"I met a preacher there I knew, and said: 'Ill and o'erwork'd, how fare you in this scene?'-- 'Bravely!' said he; 'for I of late have been Much cheer'd with thoughts of Christ, _the living bread_.' "O human soul! as long as thou canst so Set up a mark of everlasting light, Above the howling senses' ebb and flow, To cheer thee, and to right thee if thou roam-- Not with lost toil thou labourest through the night! Thou mak'st the heaven thou hop'st indeed thy home." Toynbee Hall, of course, is of modern design; but there are still many good old-time houses in the East-end,--now deserted and left stranded by the tide of fashion. Of these is Essex House, in the Mile-End-Road, (opposite Burdett-Road), now no longer residential, but used by Mr. Ashbee as the convenient location for his well-known "Guild and School of Handicraft." Built partly by a pupil of Sir Christopher Wren, with panelled rooms, oak staircase, and large garden, its solid dignity is well suited to its new and living purpose. Mr. Ashbee,--the founder and moving spirit of the Guild--was himself a worker at Toynbee Hall, where, indeed, in a small "Ruskin class" held in 1886-7, the school had its beginning. So one thing grows out of another, and a sturdy plant sends out its offshoots. Thus Toynbee Hall, and kindred institutions, show the West-end in the East; now let us turn to the East-end in the West. This is not so difficult to find; "the poor," indeed, "we have always with us," and in some of London's most fashionable streets the saddest sights of all may be seen. Slums of a sort are to be found near most of the fashionable West-end squares; and, even within the precincts of aristocratic Mayfair, the expensive fish-shop in Bond-Street,--where, during long summer days, enormous blocks of ice, tempting to the eye, glitter like some Rajah's diamond,--entertains a motley crew of poor folk on Saturday nights, when it makes a practice of giving away its remaining stock. Bond Street is, in a manner, the "Aldgate High Street" of the fashionable world: here, at four o'clock or so in the afternoon, are to be seen the "gilded youth,"--the dandies of the day;--here the smart world flock for afternoon tea; and here fine ladies walk even unattended, and satisfy, as eagerly as their Whitechapel sisters, their feminine cravings for shop-windows. Who was it who first said that no real woman could ever pass a hat-shop? The truth of this remark may here be attested. The very smartest of motor-cars,--of horses,--of "turn-outs" generally,--may be seen blocking the narrow Piccadilly entrance of this thoroughfare from which deviates as many mysterious byways as from Cheapside itself. Very much sought after are all these tiny streets; indeed, the tide of fashion has been ever faithful to this special part of the metropolis. Did not Swift once write to "Stella," of the neighbouring Bury Street; "I have a first floor, a dining-room and bedroom, at eight shillings a