182 FRESH FIELDS 



presence of such an enormous aggregate of human- 

 ity as London shows, for thinking of insects. Men 

 and women seem cheapened and belittled, as if the 

 spawn of blow-flies had turned to human beings. 

 How the throng stream on interminably, the streets 

 like river-beds, full to their banks! One hardly 

 notes the units, he sees only the black tide. He 

 loses himself, and becomes an insignificant ant with 

 the rest. He is borne along through the galleries 

 and passages to the underground railway, and is 

 swept forward like a drop in the sea. I used to 

 make frequent trips to the country, or seek out 

 some empty nook in St. Paul's, to come to my 

 senses. But it requires no ordinary effort to find 

 one's self in St, Paul's, and in the country you 

 must walk fast or London will overtake you. When 

 I would think I had a stretch of road all to myself, 

 a troop of London bicyclists would steal up behind 

 me and suddenly file by like spectres. The whole 

 land is London-struck. You feel the suction of 

 the huge city wherever you are. It draws like a 

 cyclone ; every current tends that way. It would 

 seem as if cities and towns were constantly breaking 

 from their moorings and drifting thitherward and 

 joining themselves to it. On every side one finds 

 smaller cities welded fast. It spreads like a malig- 

 nant growth, that involves first one organ and then 

 another. But it is not malignant. On the con- 

 trary, it is perhaps as normal and legitimate a city 

 as there is on the globe. It is the proper outcome 

 and expression of that fertile and bountiful land, 



