As I put on my thick boots and old hat and prepared myself for a thorough wetting, I felt as though at last I had hit upon the right plan. Violent exercise was needed, and then inspiration might come. Inspiration would come the sooner if I could divest myself from all effort in searching for it. I would take my walk and employ my mind, simply, in observing the world around me. For some distance there was but little of the world to observe. I was lodging at this period in a quiet and eligible street not far from Theobald’s Road. Thence my way lay through Bloomsbury Square, Russell Square, and Gower Street, and as I went I found the pavement to be almost deserted. The thick soft rain came down, not with a splash and various currents, running off and leaving things washed though wet, but gently insinuating itself everywhere, and covering even the flags with mud. I cared nothing for the mud. I went through it all with a happy scorn for the poor creatures who were endeavouring to defend their clothes with umbrellas. “Let the heavens do their worst to me,” I said to myself as I spun along with eager steps; and I was conscious of a feeling that external injuries could avail me nothing if I could only cure the weakness that was within. The Park too was nearly empty. No place in London is ever empty now, but thirty years ago the population was palpably thinner. I had not come out, however, to find a crowd. A damp boy sweeping a crossing, or an old woman trying to sell an apple, was sufficient to fill my mind with thoughts as to the affairs of my fellow-creatures. Why should it have been allotted to that old woman to sit there, placing all her hopes on the chance sale of a few apples, the cold rain entering her very bones and driving rheumatism into all her joints, while another old woman, of whom I had read a paragraph that morning, was appointed to entertain royalty, and go about the country with five or six carriages and four? Was there injustice in this,--and if so, whence had the injustice come? The reflection was probably not new; but, if properly thought out, might it not suffice for the one-and-twenty pages? “Sally Brown, the barrow-woman, _v._ the Duchess of ----!” Would it not be possible to make the two women plead against each other in some imaginary court of justice, beyond the limits of our conventional life,--some court in which the duchess should be forced to argue her own case, and in which the barrow-woman would decidedly get the better of her? If this could be done how happy would have been my walk through the mud and slush!