200 BRITISH FERTILITY. 



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 under- 

 ground railway, and is swept forward like a drop in 

 the sea. I used to make frequent trips to the coun- 

 try, or seek out some empty nook in St. Paul's, to 

 come to my senses. But it requires no ordinary ef- 

 fort to find one's self in St. Paul's, and in the coun- 

 try 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 contrary, 

 it is perhaps as normal and legitimate a city as there 

 is on the globe. It is the proper outcome and ex- 

 pression of that fertile and bountiful land, and that 

 hardy, multiplying race. It seems less the result of 

 trade and commerce, and more the result of the do- 



