Wilfred turned North at last into a side street to find another way home. Dark streets had a different sort of attraction. No doubt the black houses were just as full of tenants as the others, but here, people were not drawn to the windows, nor down-stairs to the forbidding sidewalks. Only a group of men was to be seen here and there, on the steps, or loitering half-concealed in a vestibule. Night-birds, Wilfred thought with an intense thrill; cutthroats. How stirring to think of men who were restrained by nothing! Through each house there ran a narrow arched passage to a yard in the rear, where there was always, he knew, a second house hidden from the street. There would be a gaslight in the yard, and you would get a glimpse of greenish flagstones. By day or by night these passages teased Wilfred; but he had never dared to enter. In such dens Oliver Twist had been taught to steal; Nancy Sikes had been choked by the brutal Bill. Wilfred soared like a bird. This was one of his “moments.” Why they came sometimes and not other times he did not know. His breast hummed like harpstrings. The seat of his intense feeling seemed to be somewhere at the back of his palate. It was almost the same as a pain, but it was rare! At such a moment nothing was changed; everything became more intensely itself. He was still Wilfred, but a Wilfred made universal. He entered into everything and became a part of it. At such a moment all tormenting questions were laid; it was sufficient that things were. Life was painted in such high colors that he was dazzled. The feeling of pain was due to the fact that he couldn’t take it all in. He had the actual sensations of soaring; he stretched his nostrils to get sufficient oxygen. Mixed with pure exaltation was the feeling: How wonderful of me to be feeling this way! Impressions were bitten into his consciousness as with an acid. That frowning perspective of the confined street with its different planes of blacknesses; granite paving stones, flagged sidewalks, brick tenements; the whole was like a dead scale upon the living earth, which nevertheless one apprehended quivering underfoot. It was there, though it was not seen, the fertile earth capable of bringing forth forests. At either end of the block an arc light casting its unnatural beams horizontally through, picking out the ash cans and empty boxes grouped along the curb in fantastic disorder. Everywhere the bold shadows, black and sinister. Whether beautiful or ugly, it thrilled him through and through. Half way through the block, the door of a closely shuttered place was thrown open, letting out a startling shaft of light and a babel of voices; then sharply pulled to again. Oh, life, how marvellous!