The Streets Of London by Charles Dickens [1836]
The appearance presented by the streets of London an hour before sunrise, on
a summer’s morning, is most striking even to the few whose unfortunate pursuits
of pleasure, or scarcely less unfortunate pursuits of business, cause them to be
well acquainted with the scene. There is an air of cold, solitary desolation 1 about
the noiseless streets which we are accustomed to see thronged at other times by 5
a busy, eager crowd, and over the quiet, closely-shut buildings, which throughout
the day are swarming with life and bustle, that is very impressive.
An hour wears away; the spires of the churches and roofs of the principal buildings
are faintly tinged with the light of the rising sun; and the streets, slowly and almost
unnoticeably, begin to resume their bustle and life. Market-carts roll slowly along: 10
the sleepy waggoner 2 impatiently urging on his tired horses, or vainly trying to
awaken the boy, who, luxuriously stretched on the top of the fruit-baskets, forgets,
in happy oblivion 3 , his long-cherished curiosity to behold the wonders of London.
Rough, sleepy-looking animals of strange appearance, something between ostlers 4 15
and hackney-coachmen 5 , begin to take down the shutters of early public-houses;
and little tables, with the ordinary preparations for a street breakfast, make their
appearance at the customary stations. Numbers of men and women (mainly the
latter), carrying upon their heads heavy baskets of fruit, toil down the park side of
Piccadilly, on their way to Covent-garden, and, following each other in rapid 20
succession, form a long straggling line from thence to the turn of the road at
Knightsbridge.
Here and there, a bricklayer’s labourer, with the day’s dinner tied up in a
handkerchief, walks briskly to his work, and occasionally a little knot of three or
four schoolboys on a stolen bathing expedition rattle merrily over the pavement, 25
their boisterous laughter contrasting forcibly with the appearance of the little sweep,
who, having knocked and rung till his arm aches, and being forbidden from
endangering his lungs by calling out, sits patiently down on the door-step, until the
housemaid may happen to awake.
Covent-garden market, and the avenues leading to it, are thronged with carts of 30
all sorts, sizes, and descriptions, from the heavy lumbering waggon, with its four
brave horses, to the jingling costermonger’s 6 cart, with its wheezing donkey.
The pavement is already strewed with decayed cabbage-leaves, broken hay-bands,
and all the indescribable litter of a vegetable market; men are shouting, carts
backing, horses neighing, boys fighting, basket-women talking, piemen announcing 35
the excellence of their pastry, and donkeys braying. These and a hundred other
sounds form a compound discordant enough to a Londoner’s ears, and remarkably
disagreeable to those of country gentlemen who are sleeping at the Hummums 7 for
the first time.
How does the writer use language to explain what the different types of
people do in London?
Answers
he Streets Of London by Charles Dickens [1836]
The appearance presented by the streets of London an hour before sunrise, on
a summer’s morning, is most striking even to the few whose unfortunate pursuits
of pleasure, or scarcely less unfortunate pursuits of business, cause them to be
well acquainted with the scene. There is an air of cold, solitary desolation 1 about
the noiseless streets which we are accustomed to see thronged at other times by 5
a busy, eager crowd, and over the quiet, closely-shut buildings, which throughout
the day are swarming with life and bustle, that is very impressive.
An hour wears away; the spires of the churches and roofs of the principal buildings
are faintly tinged with the light of the rising sun; and the streets, slowly and almost
unnoticeably, begin to resume their bustle and life. Market-carts roll slowly along: 10
the sleepy waggoner 2 impatiently urging on his tired horses, or vainly trying to
awaken the boy, who, luxuriously stretched on the top of the fruit-baskets, forgets,
in happy oblivion 3 , his long-cherished curiosity to behold the wonders of London.
Rough, sleepy-looking animals of strange appearance, something between ostlers 4 15
and hackney-coachmen 5 , begin to take down the shutters of early public-houses;
and little tables, with the ordinary preparations for a street breakfast, make their
appearance at the customary stations. Numbers of men and women (mainly the
latter), carrying upon their heads heavy baskets of fruit, toil down the park side of
Piccadilly, on their way to Covent-garden, and, following each other in rapid 20
succession, form a long straggling line from thence to the turn of the road at
Knightsbridge.
Here and there, a bricklayer’s labourer, with the day’s dinner tied up in a
handkerchief, walks briskly to his work, and occasionally a little knot of three or
four schoolboys on a stolen bathing expedition rattle merrily over the pavement, 25
their boisterous laughter contrasting forcibly with the appearance of the little sweep,
who, having knocked and rung till his arm aches, and being forbidden from
endangering his lungs by calling out, sits patiently down on the door-step, until the
housemaid may happen to awake.
Covent-garden market, and the avenues leading to it, are thronged with carts of 30
all sorts, sizes, and descriptions, from the heavy lumbering waggon, with its four
brave horses, to the jingling costermonger’s 6 cart, with its wheezing donkey.
The pavement is already strewed with decayed cabbage-leaves, broken hay-bands,
and all the indescribable litter of a vegetable market; men are shouting, carts
backing, horses neighing, boys fighting, basket-women talking, piemen announcing 35
the excellence of their pastry, and donkeys braying. These and a hundred other
sounds form a compound discordant enough to a Londoner’s ears, and remarkably
disagreeable to those of country gentlemen who are sleeping at the Hummums 7 for
the first time.
How does the writer use language to explain what the different types of
people do in London