Page:Letters from England.djvu/80

 railway lines, clayey patches of waste ground, storehouses for goods and storehouses for human beings. There are assuredly uglier quarters and squalider streets in all parts of the world; even squalor is here on a higher level, and the poorest beggar is not clad in rags; but, good heavens! the human beings, the millions of human beings who live in this greater half of London, in these short, uniform, joyless streets, which teem on the plan of London, like worms in a huge carrion.

And that is just the distressing thing about the East End—there is too much of it; and it cannot be re-shaped. Not even the devil as tempter would venture to say: If you will, I shall destroy this city, and in three days I will build it up anew—anew and better: not so grimy, not so mechanical, not so inhuman and bleak. If he were to say that, perhaps I would fall down and worship him. I wandered through streets whose names recall Jamaica, Canton, India or Peking; all are alike, in all the windows there are curtains; it might even look quite