And I gaze at
the policeman on his beat and pity him for the dead routine in which he
stalks, seldom varied by the sordid capture of a starving cracksman, or
the triumphant seizure of an unmuzzled dog. The boys selling evening
papers seem to me imps of desolation, screaming through life aimlessly
for halfpence; and the cabmen, creatures driving for ever to stations,
yet never able to get into the wide world. And yet they are all living,
Julian; that is the thing: all having their experiences, all in strong
touch with humanity. The newspaper-boy has got his flower-girl to give
him grimy kisses; and the cabman is proud of the shine on his harness;
and the soldier glories in his military faculty of seduction, and in
his quick capacity for getting drunk in the glittering gin-palace at the
corner of the street; and the policeman hopes to take some one up, and to
be praised by a magistrate; and in those houses opposite intrigues are
going on, and jealousy is being born, and men and women are quarrelling
over trifles and making it up again, and children--what matter if
legitimate or illegitimate?--are cooing and crying, and boys are waking
to the turmoil of manhood, and girls are dreaming of the things they dare
not pretend to know.
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