here to do something, and do something I will!"

But I felt that for the moment I could not remain in the House.

I went out by myself with my thoughts into the night. It was a
chilling night, and rare spots of rain were falling. I glanced over
my shoulder at the lit windows of the Lords. I walked, I remember,
westward, and presently came to the Grosvenar Embankment and
followed it, watching the glittering black rush of the river and the
dark, dimly lit barges round which the water swirled. Across the
river was the hunched sky-line of Doulton's potteries, and a kiln
flared redly. Dimly luminous trams were gliding amidst a dotted
line of lamps, and two little trains crawled into Waterloo station.
Mysterious black figures came by me and were suddenly changed to the
commonplace at the touch of the nearer lamps. It was a big confused
world, I felt, for a man to lay his hands upon.

I remember I crossed Vauxhall Bridge and stood for a time watching
the huge black shapes in the darkness under the gas-works. A shoal
of coal barges lay indistinctly on the darkly shining mud and water
below, and a colossal crane was perpetually hauling up coal into
mysterious blacknesses above, and dropping the empty clutch back to
the barges. Just one or two minute black featureless figures of men
toiled amidst these monster shapes. They did not seem to be
controlling them but only moving about among them. These gas-works
have a big chimney that belches a lurid flame into the night, a
livid shivering bluish flame, shot with strange crimson streaks. . . .

On the other side of Lambeth Bridge broad stairs go down to the
lapping water of the river; the lower steps are luminous under the