An Artist's Reminiscences Walter Crane

Our marriage was at last fixed for the following September — the 6th, Mrs. Andrews and her daughters taking up their abode some weeks before in Chandos Street, as the destined temple was All Souls', Langham Place — commonly known as the "extinguisher" church, from its peculiar plain conical spire.

I had duly paid my visit to an old gentleman seated in a dingy office in Doctors' Commons, to whose presence I was conducted, feeling rather nervous, by one of the harmless necessary ticket porters in a little white apron, as described by Dickens. There I duly took a solemn oath, and secured (for a trifling consideration) that priceless and momentous document, a marriage license. There were wedding breakfasts in those days, and even speeches, — but all was over at last, and escaping from the friendly shower of shoes and rice, we were soon rumbling through darkest London in a brougham and tell-tale pair of greys to Liverpool Street Station. Somewhere in the wilds of the City one of our horses fell, and we were soon surrounded by a grinning London crowd, some members of which, however, lent willing hands to get the horse up, and this at last accomplished, presented themselves at the carriage window for tips.

We had planned an extensive tour to Italy by way of the Rhine and the Brenner Pass, but the journey was to be taken in easy stages. The little green books of tickets, from Messrs. Cook's at that time modest office in Fleet Street, allowed for plenty of stoppages on our honeymoonpilgrimage to Rome. We went by way of Harwich and Antwerp, but rested at Harwich the first night or two, and took the night boat on the 9th, and after a calm passage experienced the feeling of delightful strangeness of being in foreign parts on steaming up the Scheldt to Antwerp in the morning, and leaning out of our hotel casement to gaze across the Place de I'Europe to the Cathedral tower, rich with the fantasy of the later Gothic time and instinct with the feeling of Flemish art.