In two minutes from Piccadilly Circus I can be at will in France, in Germany, in Italy, or in Jerusalem. Even at the loneliest hour of the night I can have company to walk with; for in Bond Street I meet Colonel Newcome's stately figure, in Pall Mall I encounter Peregrine Pickle's new chariot and horses, by the Thames I find the skulking figures of Quilp and Rogue Riderhood, in Southwark I am with Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller, in Eastcheap with immortal Jack Falstaff, sententious Nym, blustering Pistol, and glow-nosed Bardolph.
With such companions at my side, I float on London's human tide; An atom on its billows thrown, But lonely never, nor alone.
In a hundred yards I may jostle an Archbishop of the Established Church, a Prostitute, a Poet, a victorious General, the Hero of the last football match, a Millionaire, a "wanted" Murderer, a bevy of famous Actresses, a Socialist Refugee from Spain or Italy, a tattooed South Sea Islander, a loose-breeched Man-o'-War's man from Japan, Armenians, Cretans, Greeks, Jews, Turks, and Clarionettes from Pudsey.
The mere picturesque externals suffice to entrance me; but the spell grips like a vice when I look closer and discriminate between the types.
Such a commodity of warm slaves has civilisation gathered here! Such a fascinating rabble of addle-pated toadies, muddy-souled bullies of the bagnio, trade-fallen prize-fighters, aristocratic and other drabs, card and billiard sharpers, discarded unjust serving-men, revolted tapsters, touting tipsters, police-court habitués, cut-purses, area sneaks, and general slum-scum; pimpled bookmakers, millionaire sweaters and their dissipated sons; jerry-builders, members of Parliament, phosy-jaw and lead poisoners; African diamond smugglers, peers on the make, long-nosed company promoters, and old clo' men; Stock Exchange tricksters, fraudulent patriotic contractors, earthworms and graspers; fog-brained and parchment-hearted crawlers, pigeons, rooks, hawks, vultures, and carrion crows; the cankers of a base city and a sordid age; the flunkeys, pimps, and panders of society; the pride and chivalry of Piccadilly; the carrion, maggots, and reptiles of an empire upon whose infamies the sun never wholly succeeds in hiding its blushing countenance.