Metropolis--a snorting, sliding, impatient fleet of vehicles
perpetually on their way, yet never seeming to get there. Taxi-cabs
hugged the pavements, trying to penetrate the gloom with their meagre
lights; omnibuses fretted and bullied their way, avoiding collision by
inches, but struggling on and on as though their very existence
depended on their reaching some place immediately or being interned for
failure. Hansom-cabs, with ancient, glistening horses driven by
ancient, glistening cabbies, felt for elbow-space in the throng of
motor-vehicles. And on all sides the badinage of the streets, the
eternal wordy conflict of London's mariners of traffic, rose in
cheerful, insulting abundance.

On the pavements pedestrians jostled each other--men with hands in
their pockets and arms tight to their sides, women with piqued noses
and hurrying steps; while sulky lamps offered half-hearted resistance
to the conquering fog that settled over palaces, parks, and motley
streets until it hugged the very Thames itself in unholy glee.

And through the impenetrable mist of circumstance, the millions of
souls that make up the great city pursued their millions of destinies,
undeterred by biting cold and grisly fog. For it was a day in the life
of England's capital; and every day there is a great human drama that
must be played--a drama mingling tragedy and humour with no regard to
values or proportion; a drama that does not end with death, but renews
its plot with the breaking of every dawn; a drama knowing neither
intermezzo nor respite: and the name of it is--LONDON.