ep of it. Pull down every house and shop, and still Oxford Street
could never pass itself off as Barking Road. But they have, too, a
message for you. I still believe that a black dog is waiting to maul me
in Stepney Causeway. I still dance with delight down Holborn. Peckham
Road still speaks to me of love. And Maida Vale always means music for
me, music all the way. I had my first fright in Stepney Causeway. I
first walked down Holborn when I had had a streak of luck. I first knew
Peckham Road when first I loved. And I first made acquaintance with
Maida Vale and its daintily naughty flats at the idiotic age of
seventeen, when I was writing verses for composers at five shillings a
time. They all lived in Maida Vale, and I spent many evenings in the
music-rooms of those worn-out or budding composers and singers who, with
the Jews, have made this district their own; so that Maida Vale smells
always to me of violets and apple-blossom: it speaks April and May. The
deep blue of its night skies is spangled with dancing stars. The very
sweep and sway of the road to Kilburn and Cricklewood is an ecstasy, and
the windows of the many mansions seem to shine from heaven, so aloof are
they.

Surbiton, I repeated. I shall certainly not go. I know it too well.
Surbiton is one of those comfortable, solid places, and I loathe
comfortable places. I always go to Hastings and avoid St. Leonards. I
always go to Margate and fly from Eastbourne. I always go to Southend
and give Knocke-sur-Mer a miss. I like Clacton. I detest Cromer. I love
Camden Town. I hate Surbiton. Surbiton is very much like Hampstead,
except that, while Hampstead is horrible for 362 days of the year,
there are three days in the year when it is inhabitable. On Bank
Holidays the simple-minded minor poet like myself can live in it. I was
there one August Bank Holiday, and, flushed and fatigued with the
full-blooded frolic, I had turned aside to "cool dahn" in Heath Street,
when I ran against some highly respectable and intelligent friends.

"What!" they said. "You here to-day? Ah! observing, I suppose? Getting
copy? Or perhaps as a literary man you come here for Keats ... Coleridge
... and all that?"

"No," I answered. "I come here for boatswings. I come here to throw
sticks at coconuts. I come here to buy ticklers to tickle the girls
with. I come here for halfpenny skips. I come here for donkey rides. I
do not come for Keats. I do not care a damn for Coleridge. I do not c