Page:Gissing - Workers in the Dawn, vol. I, 1880.djvu/19

Rh clean animals would shun, to derive their joys from sources from which a cultivated mind shrinks as from a pestilential vapour. And can we console ourselves with the reflection that they do not feel their misery?

Well, this is the Whitecross Street of today; but it is in this street rather more than twenty years ago that my story opens. There is not much difference between now and then, except that the appearance of the shops is perhaps improved, and the sanitary condition of the neighbourhood a trifle more attended to; the description, on the whole, may remain unaltered.

It was about half-past ten on a Saturday night, towards the close of November. All day long it had been snowing, but the snow had melted as it reached the ground, forming endless puddles of mire, into which the unceasing tramp of the crowd had trodden all manner of refuse from the market-stalls, till the whole street reeked with foul odours. Amid the throng, about half-way up the street, we notice a figure presenting a striking contrast to its surroundings. It is that of a gentleman, apparently some five and thirty years old, wearing the habit of a clergyman, and who, judging from the glances he casts on either side as he with difficulty makes his way through the noisome crowd, is very far from at home amid such flights and sounds. His face, which was