Albert Memorial

Perhaps crushes would be the better verb, for the monstrous bone-gray mass towers above the terraced roofs of the port with an ascendancy as much moral as physical.

Yet for all its vastness and commanding situation, it is singularly lifeless, and only the trickery of a moonlit night can invest its mediocre Albert Memorial architecture with any trace of beauty.

The day begins slowly there, partly because this South Irish climate is such stuff as dreams are made of, partly because good old irreconcilables are suspicious of the daylight-saving law as a British measure.

There is little to be seen till near on ten o'clock.

Fifteen minutes later, we were standing on steps that were slippery with ice.

Behind us reared the tall, ornamented spire of the Albert Memorial and beyond the empty wastes of Hyde Park.

Across the road loomed the immense domed roundness of the Albert Hall.

We knew then where the trail had ended.

"Poor old tot," she said very slowly, and he kissed her on her veil over her cheek whilst he handed her into her coupe.

She waved her black-gloved fingers at him out of the passing window and, his hands behind his back, his shoulders square, and his face serious, tranquil, and expressing no emotion, he slowly continued his stroll towards the Albert Memorial.

He paused indeed to watch four sparrows hopping delicately on their mysterious errands, their heads erect through the grimy and long grass between the park railings and the path.

It appeared to him that they were going ironically through a set of lancers and the smallest of them, a paler-colored hen, might have been Pauline Lester.

It's a lovely sunny afternoon.

We're standing next to the Albert Memorial under a quite a large tree.

I could not confidently identify a lichen on this tree, but you're about to show me where it is.

If you look from a distance, you'll see all these fantastic colors and textures on the bark, and this surface that we have here is absolutely perfect for our lichens.

Two.

It was near the Albert Memorial that the great inspiration came to him some weeks later.

Those had been weeks of mingled hope and despair.

Of hope as he had fondled again his treasured books and read their titles, or gazed at the photograph of Mary.

Sometimes in the search for an idea he had frequented the restaurants where the great Samuel Johnson himself had eaten, and sometimes he had frequented other restaurants where even the great Samuel Johnson himself had been unable to eat.

Often he had gone into the British Museum and leant against a mummy case, or taken a bus to Chelsea and pressed his forehead against the brass plate which marked Carlyle's house, but no inspiration had come.

And then suddenly, quite close to the Albert Memorial, he knew.

He would write a novel about a boy called William who had lived in Cornwall and who came to London and wrote a novel, a novel of which the Westminster Gazette said, This novel undoubtedly places the author in the front rank of living novelists.

Go to Kensington Gardens.

There's the Albert Memorial.

And opposite, of course, the Royal Albert Hall.

Victoria and Albert.

And Albert himself, he was only forty-two.

That's worth remembering when you look at the memorials.

The Albert Hall, the Albert Memorial, the V&A, South Kensington.

All that stone and gold and terracotta and glass can make him seem like some ancient Victorian patriarch.

Two.

It was near the Albert Memorial that the great inspiration came to him some weeks later.

Those had been weeks of mingled hope and despair.

Of hope as he had fondled again his treasured books and read their titles, or gazed at the photograph of Mary.

Sometimes in the search for an idea he had frequented the restaurants where the great Samuel Johnson himself had eaten, and sometimes he had frequented other restaurants where even the great Samuel Johnson himself had been unable to eat.

Often he had gone into the British Museum and leant against a mummy case, or taken a bus to Chelsea and pressed his forehead against the brass plate which marked Carlyle's house, but no inspiration had come.

And then suddenly, quite close to the Albert Memorial, he knew.

He would write a novel about a boy called William who had lived in Cornwall and who came to London and wrote a novel, a novel of which the Westminster Gazette said, This novel undoubtedly places the author in the front rank of living novelists.

Two.

It was near the Albert Memorial that the great inspiration came to him some weeks later.

Those had been weeks of mingled hope and despair.

Of hope as he had fondled again his treasured books and read their titles, or gazed at the photograph of Mary.

Sometimes in the search for an idea he had frequented the restaurants where the great Samuel Johnson himself had eaten, and sometimes he had frequented other restaurants where even the great Samuel Johnson himself had been unable to eat.

Often he had gone into the British Museum and leant against a mummy case, or taken a bus to Chelsea and pressed his forehead against the brass plate which marked Carlyle's house, but no inspiration had come.

And then suddenly, quite close to the Albert Memorial, he knew.

He would write a novel about a boy called William who had lived in Cornwall and who came to London and wrote a novel, a novel of which the Westminster Gazette said, This novel undoubtedly places the author in the front rank of living novelists.

He knew well enough what he was doing and seeing, but inwardly he was literally blind.

Yesterday was left behind and forgotten like the Albert Memorial, and tomorrow was still as distant as the sea, if there were such things as tomorrow and the sea.

Meanwhile, what vivid miles of dazzling life, what a subtle autumn flavor in the air, how cool in the shadows, how warm in the sun! What a sparkling old river it was, to be sure! And yet, if those weren't the first of the autumn tints on the trees in Castle now! There went a funeral on its way to Mortlake.

The taxi overhauled it at a callous speed.