Steam as thick as porridge blankets New London year-round, billowing from towering chimneys along the Thames and factories where gears grind together, staining the sky a leaden gray that never lifts. It is the pulse of the Empire, and the sigh of civilization. On the streets, gas lamps flicker to life at dusk, casting swaying pools of yellow light. Gentlemen lean on their canes, ladies rustle past in their skirts, chatting about the latest plays or stock prices. Everything is orderly, as if human reason and the might of industry have thoroughly tamed nature. Yet everyone who lives here knows without saying it: perhaps the clamor of steam is merely meant to drown out other, deeper, more unsettling “voices.”
