off your head." It was a kind of a dance.
They held out their arms for you to pass under, and when they came to "Here
comes a chopper to chop off your head" they brought their arms down and
caught you. It was just names of churches. All the London churches were in
it -- all the principal ones, that is.'
Winston wondered vaguely to what century the church belonged. It was
always difficult to determine the age of a London building. Anything large
and impressive, if it was reasonably new in appearance, was automatically
claimed as having been built since the Revolution, while anything that was
obviously of earlier date was ascribed to some dim period called the Middle
Ages. The centuries of capitalism were held to have produced nothing of any
value. One could not learn history from architecture any more than one
could learn it from books. Statues, inscriptions, memorial stones, the
names of streets -- anything that might throw light upon the past had been
systematically altered.
'I never knew it had been a church,' he said.
'There's a lot of them left, really,' said the old man, 'though
they've been put to other uses. Now, how did that rhyme go? Ah! I've got
it!
'Oranges and lemons,' say the bells of St. Clement's,
'You owe me three farthings,' say the bells of St. Martin's--
there, now, that's as far as I can get. A farthing, that was a small copper
coin, looked something like a cent.'
'Where was St. Martin's?' said Winston.