ACTON'S WISDOM
As calico and merry respectability tailed off eastward by
penny steamers, the setting sun brought westward Hansoms
freighted with demure immorality
in
silk and fine linen. By
about ten o'clock, age and innocence ... had seemingly all
retired, weary with a long and paid bill of amusements, leaving
the massive elms, the grass-plots, and the geranium-beds, the
kiosks, temples, 'monster platforms,' and 'crystal circle' of
Cremorne
to
flicker in the thousand gas-lights there for the
gratification of the dancing public only. On and around that
platform waltzed, strolled, and fed some thousand souls–
perhaps seven hundred of them men of the upper and middle
class, the remainder prostitutes more or less
pronouncees.
I
suppose that a hundred couples ... were engaged in dancing
and other amusements, and the rest of the society, myself
included, circulated listlessly about the garden, and enjoyed in
a grim kind of way the 'selection' from some favorite opera
and the cool night-breeze from the river.
The extent of disillusion he has purchased in this world
comes forcibly home to the middle-aged man who in such a
scene attempts
to
fathom former faith and ancient joys, and
perhaps even vainly to fancy he might by some possibility begin
again. I saw scores, nay hundreds, about me in the same position
as myself. We were there-and some of us, I feel sure, hardly
knew why- but being there, and it being obviously impossible
to enjoy the place after the manner of youth, it was necessary,
I suppose, to chew the cud of sweet and bitter fancies; and
then so little pleasure came, that the Britannic solidity waxed
solider than ever even in a garden full of music and dancing,
and so an almost mute procession, not of joyous revellers, but
thoughtful, careworn men and women, paced round and round
the platform as on a horizontal treadmill. There was now and
then a bare recognition between passers-by-they seemed to
touch and go, like ants in the hurry of business .. . the inter–
course of the sexes could hardly have been more reserved....
For my part, I was occupied, when the first chill of change
was shaken off, in quest of noise, disorder, debauchery, and bad
manners. Hopeless task! The pic-nic at Burnham Beeches, that
showed no more life and merriment than Cremorne ... would
be a failure indeed, unless the company were antiquarians or
undertakers.... The
gratus puellae risus
was put in a corner
with a vengeance, under a colder shade than that of chastity
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