Sketches by Boz, Illustrative of Every-Day Life and Every-Day PeopleDickens, Charles
General
Sketches by Boz, Illustrative of Every-Day Life and Every-Day People
Dickens, Charles
London (England) -- Social life and customs -- 19th century; London (England) -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
It is strange with how little notice, good, bad, or indifferent, a man
may live and die in London. He awakens no sympathy in the breast of any
single person; his existence is a matter of interest to no one save
himself; he cannot be said to be forgotten when he dies, for no one
remembered him when he was alive. There is a numerous class of people
in this great metropolis who seem not to possess a single friend, and
whom nobody appears to care for. Urged by imperative necessity in the
first instance, they have resorted to London in search of employment,
and the means of subsistence. It is hard, we know, to break the ties
which bind us to our homes and friends, and harder still to efface the
thousand recollections of happy days and old times, which have been
slumbering in our bosoms for years, and only rush upon the mind, to
bring before it associations connected with the friends we have left,
the scenes we have beheld too probably for the last time, and the hopes
we once cherished, but may entertain no more. These men, however,
happily for themselves, have long forgotten such thoughts. Old country
friends have died or emigrated; former correspondents have become lost,
like themselves, in the crowd and turmoil of some busy city; and they
have gradually settled down into mere passive creatures of habit and
endurance.
We were seated in the enclosure of St. James’s Park the other day, when
our attention was attracted by a man whom we immediately put down in
our own mind as one of this class. He was a tall, thin, pale person, in
a black coat, scanty gray trousers, little pinched-up gaiters, and
brown beaver gloves. He had an umbrella in his hand—not for use, for
the day was fine—but, evidently, because he always carried one to the
office in the morning. He walked up and down before the little patch of
grass on which the chairs are placed for hire, not as if he were doing
it for pleasure or recreation, but as if it were a matter of
compulsion, just as he would walk to the office every morning from the
back settlements of Islington. It was Monday; he had escaped for
four-and-twenty hours from the thraldom of the desk; and was walking
here for exercise and amusement—perhaps for the first time in his life.
We were inclined to think he had never had a holiday before, and that
he did not know what to do with himself. Children were playing on the
grass; groups of people were loitering about, chatting and laughing;
but the man walked steadily up and down, unheeding and unheeded his
spare, pale face looking as if it were incapable of bearing the
expression of curiosity or interest.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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