Chapter VI
New Town — Town and Country
It is as much a matter of course to decry1 the New Town as to exalt2 the Old; and the most celebrated3 authorities have picked out this quarter as the very emblem4 of what is condemnable5 in architecture. Much may be said, much indeed has been said, upon the text; but to the unsophisticated, who call anything pleasing if it only pleases them, the New Town of Edinburgh seems, in itself, not only gay and airy, but highly picturesque6. An old skipper, invincibly7 ignorant of all theories of the sublime8 and beautiful, once propounded9 as his most radiant notion for Paradise: ‘The new town of Edinburgh, with the wind a matter of a point free.’ He has now gone to that sphere where all good tars10 are promised pleasant weather in the song, and perhaps his thoughts fly somewhat higher. But there are bright and temperate11 days — with soft air coming from the inland hills, military music sounding bravely from the hollow of the gardens, the flags all waving on the palaces of Princes Street — when I have seen the town through a sort of glory, and shaken hands in sentiment with the old sailor. And indeed, for a man who has been much tumbled round Orcadian skerries, what scene could be more agreeable to witness? On such a day, the valley wears a surprising air of festival. It seems (I do not know how else to put my meaning) as if it were a trifle too good to be true. It is what Paris ought to be. It has the scenic13 quality that would best set off a life of unthinking, open-air diversion. It was meant by nature for the realisation of the society of comic operas. And you can imagine, if the climate were but towardly, how all the world and his wife would flock into these gardens in the cool of the evening, to hear cheerful music, to sip14 pleasant drinks, to see the moon rise from behind Arthur’s Seat and shine upon the spires15 and monuments and the green tree-tops in the valley. Alas16! and the next morning the rain is splashing on the windows, and the passengers flee along Princes Street before the galloping17 squalls.
It cannot be denied that the original design was faulty and short-sighted, and did not fully18 profit by the capabilities19 of the situation. The architect was essentially20 a town bird, and he laid out the modern city with a view to street scenery, and to street scenery alone. The country did not enter into his plan; he had never lifted his eyes to the hills. If he had so chosen, every street upon the northern slope might have been a noble terrace and commanded an extensive and beautiful view. But the space has been too closely built; many of the houses front the wrong way, intent, like the Man with the Muck-Rake, on what is not worth observation, and standing21 discourteously22 back-foremost in the ranks; and, in a word, it is too often only from attic-windows, or here and there at a crossing, that you can get a look beyond the city upon its diversified23 surroundings. But perhaps it is all the more surprising, to come suddenly on a corner, and see a perspective of a mile or more of falling street, and beyond that woods and villas24, and a blue arm of sea, and the hills upon the farther side.
Fergusson, our Edinburgh poet, Burns’s model, once saw a butterfly at the Town Cross; and the sight inspired him with a worthless little ode. This painted country man, the dandy of the rose garden, looked far abroad in such a humming neighbourhood; and you can fancy what moral considerations a youthful poet would supply. But the incident, in a fanciful sort of way, is characteristic of the place. Into no other city does the sight of the country enter so far; if you do not meet a butterfly, you shall certainly catch a glimpse of far-away trees upon your walk; and the place is full of theatre tricks in the way of scenery. You peep under an arch, you descend25 stairs that look as if they would land you in a cellar, you turn to the back-window of a grimy tenement26 in a lane:— and behold27! you are face-to-face with distant and bright prospects28. You turn a corner, and there is the sun going down into the Highland29 hills. You look down an alley12, and see ships tacking30 for the Baltic.
For the country people to see Edinburgh on her hill-tops, is one thing; it is another for the citizen, from the thick of his affairs, to overlook the country. It should be a genial31 and ameliorating influence in life; it should prompt good thoughts and remind him of Nature’s unconcern: that he can watch from day to day, as he trots32 officeward, how the Spring green brightens in the wood or the field grows black under a moving ploughshare. I have been tempted33, in this connexion, to deplore34 the slender faculties35 of the human race, with its penny-whistle of a voice, its dull cars, and its narrow range of sight. If you could see as people are to see in heaven, if you had eyes such as you can fancy for a superior race, if you could take clear note of the objects of vision, not only a few yards, but a few miles from where you stand:— think how agreeably your sight would be entertained, how pleasantly your thoughts would be diversified, as you walked the Edinburgh streets! For you might pause, in some business perplexity, in the midst of the city traffic, and perhaps catch the eye of a shepherd as he sat down to breathe upon a heathery shoulder of the Pentlands; or perhaps some urchin36, clambering in a country elm, would put aside the leaves and show you his flushed and rustic37 visage; or a fisher racing38 seawards, with the tiller under his elbow, and the sail sounding in the wind, would fling you a salutation from between Anst’er and the May.
To be old is not the same thing as to be picturesque; nor because the Old Town bears a strange physiognomy, does it at all follow that the New Town shall look commonplace. Indeed, apart from antique houses, it is curious how much description would apply commonly to either. The same sudden accidents of ground, a similar dominating site above the plain, and the same superposition of one rank of society over another, are to be observed in both. Thus, the broad and comely39 approach to Princes Street from the east, lined with hotels and public offices, makes a leap over the gorge40 of the Low Calton; if you cast a glance over the parapet, you look direct into that sunless and disreputable confluent of Leith Street; and the same tall houses open upon both thoroughfares. This is only the New Town passing overhead above its own cellars; walking, so to speak, over its own children, as is the way of cities and the human race. But at the Dean Bridge, you may behold a spectacle of a more novel order. The river runs at the bottom of a deep valley, among rocks and between gardens; the crest41 of either bank is occupied by some of the most commodious42 streets and crescents in the modern city; and a handsome bridge unites the two summits. Over this, every afternoon, private carriages go spinning by, and ladies with card-cases pass to and fro about the duties of society. And yet down below, you may still see, with its mills and foaming43 weir44, the little rural village of Dean. Modern improvement has gone overhead on its high-level viaduct; and the extended city has cleanly overleapt, and left unaltered, what was once the summer retreat of its comfortable citizens. Every town embraces hamlets in its growth; Edinburgh herself has embraced a good few; but it is strange to see one still surviving — and to see it some hundreds of feet below your path. Is it Torre del Greco that is built above buried Herculaneum? Herculaneum was dead at least; but the sun still shines upon the roofs of Dean; the smoke still rises thriftily45 from its chimneys; the dusty miller46 comes to his door, looks at the gurgling water, hearkens to the turning wheel and the birds about the shed, and perhaps whistles an air of his own to enrich the symphony — for all the world as if Edinburgh were still the old Edinburgh on the Castle Hill, and Dean were still the quietest of hamlets buried a mile or so in the green country.
It is not so long ago since magisterial47 David Hume lent the authority of his example to the exodus48 from the Old Town, and took up his new abode49 in a street which is still (so oddly may a jest become perpetuated) known as Saint David Street. Nor is the town so large but a holiday schoolboy may harry50 a bird’s nest within half a mile of his own door. There are places that still smell of the plough in memory’s nostrils51. Here, one had heard a blackbird on a hawthorn52; there, another was taken on summer evenings to eat strawberries and cream; and you have seen a waving wheatfield on the site of your present residence. The memories of an Edinburgh boy are but partly memories of the town. I look back with delight on many an escalade of garden walls; many a ramble53 among lilacs full of piping birds; many an exploration in obscure quarters that were neither town nor country; and I think that both for my companions and myself, there was a special interest, a point of romance, and a sentiment as of foreign travel, when we hit in our excursions on the butt-end of some former hamlet, and found a few rustic cottages embedded54 among streets and squares. The tunnel to the Scotland Street Station, the sight of the trains shooting out of its dark maw with the two guards upon the brake, the thought of its length and the many ponderous55 edifices56 and open thoroughfares above, were certainly things of paramount57 impressiveness to a young mind. It was a subterranean58 passage, although of a larger bore than we were accustomed to in Ainsworth’s novels; and these two words, ‘subterreanean passage,’ were in themselves an irresistible59 attraction, and seemed to bring us nearer in spirit to the heroes we loved and the black rascals60 we secretly aspired61 to imitate. To scale the Castle Rock from West Princes Street Gardens, and lay a triumphal hand against the rampart itself, was to taste a high order of romantic pleasure. And there are other sights and exploits which crowd back upon my mind under a very strong illumination of remembered pleasure. But the effect of not one of them all will compare with the discoverer’s joy, and the sense of old Time and his slow changes on the face of this earth, with which I explored such corners as Cannonmills or Water Lane, or the nugget of cottages at Broughton Market. They were more rural than the open country, and gave a greater impression of antiquity62 than the oldest Land upon the High Street. They too, like Fergusson’s butterfly, had a quaint63 air of having wandered far from their own place; they looked abashed64 and homely65, with their gables and their creeping plants, their outside stairs and running mill-streams; there were corners that smelt66 like the end of the country garden where I spent my Aprils; and the people stood to gossip at their doors, as they might have done in Colinton or Cramond.
In a great measure we may, and shall, eradicate67 this haunting flavour of the country. The last elm is dead in Elm Row; and the villas and the workmen’s quarters spread apace on all the borders of the city. We can cut down the trees; we can bury the grass under dead paving-stones; we can drive brisk streets through all our sleepy quarters; and we may forget the stories and the playgrounds of our boyhood. But we have some possessions that not even the infuriate zeal68 of builders can utterly69 abolish and destroy. Nothing can abolish the hills, unless it be a cataclysm70 of nature which shall subvert71 Edinburgh Castle itself and lay all her florid structures in the dust. And as long as we have the hills and the Firth, we have a famous heritage to leave our children. Our windows, at no expense to us, are most artfully stained to represent a landscape. And when the Spring comes round, and the hawthorns72 begin to flower, and the meadows to smell of young grass, even in the thickest of our streets, the country hilltops find out a young man’s eyes, and set his heart beating for travel and pure air.
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1
decry
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| v.危难，谴责 | |
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exalt
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| v.赞扬，歌颂，晋升，提升 | |
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celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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emblem
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| n.象征，标志；徽章 | |
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condemnable
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| adj.该罚的，该受责备的 | |
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picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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invincibly
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| adv.难战胜地，无敌地 | |
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sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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propounded
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| v.提出（问题、计划等）供考虑[讨论]，提议( propound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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tars
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| 焦油，沥青，柏油( tar的名词复数 ) | |
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temperate
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| adj.温和的，温带的，自我克制的，不过分的 | |
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alley
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| n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路 | |
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scenic
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| adj.自然景色的，景色优美的 | |
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sip
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| v.小口地喝，抿，呷；n.一小口的量 | |
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spires
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| n.（教堂的） 塔尖，尖顶( spire的名词复数 ) | |
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alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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galloping
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| adj. 飞驰的, 急性的 动词gallop的现在分词形式 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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capabilities
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| n.能力( capability的名词复数 )；可能；容量；[复数]潜在能力 | |
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essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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discourteously
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| adv.不礼貌地，粗鲁地 | |
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diversified
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| adj.多样化的，多种经营的v.使多样化，多样化( diversify的过去式和过去分词 )；进入新的商业领域 | |
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villas
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| 别墅，公馆( villa的名词复数 )； （城郊）住宅 | |
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descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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tenement
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| n.公寓；房屋 | |
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behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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prospects
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| n.希望，前途(恒为复数) | |
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highland
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| n.(pl.)高地，山地 | |
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tacking
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| （帆船）抢风行驶，定位焊[铆]紧钉 | |
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genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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trots
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| 小跑，急走( trot的名词复数 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
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tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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deplore
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| vt.哀叹，对...深感遗憾 | |
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faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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urchin
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| n.顽童；海胆 | |
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rustic
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| adj.乡村的，有乡村特色的；n.乡下人，乡巴佬 | |
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racing
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| n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的 | |
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comely
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| adj.漂亮的，合宜的 | |
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gorge
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| n.咽喉，胃，暴食，山峡；v.塞饱，狼吞虎咽地吃 | |
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crest
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| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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commodious
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| adj.宽敞的；使用方便的 | |
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foaming
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| adj.布满泡沫的；发泡 | |
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weir
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| n.堰堤，拦河坝 | |
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thriftily
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| 节俭地； 繁茂地； 繁荣的 | |
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miller
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| n.磨坊主 | |
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magisterial
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| adj.威风的，有权威的；adv.威严地 | |
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exodus
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| v.大批离去，成群外出 | |
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abode
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| n.住处，住所 | |
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harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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hawthorn
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| 山楂 | |
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ramble
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| v.漫步，漫谈，漫游；n.漫步，闲谈，蔓延 | |
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embedded
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| a.扎牢的 | |
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ponderous
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| adj.沉重的，笨重的，(文章)冗长的 | |
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edifices
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| n.大建筑物( edifice的名词复数 ) | |
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paramount
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| a.最重要的，最高权力的 | |
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subterranean
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| adj.地下的，地表下的 | |
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irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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rascals
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| 流氓( rascal的名词复数 )； 无赖； （开玩笑说法）淘气的人（尤指小孩）； 恶作剧的人 | |
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aspired
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| v.渴望，追求( aspire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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abashed
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| adj.窘迫的，尴尬的v.使羞愧，使局促，使窘迫( abash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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smelt
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| v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼 | |
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eradicate
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| v.根除，消灭，杜绝 | |
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zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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cataclysm
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| n.洪水，剧变，大灾难 | |
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subvert
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| v.推翻；暗中破坏；搅乱 | |
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hawthorns
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| n.山楂树( hawthorn的名词复数 ) | |
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