I am the only man in London who is not quite decided. Everyone else has fully made up his mind and knows exactly what he is going to do. They come along the pavement in the Strand, one after the other, thicker than a crowd, for that is all bunched up together, but these march in ceaseless succession hour by hour. They are all going somewhere. All have got something to do. Upon their faces there is a set determination to get there and do it: each pushes past the other. If one hesitates a moment to glance at a window another seizes the opportunity to slip ahead. Someone is always waiting to slip by some-body; someone is always overtaking someone. Very little pushing, no jostling, simply moving on, bent on the execution of the business in hand. Everyone stern, serious, rapt in the duty of hastening onwards.

It makes me feel little. I look in the faces and can get no consolation, for they are all so thoroughly convinced; without a doubt, on they go. They have ‘learned at the school’, they have acquired a fixed knowledge, they have judged this life and the world and are firm of opinion. They know they are right, and that there is nothing else, or more possible, and on they go.

As I walk the pressure of this silent but immense energy around begins to fill me with all manner of difficulties. I came up to Town to purchase a small article in Piccadilly, and it seemed when I started very reasonable to go direct to the warehouse or manufactory for it. But ought I to have come at all? How very little and despicable my paltry object beside this stream of determined people bent on matters of consequence. I ought to have work at home, or I ought to enter an office or go down on the Docks if I can do nothing else and help unload the vessels. Something real, tangible, work in short, to hasten to and fro. To spend the money on a railway ticket was waste: it ought to have been put in the savings bank. I could have walked so short a distance. Had I not better go home as it is, and set to do something?