Friday 16 December 2011

As Cold as a Frog

Wednesday, 2 January. Since midnight, snow had silently fallen, to the depth of 6 to 8 inches; by breakfast time it was all over except a slight flaky dropping, & the day was calm & very cold. Nothing could be more beautiful; no change more complete & charming. The trees around the fountain near Garden Court were loaded with snow: an exquisite tracery of white branches, relieved against the dark red housefronts. But in the streets the transformation was greatest. All traffic, except afoot, was stopped; no cabs, no omnibuses, no waggons. The snow lay in heaps in the road; men were scraping & shovelling the footways; & people in thick coats & wrappers stepped noiselessly along. The Strand was as quiet and empty as a village street at nightfall; even the footpassengers were far fewer than usual. Here in the heart of London, & at midday, there was absolute cleanliness & brightness, absolute silence: instead of the roar & rush of wheels, the selfish hurry, the dirt & the cloudy fog, we had the loveliness & utter purity of new- fallen snow. It fell without force or sound; & all things huge & hasty & noisy were paralyzed in a moment. I walked along enjoying the wondrous lovely scene, the long perspective of houses, all grown picturesque & antique; their gable roofs white against a clear sky, & every salient cornice & lintel in their outline picked out in brilliant white; and beneath them, the tumbled & tenantless pavement of snow. It was like the quaint still London of old; one might have been arm in arm with Mr. Pepys, or even Mr. W. Shakespeare. And this state of things lasted all day. There were many crossing sweepers about: I noticed one near S. Clement Danes, a girl of 17 or so, in ragged but warm shawl, & a bit of an old bonnet, whose dark rough hair was covered with snow, & hung in a tangled white mass, like the foam of a waterfall, over her brown bonny face, as she stood with her broom under her arm, stamping & blowing her fingers.

Friday, 4 January. The cold out of doors at ten this forenoon was more intense, to my apprehension, than I ever remember. My beard froze, the nape of the neck, & the heart, seemed paralyzed, headache came on, & at the end of the short walk from here to Whitehall I was almost helpless. At 4, I walked westward, thinking to call on the Thackerays. The Horseguards Parade & the Mall were one sheet of snow, with paths trodden but not swept: a thick brown fog brooded over it, deepening the twilight; muffled spectral figures hurried to & fro across the slippery ground. . . . In Victoria Street a girl begged of me: a ragged tall lusty girl of 19, by name Caroline Randall, by trade an ironer; who has no home; who slept last night on a step in a sheltered corner, & felt 'as cold as a frog', she said.

Arthur Munby, Diary, 2 & 4 January 1867

4 comments:

  1. really enjoying this blog.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This will give chills down your spine since this specific competition isn’t scripted and subsequently it includes genuine activity and tricks so as to encounter some genuine rush and activity don’t pass up this competition accessible on this site.watch wrestling ufc 249

    ReplyDelete
  3. As cold as a frog meaning?

    ReplyDelete