"That," said I, nodding wisely, "is the Voice of the City."




II

THE COMPLETE LIFE OF JOHN HOPKINS


There is a saying that no man has tasted the full flavour of life
until he has known poverty, love and war. The justness of this
reflection commends it to the lover of condensed philosophy. The
three conditions embrace about all there is in life worth knowing. A
surface thinker might deem that wealth should be added to the list.
Not so. When a poor man finds a long-hidden quarter-dollar that has
slipped through a rip into his vest lining, he sounds the pleasure of
life with a deeper plummet than any millionaire can hope to cast.

It seems that the wise executive power that rules life has thought
best to drill man in these three conditions; and none may escape all
three. In rural places the terms do not mean so much. Poverty is less
pinching; love is temperate; war shrinks to contests about boundary
lines and the neighbors' hens. It is in the cities that our epigram
gains in truth and vigor; and it has remained for one John Hopkins to
crowd the experience into a rather small space of time.

The Hopkins flat was like a thousand others. There was a rubber plant
in one window; a flea-bitten terrier sat in the other, wondering when
he was to have his day.