If you flew over London you would see the city spread out below you.

There would be the

Monument, the tall buildings in the City, packed so closely together. Next, you will probably notice
the tall newspaper buildings in Fleet Street, and very soon afterwards the clock tower of the Palace
of Westminster which contains Big Ben. If your plane turned slightly northward at this point you
would fly over St. James's Park, Hyde Park, and later you will reach Kensington Gardens and the
densely populated area of Kensington.

I expect you'd think that London has very little pattern, because from the air you see a kind
of jig-saw picture in which the streets look tiny compared with the mass of buildings. And you'd be
right. London has no pattern because in the past it spread in every direction. One century has built
on the fields in the west, another to the south, yet another to the north and to the east.

But how dull it would be if every street were straight, if every open space were a square, and
if you knew exactly what you were going to find wherever you went. Fortunately, London is not
like that. It is a mixture of fine streets side by side with narrow courts and alleys of really old
buildings facing those built, so to say, the day before yesterday.

I'll tell you another curious fact about this town. Our ancestors were never careful how they
named their streets. You'll find quite a number of Charles Streets and Duke Street: Though recently
the authorities have tried to avoid the muddle this caused by renaming them: one Charles Street has
become Charles I Street, and the Duke Street has become Duke Street, St. James's.