cause she had not known how to organize her sight-seeing, she had done little, and even that was unsatisfactory. I am, therefore, hopeful that, although I have had chiefly in mind the traveller on his first trip to London, these chapters (far as they are from being as comprehensive as I would like them to be) may be not without some helpfulness for other travellers who have not yet developed a pleasant plan for making London's acquaintance. People who know London well differ as to what is her centre. I contend against no one's decision; but for me the hub of London is where Nelson stands atop his tall column in Trafalgar Square. And, by way of introducing you to London, I am inviting you to share his viewpoint for a few minutes not actually, of course, but imaginatively. You are looking south, past the Admiralty Arch and the Admiralty Building (whence Britain directs her operations as mistress of the seas), down Charing Cross and Whitehall, a broad, modern thoroughfare through the great royal demesne that surrounded Whitehall Palace. Government buildings flank Whitehall, Downing Street tucked in amongst them. New Scotland Yard lies just this side Westminster Bridge, and the superb Houses of Parliament just the other side of it. Westminster Abbey is there, close beside the Parliament Houses; and little Saint Margaret's Church, like the Abbey's lady-in-waiting. Still farther south, along the river, is Lambeth Palace, on the other side, and the Tate Gallery, on this side, with Chelsea yet farther south and west, around a turn in the river. North of you, as you stand by Nelson, lies the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery, Saint Martin's-inthe-Fields, Leicester Square and the heart of the theatre district, Soho with its foreign restaurants, Bloomsbury with the British Museum completely surrounded by hotels and boarding-houses. Beyond Bloomsbury, what's known as Somers Town, with the three great railway stations of Euston, King's Cross, and Saint Pancras; and, still northward, Camden Town, and Hampstead Heath. Westward, in a broad sweep of vision, you have The Mall, leading to Buckingham Palace, and then (rounding the palace corner) Constitution Hill, leading to Hyde Park Corner, and the Duke of Wellington's house, and Hyde Park, and Kensington Gardens and Palace, and Holland Park, and all that world; and Pall Mall, approached by Cockspur Street, with Club-land, backed by Carlton House Terrace and Saint James's Palace and Marlborough House; and Haymarket (also approached by Cockspur Street) leading to Piccadilly Circus, and Piccadilly, and Regent Street, and fashionable Shop-land. Then, eastward, you look along the Strand, past Charing Cross, and Adelphi Terrace, and the Victoria Embankment with Cleopatra's Needle on it, and Somerset House, and the Temple and Law Courts; down Fleet Street to Saint Paul's, and thence northward to Saint Bartholomew's and the Charterhouse, or east on Cheapside to the Mansion House, the Bank of England, the Royal Exchange, and perhaps on to Whitechapel and the East London slums; or on Cannon Street and Eastcheap toward London Bridge and the Tower. If you will take a little time to get these groupings even roughly, approximately, in mind, I am sure it will very greatly simplify for you your 'attack upon London.' Generalizations are always dangerous, because there are exceptions which may seem to disprove rather than to prove the rule. But if you won't take it too literally, will use it merely as a first 'key,' you may say 'South to Governmental London, and West to Fashionable London, and North to Intellectual London, and East to Oldest London.' Where shall you go first? It doesn't really matter. I have arranged seven days for you that you may take in any order you prefer, since they all contain 'something old and something new,' and are planned to conserve your time, steps, and energy-it being impossible, in a vast place like London, to do sight-seeing chronologically or 'by subject,' unless one is making a leisurely long sojourn. Should your first London day be Saturday, you ought to take our programme for the Fifth Day; because only on Saturdays can the Houses of Parliament be visited. Other than that, these programmes are, in general, practicable for any day of the week, and in any order. And I hope you'll vary the town days with out-of-town days chosen from our chapter of suggestions for those. And you will, of course, have a good London guide-book to use com, plementary with this. I used the Baedeker for years and felt sure there could be nothing more satisfactory. Yet, when the Muirheads (who wrote the Baedekers) began publishing their Blue Guides, I found that I liked these even better; and wherever I go, now, a Blue Guide is sure to go too. The complete 'London' is wonderfully easy to carry, besides being so constantly rewarding for the slight effort of carrying it; and there is a new, Short Guide to London, by Muirhead, containing an excellent selection of matter in about half the extent of the complete book. I think I shall serve you best if I assume that you have your Blue Guide or your Baedeker in hand or pocket; and, instead of taking any of this so-limited space for saying 'On your left, the War Office, built in 1906,' etc., I confine myself to a few suggestions and reminders that may enliven your course or make it more vivid and memorable. Such, for instance, as that you allow yourself to see Lord Kitchener in and about the War Office, from the time he took up his duties there as War Minister, on August 6, 1914 (the day after England ordered mobilization), when he re marked, on reaching his office that first day, 'there is no army'; to the time, early in June, 1916, when he left here to go to Russia to discuss the rearming of the Czar's forces and sank, with the Hampshire, off the Orkneys, after his ship had struck a mine. So, suppose yourself, please, to be starting south from Nelson's Monument, toward Westminster. Poor Charles I, looking at the scene of his execution from the site of the execution of his regicide judges, seems to be marshalling us on our way to Westminster Hall, and Whitehall Palace where his mistakes as a sovereign were tried and expiated, and where his nobility as a Christian gentleman outlives all other memories about him. I hope I shall not offend your dignity if I suggest that you may like to do as I do in the matter of making (for my own help, in keeping things straight and making them more definite) one story link with others, so as to become part of an endless chain which is perpetually moving before me. Perhaps you don't need any little aids like this; but in case you do, you may link up our Dover story of Hubert de Burgh and the smith, who, when ordered to shackle him, said, 'I will die any death before I put iron on the man who freed England from the stranger and saved Dover from France,' with Whitehall Palace; for here was Hubert's London house, and he gave it to the Black Friars, or Dominicans, who sold it to the Archbishop of York. Here the Archbishops of York held sway until Wolsey, the proudest of them all, fell from favor and his archi-episcopal residence, like all else that he had, was seized by Henry VIII. In Wolsey's day, the magnificence that he maintained here was the subject of much satire. His palaces (this and Hampton Court, in particular) were said to be 'More like unto a paradise |