Or my inclination may take me to the lower city. Like a poor starveling
I wander in the haunts of wealth where the buildings are piled to forty
stories, and I spin out the ciphers in my brain in an endeavor to compute
the amount that is laid up inside. Also, lest I become discontented with my
poverty, I note the strain and worry of the faces that I meet. There is a
story of Tolstoi in which a man is whispered by his god that he may possess
such land as he can circle in a day. Until that time he had been living on
a fertile slope of sun and shadow, with fields ample for his needs. But
when the whisper came, at a flash, he pelted off across the hills. He ran
all morning, but as the day advanced his sordid ambition broadened and he
turned his course into a wider and still wider circle. Here a pleasant
valley tempted him and he bent his path to bring it inside his mark. Here
a fruitful upland led him off. As the day wore on he ran with a greater
fierceness, because he knew he would lose everything if he did not reach
his starting place before the sun went down. The sun was coming near the
rim of earth when he toiled up the last hill. His feet were cut by stones,
his face pinched with agony. He staggered toward the goal and fell across
it while as yet there was a glint of light. But his effort burst his heart.
Does the analogy hold on these narrow streets? To a few who sit in an inner
office, Mammon has made a promise of wealth and domination. These few run
breathless to gain a mountain. But what have the gods whispered to the ten
thousand who sit in the outer office, that they bend and blink upon their
ledgers? Have the gods whispered to them the promise of great wealth? Alas,
before them there lies only the dust and heat of a level road, yet they too
are broken at the sunset.

Less oppressive are the streets where commerce is more apparent. Here,
unless you would be smirched, it is necessary to walk fast and hold your
coat-tails in. Packing cases are going down slides. Bales are coming up in