Thomas Burke 
Nights in Town 
A London Autobiography

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. For the few who have an eye for the beauty of townscapes, London by night is the loveliest thing in the world. Mantled always in her sombre mists and empanoplied by rude spears of brick, she sprawls her fierce carcass across the miles, superb as a wild animal. Nowhere else may the connoisseur find so much to enchant him. Only in the London night may he find so many vistas of sudden beauty, because London was never made: she has growed. Paris affords no townscapes: everything there is too perfectly arranged; its artificiality is at once apparent. In London alone he finds those fantastic groupings, those monstrous masses of light and shade and substance, handled with the diabolical cunning of Chance, the supreme artist.<br><br>Take London from whatever point you will and she will satisfy. For the rustic the fields of corn, the craggy mountain, the blossomy lane, or the rush of dark water through the greenwood.