimble body. “I’m sorry,” she growled, in a guttural Cockney, “I had you mistaken for someone else.” With a hurt look on her face, Sally turned and dissolved into the multitude.
“Who was she?” Sophie asked, as I whisked her down Rotten Row toward the Serpentine.
“Never saw her before,” I said. “Case of mistaken identity.”
We settled down in the grass under the shade of a broad chestnut tree far from the gathering crowd. After we had spread a thick woolen blanket on the ground, Sophie carefully emptied the basket of its contents – roast beef and cucumber sandwiches, a bottle of wine, French bread and paté. We had begun to eat and to enjoy this glorious and sunny late autumn day, to enjoy each other’s company, when an elderly beggar materialized out of nearby bushes. His clothes were ragged, his face leathery with constant exposure to the elements. He was wearing threadbare stockings but no shoes. He was not a sane man. He ranted in a high-pitched voice about the evils of cross-racial breeding, all the while feinting to punch or kick some phantasm in the air before him. I fed him some bread and paté, although the wine seemed to be the real object of his desires, and persuaded him to carry on down
And of course the Crystal Palace, brainchild of the Royal Gardener, which has been so much in the papers of late. When the structure was first proposed last summer, I, like others, dismissed it as a hoax. A palace crafted of glass and steel, covering eighteen acres! Why, the jarring footpads of a hundred people milling about inside would be enough to rattle the panes and send them crashing down in ballistic shards. Now, as the frame of tubular steel begins to take shape, I see that the hoax has become a near reality. Sophie and I, standing south of the structure near the park’s edge, quietly compared Paxton’s startling new conception to an elaborate greenhouse.
By ten o’clock, a crowd had begun to gather, ruining the placidity of our morning’s sojourn in the park. Some heckled the labourers for presuming to build a veritable Tower of Babel. “Who’s s’posed to be cleaning all them winders?” one of them shouted. Others ruminated aloud about the grandeur of the imagination responsible for this edifice. The workmen themselves went about their exertions in indubitable silence, never intimating their thoughts on the utter madness or the sheer sublimity of Joe Paxton’s vision.
Sophie, being seventeen, is in love with Mr. Paxton’s creation. She is the daughter most like Jane, and in many ways she has become Jane, caring for me and the children, preparing meals, worrying over the household finances. I fear that dear Jane’s passing will prove too much for Sophie in the end, that she will develop some nervous complaint owing to the weight of the burden she has chosen to bear. In the last months, I have tried to find opportunities for her to be away from the house and the children so that she might relax and be her seventeen-year-old self again. When asked, her inclination has often been to see the progress of the glass emporium.
On this day, however, Sophie was discomfited by the obvious presence of footpadders and cadgers milling about the crowd, and she suggested that we take our picnic elsewhere in the park. As we were leaving the Palace, I heard a shrill voice call my name: “Em! Em!” Sophie and I both turned to see Sally, a dol lymop I know, careening towards us. She had a large tatty shawl covering her dress. She carried her infant, God knows by what father, in one arm and a basket of hand-sewn pincushions in her other hand. She must have been hawking the cushions to onlookers. As she neared us, Sally caught sight of Sophie and stopped dead in her tracks, too late for Sophie not to have seen the surprise in her face. Fortunately, Sally has a nimble mind to match her nimble body. “I’m sorry,” she growled, in a guttural Cockney, “I had you mistaken for someone else.” With a hurt look on her face, Sally turned and dissolved into the multitude.
“Who was she?” Sophie asked, as I whisked her down Rotten Row toward the Serpentine.
“Never saw her before,” I said. “Case of mistaken identity.”
We settled down in the grass under the shade of a broad chestnut tree far from the gathering crowd. After we had spread a thick woolen blanket on the ground, Sophie carefully emptied the basket of its contents – roast beef and cucumber sandwiches, a bottle of wine, French bread and paté. We had begun to eat and to enjoy this glorious and sunny late autumn day, to enjoy each other’s company, when an elderly beggar materialized out of nearby bushes. His clothes were ragged, his face leathery with constant exposure to the elements. He was wearing threadbare stockings but no shoes. He was not a sane man. He ranted in a high-pitched voice about the evils of cross-racial breeding, all the while feinting to punch or kick some phantasm in the air before him. I fed him some bread and paté, although the wine seemed to be the real object of his desires, and persuaded him to carry on down
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