lass, browbeaten by stone, smothered by smoke,
but that he all but seems to me, this little Broadway man, to be
slipping off the planet, to barely belong to the planet. I feel like
clutching at him, helping him to hold on, pitying him. Then I remember
how it really is (if there is any pitying to be done),--this
crowded-over, crowded-off, matter-cringing, callous-looking man, pities
me.

When I was coming home from New York the last time, had reached a safe
distance behind my engine, out in the fields, I found myself listening
all over again to the roar (saved up in me) of the great city. I tried
to make it out, tried to analyse what it was that the voice of the great
city said to me. "The voice of the city is the Voice of Things," my soul
said to me. "And the Man?" I said, "where does the Man come in? Are not
the Things for the Man?" Then the roar of the great city rose up about
me, like a flood, swallowed my senses in itself, numbed and overbore me,
swooned my soul in itself, and said: "NO, THE THINGS ARE NOT FOR THE
MAN. THE MAN IS FOR THE THINGS."

This is what the great city said. And while I still listened, the roar
broke over me once more with its NO! NO! NO! its million voices in it,
its million souls in it. All doubts and fears and hates and cries, all
deadnesses flowed around me, took possession of me.

Then I remembered the iron and wood faces of the men, great processions
of them, I had seen there, the strange, protected-looking, boxed-in
faces of the women, faces in crates, I had seen, and I understood. "New
York," I said, "is a huge war, a great battle numbered off in streets
and houses, every man against every man, every man a shut-in,
self-defended man. It is a huge lamp-lighted, sun-lighted, ceaseless
struggle, day unto day."

"But New York is not the world. Try the whole world," said my soul to
me. "Perhaps you can do better. Are there not churches, men-making,
men-gathering places, oases for strength and rest in it?"

Then I went to all the churches in the land at once, of a still Sabbath
morning, steeples in the fields and hills, and steeples in cities. The
sound of splendid organs praying for the poor emptied people, the long,
still, innumerable sound of countless collections being taken, the drone
and seesaw of sermons, countless sermons! (Ah, these poor helpless
Sundays!) Paper-philosophy and axioms. Chimes of bells to call the
people to paper-philosophy and axioms! "Canst thou not," said I to