We do not quite know why so much attention should
te- paid to the opinions which M. Daudet is expressing abon. England. He is a novelist, not a thinker ; he has neve.. been in England before, and he does not know English. Hia conclusions, therefore, on " gloomy " London can have but
value. He makes, however, one remark in his letters to the Figaro, which shotvs a certain genius for observation. He speaks of the comparative " silence " of London, as the first thing which struck him. As Londoners complain first of the noise of London, this seems a paradox, but it is substantially true. When the newspaper-boys are not to the front, audible words are but little heard in London, the people talking, when they talk, in low tones, and refraining from the screaming disputes which, in Paris or Rome, seem to go on for ever. All separate sounds, moreover, are overpowered by the dull roar, the weight of which is best appreciated by a visitor to the Botanic Gardens, Regent's Park. There is a dell in those gardens where the ground shuts out sound, and you may, by stepping a few feet, hear a sea of sound, or be wrapped in the bliss of country silence.
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