I saw that we have still to discover government,
that we have still to discover education, which is the necessary
reciprocal of government, and that all this--in which my own little
speck of a life was so manifestly overwhelmed--this and its yesterday
in Greece and Rome and Egypt were nothing, the mere first dust swirls
of the beginning, the movements and dim murmurings of a sleeper who will
presently be awake....'
Section 7
And then the story tells, with an engaging simplicity, of his descent
from this ecstatic vision of reality.
'Presently I found myself again, and I was beginning to feel cold and a
little hungry.'
He bethought himself of the John Burns Relief Offices which stood upon
the Thames Embankment. He made his way through the galleries of the
booksellers and the National Gallery, which had been open continuously
day and night to all decently dressed people now for more than twelve
years, and across the rose-gardens of Trafalgar Square, and so by the
hotel colonnade to the Embankment. He had long known of these admirable
offices, which had swept the last beggars and matchsellers and all the
casual indigent from the London streets, and he believed that he would,
as a matter of course, be able to procure a ticket for food and a
night's lodgings and some indication of possible employment.
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