Red Roofs of London 



horses in the waggons of London streets convey the 

 idea of strength, so the endlessness of the view 

 conveys the idea of a mass of life. Life converges 

 from every quarter. The iron way has many ruts: 

 the rails are its ruts; and by each of these a cease- 

 less stream of men and women pours over the tiled 

 roofs into London. They come from the populous 

 suburbs, from far-away towns and quiet villages, and 

 from over sea. 



Glance down as you pass into the excavations, the 

 streets, beneath the red surface: you catch a glimpse 

 of men and women hastening to and fro, of vehicles, 

 of horses struggling with mighty loads, of groups at 

 the corners, and fragments, as it were, of crowds. 

 Busy life everywhere: no stillness, no quiet, no 

 repose. Life crowded and crushed together; life 

 that has hardly room to live. If the train slackens, 

 look in at the open windows of the houses level with 

 the line they are always open for air, smoke-laden 

 as it is and see women and children with scarce 

 room to move, the bed and the dining-table in the 

 same apartment. For they dine and sleep and work 

 and play all at the same time. A man works at 

 night and sleeps by day: he lies yonder as calmly 

 as if in a quiet country cottage. The children have 

 no place to play in but the living-room or the street. 

 It is not squalor it is crowded life. The people 

 are pushed together by the necessities of existence. 

 These people have no dislike to it at all: it is right 

 enough to them, and so long as business is brisk they 

 are happy. The man who lies sleeping so calmly 

 seems to me to indicate the immensity of the life 

 around more than all the rest. He is oblivious of it 

 all; it does not make him nervous or wakeful; he is 

 so used to it, and bred to it, that it seems to him 

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