Thackeray, William Makepeace, 1811-1863 / 2008-07-01 00:00:00

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CODLINGSBY.
BY D. SHREWSBERRY, ESQ.

I.

"The whole world is bound by one chain. In every city in the globe
there is one quarter that certain travellers know and recognize from
its likeness to its brother district in all other places where are
congregated the habitations of men. In Tehran, or Pekin, or Stamboul, or
New York, or Timbuctoo, or London, there is a certain district where a
certain man is not a stranger. Where the idols are fed with incense by
the streams of Ching-wang-foo; where the minarets soar sparkling above
the cypresses, their reflections quivering in the lucid waters of the
Golden Horn; where the yellow Tiber flows under broken bridges and over
imperial glories; where the huts are squatted by the Niger, under the
palm-trees; where the Northern Babel lies, with its warehouses, and its
bridges, its graceful factory-chimneys, and its clumsy fanes--hidden in
fog and smoke by the dirtiest river in the world--in all the cities of
mankind there is One Home whither men of one family may resort. Over the
entire world spreads a vast brotherhood, suffering, silent, scattered,
sympathizing, WAITING--an immense Free-Masonry. Once this world-spread
band was an Arabian clan--a little nation alone and outlying amongst the
mighty monarchies of ancient time, the Megatheria of history.
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