We talk of the Londoner and we firmly believe there is a Londoner: but there is none. If, in walking along the streets we open our eyes, if we search for him, we never meet him. We see men like Jews, men like Arviragus, men with a touch of the negro, costermongers with the heads of Julius Caesars, but the Londoner we never see—and the search is painful. An awakened sense of observation is in London bewildering and nerve-shattering, because there are so many things to see and because these things flicker by so quickly. We drop the search very soon. And these great crowds chill out of us the spirit of altruism itself, or make of that spirit a curse to us. Living in a small community we know each member of it. We can hope to help, or to be interested in, each man and woman that we meet on the roads, or we can at least pay to each one the tribute of a dislike. But that, in London, is hopeless. The most we can do is to like or dislike bodies of men. If we read the "Morning ———" we have a contempt for the readers of the "Daily ———", although we know personally no such reader. If we take so much interest in our town as to be Moderates—or the reverse—we may dislike our opponents. If we be working men we despise the professional classes and distrust all others. But the individual factor has gone and the power of the individual over the mass.
What prophet shall make London listen to him? Where is London's "distinguished fellow citizen?" These things are here unknown, and humanity, as the individual, suffers. Economically the city gains. Social
150
