"
As I stole through the heavy fog I thought, "Now, what business had I
there? If my mother had seen that wretched servant girl brushing my hair
the old lady would have died--I, the child of many prayers, the hope of
a house, and stumping home on a foggy morning after sitting among the
scum of earth all night. I mean to be a philosopher, but what a beastly,
silly school to cultivate political philosophy in! What do I know more
than I knew before?--that one vulgar girl maintains three vulgar
criminals, and that all the four will come whining to the workhouse when
the game is played out and they can rob no one else. They are creatures
whose vices and idleness and general villany are engendered amid drink.
They are the foul fungi that fatten on the walls of the public-house;
that is all. And I have given them more drink only to see them plan a
robbery. Seventy thousand of them in London? Yes. But supposing a few
thousands of _us_, instead of being indifferent, instead of 'exploring'
in my harum-scarum way, go to work and try to give these creatures a
chance of living human lives? What then? Would Blackey or the girl or
the wicked old folk have gone to the bar and eaten away their morality
with alcohol if they had not been driven out by the stinking dulness of
that kitchen? I don't know.
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