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The best of cities, the worst of cities 这是最好的城市，也是最坏的城市 The capital as inspiration for novelists 首都伦敦，小说家灵感之源 London is a great cesspool into which the loungersand idlers of life irresistibly drain, wrote ArthurConan Doyle in one of his Sherlock Holmes stories.But it has proved to be a fertile dumping ground, an inspiration for each generation ofnovelist and every genre of fiction. 亚瑟柯南道尔在一集福尔摩斯故事中写道，伦敦是个污水坑，不可避免地集聚了游手好闲，无所事事的懒汉。但伦敦也是块相当肥沃的垃圾场，每一代小说家，每一种小说体裁都从中汲取着灵感。 The capital s most famous and still unparalleled chronicler is Charles Dickens. His template forthe London novel has never dated, flinging together characters from every walk of life intodazzling, swarming, state-of-the city narratives. In his London the rich cannot escape thepoor, and the do-gooders and swindlers quaff ale elbow-to-elbow. The inanimate actorsare as vivid as the living: the miserable workhouse that harboured Oliver Twist is no lesslegendary than the poor, begging boy himself or his criminal chum, the Artful Dodger; thesooty spectre of fog coloured the capital s image long after the industrial pea-soupers haddisappeared. | 
