All in a garden fair; the simple story of three boys ... - University Library

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ALL LV A GARDEX FAIR,
]\\m ; ^vlK•ll lie walked, or rciul, or sat at work,
these fixccs were always looking upon liini.
There were millions of them- -two millions— as
nearly as he could count—and he seemed to
know them all. They were all difTercnt, yet all
alike in one respect, that they were all faces
which lacked something. There was no hap-
piness in them ; they were dull, they had no
sunshine in them; they bore no secret fountains
of joy beneath them, they wanted hope. They
were ignorant faces. As Allen looked on them
he was seized with terror, for he saw before
him the whole of East London—the mighty
City, the neglected City, the joyless City, the
City of the baser sort, and he trembled. If the
vision of the multitudinous face, this troubled
and turbid (^)cean of heavy brows and dull,
disappointed eyes, had continued, I think the
young man would have gone mad ;
but pre-
sently there came lelief when that thing
happened to him, which has also happened to
Shakespeare, Victor Hugo, Hood, and many
others. Out of the faces, out of the nudtitudes