avenue and the last possible avenue eastward, more deserving or
undeserving poverty has made itself seen and heard to my personal
knowledge than in Piccadilly, or the streets of Mayfair or Park Lane, or
the squares and places which are the London analogues of our best
residential quarters.

Of course, the statistics will probably be against me--I have often felt
an enmity in statistics--and I offer my observations as possibly
inexact. One can only be sure of one's own experience (even if one can
be sure of that), and I can do no more than urge a fact or two further
in behalf of my observations. After we returned to London, in September,
I used to stroll much among the recumbent figures of the unemployed on
the grass of Green Park, where, lulled by the ocean roar of the
omnibuses on Piccadilly, they drowsed away the hours of the autumnal
day. These fellow-men looked more interesting than they probably were,
either asleep or awake, and if I could really have got inside their
minds I dare say I should have been no more amused than if I had
penetrated the consciousness of as many people of fashion in the height
of the season. But what I wish to say is that, whether sleeping or
waking, they never, any of them, asked me for a penny, or in any wise
intimated a wish to divide my wealth with me. If I offered it myself, it
was another thing, and it was not refused to the extent of a shilling by
the good fellow whose conversation I bought one afternoon when I found
him, sitting up in his turfy bed, and mending his coat with needle and
thread. I asked him of the times and their badness, and I hope I left
him with the conviction that I believed him an artisan out of work,
taking his misfortune bravely. He was certainly cheerful, and we had
some agreeable moments, which I could not prolong, because I did not
like waking the others, or such of them as might be sleeping.