The number of these
and their dinginess and poverty increased, and here rose a great public
house and here a Board School and there a gaunt factory; and away to the
east there loomed for a time a queer, incongruous forest of masts and
spars. The congestion of houses intensified and piled up presently into
tenements; I marveled more and more at this boundless world of dingy
people; whiffs of industrial smell, of leather, of brewing, drifted into
the carriage; the sky darkened, I rumbled thunderously over bridges,
van-crowded streets, peered down on and crossed the Thames with an
abrupt eclat of sound. I got an effect of tall warehouses, of grey
water, barge crowded, of broad banks of indescribable mud, and then
I was in Cannon Street Station--a monstrous dirty cavern with trains
packed across its vast floor and more porters standing along the
platform than I had ever been in my life before. I alighted with my
portmanteau and struggled along, realising for the first time just how
small and weak I could still upon occasion feel. In this world, I felt,
an Honours medal in Electricity and magnetism counted for nothing at
all.
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