elsewhere; for, to my mind, there is no country, no town, no village,
as there is no nation, no class of society, nor individual existence,
that has not its own deep and peculiar significance, its own unique
and personal characteristics that distinguish it from the rest of
the world.

SERANUS.




Crowded Out.


I am nobody. I am living in a London lodging-house. My room is up
three pair of stairs. I have come to London to sell or to part with
in some manner an opera, a comedy, a volume of verse, songs, sketches,
stories. I compose as well as write. I am ambitious. For the sake of
another, one other, I am ambitious. For myself it does not matter.
If nobody will discover me I must discover myself. I must demand
recognition, I must wrest attention, they are my due. I look from my
window over the smoky roofs of London. What will it do for me, this
great cold city? It shall hear me, it shall pause for a moment, for
a day, for a year. I will make it to listen to me, to look at me. I
have left a continent behind, I have crossed a great water; I have
incurred dangers, trials of all kinds; I have grown pale and thin
with labor and the midnight oil; I have starved, and watched the
dawn break starving; I have prayed on my stubborn knees for death
and I have prayed on my stubborn knees for life--all that I might
reach London, London that has killed so many of my brothers, London