University of Virginia Library

THE MAN OF THE CROWD.

It was well said of a certain German book that “er lasst sich
nicht lesen”—it does not permit itself to be read. There are
some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told. Men die
nightly in their beds, wringing the hands of ghostly confessors,
and looking them piteously in the eyes—die with despair of heart
and convulsion of throat, on account of the hideousness of mysteries
which will not suffer themselves to be revealed. Now and
then, alas, the conscience of man takes up a burthen so heavy in
horror that it can be thrown down only into the grave. And thus
the essence of all crime is undivulged.

Not long ago, about the closing in of an evening in autumn, I
sat at the large bow window of the D—Coffee-House in London.
For some months I had been ill in health, but was now
convalescent, and, with returning strength, found myself in one
of those happy moods which are so precisely the converse of ennui—moods
of the keenest appetency, when the film from the
mental vision departs—the αχλυς οσ πριν επηεν —and the intellect,
electrified, surpasses as greatly its every-day condition, as does
the vivid yet candid reason of Leibnitz, the mad and flimsy
rhetoric of Gorgias. Merely to breathe was enjoyment; and I derived
positive pleasure even from many of the legitimate sources of
pain. I felt a calm but inquisitive interest in every thing. With
a cigar in my mouth and a newspaper in my lap, I had been
amusing myself for the greater part of the afternoon, now in

poring over advertisements, now in observing the promiscuous
company in the room, and now in peering through the smoky
panes into the street.

This latter is one of the principal thoroughfares of the city,
and had been very much crowded during the whole day. But,
as the darkness came on, the throng momently increased; and, by
the time the lamps were well lighted, two dense and continuous
tides of population were rushing past the door. At this particular
period of the evening I had never before been in a similar situation,
and the tumultuous sea of human heads filled me, therefore,
with a delicious novelty of emotion. I gave up, at length,
all care of things within the hotel, and became absorbed in contemplation
of the scene without.

At first my observations took an abstract and generalizing
turn. I looked at the passengers in masses, and thought of them
in their aggregate relations. Soon, however, I descended to details,
and regarded with minute interest the innumerable varieties
of figure, dress, air, gait, visage, and expression of countenance.

By far the greater number of those who went by had a satisfied
business-like demeanor, and seemed to be thinking only of
making their way through the press. Their brows were knit,
and their eyes rolled quickly; when pushed against by fellow-wayfarers
they evinced no symptom of impatience, but adjusted
their clothes and hurried on. Others, still a numerous class,
were restless in their movements, had flushed faces, and talked
and gesticulated to themselves, as if feeling in solitude on account
of the very denseness of the company around. When impeded
in their progress, these people suddenly ceased muttering, but redoubled
their gesticulations, and awaited, with an absent and
overdone smile upon the lips, the course of the persons impeding
them. If jostled, they bowed profusely to the jostlers, and appeared
overwhelmed with confusion.—There was nothing very
distinctive about these two large classes beyond what I have noted.
Their habiliments belonged to that order which is pointedly termed
the decent. They were undoubtedly noblemen, merchants,
attorneys, tradesmen, stock-jobbers—the Eupatrids and the common-places
of society—men of leisure and men actively engaged

in affairs of their own—conducting business upon their own responsibility.
They did not greatly excite my attention.

The tribe of clerks was an obvious one and here I discerned
two remarkable divisions. There were the junior clerks of flash
houses—young gentlemen with tight coats, bright boots, well-oiled
hair, and supercilious lips. Setting aside a certain dapperness of
carriage, which may be termed deskism for want of a better
word, the manner of these persons seemed to me an exact facsimile
of what had been the perfection of bon ton about twelve or
eighteen months before. They wore the cast-off graces of the
gentry;—and this, I believe, involves the best definition of the
class.

The division of the upper clerks of staunch firms, or of the
“steady old fellows,” it was not possible to mistake. These
were known by their coats and pantaloons of black or brown,
made to sit comfortably, with white cravats and waistcoats, broad
solid-looking shoes, and thick hose or gaiters.—They had all
slightly bald heads, from which the right ears, long used to pen-holding,
had an odd habit of standing off on end. I observed
that they always removed or settled their hats with both hands,
and wore watches, with short gold chains of a substantial and
ancient pattern. Theirs was the affectation of respectability;—
if indeed there be an affectation so honorable.

There were many individuals of dashing appearance, whom I
easily understood as belonging to the race of swell pick-pockets,
with which all great cities are infested. I watched these gentry
with much inquisitiveness, and found it difficult to imagine how
they should ever be mistaken for gentlemen by gentlemen themselves.
Their voluminousness of wristband, with an air of excessive
frankness, should betray them at once.

The gamblers, of whom I descried not a few, were still more
easily recognisable. They wore every variety of dress, from
that of the desperate thimble-rig bully, with velvet waistcoat,
fancy neckerchief, gilt chains, and filagreed buttons, to that of
the scrupulously inornate clergyman, than which nothing could
be less liable to suspicion. Still all were distinguished by a certain
sodden swarthiness of complexion, a filmy dimness of eye,
and pallor and compression of lip, There were two other traits,

moreover, by which I could always detect them;—a guarded
lowness of tone in conversation, and a more than ordinary extension
of the thumb in a direction at right angles with the fingers.
—Very often, in company with these sharpers, I observed an
order of men somewhat different in habits, but still birds of a
kindred feather. They may be defined as the gentlemen who
live by their wits. They seem to prey upon the public in two
battalions—that of the dandies and that of the military men. Of
the first grade the leading features are long locks and smiles; of
the second frogged coats and frowns.

Descending in the scale of what is termed gentility, I found
darker and deeper themes for speculation. I saw Jew pedlars,
with hawk eyes flashing from countenances whose every other
feature wore only an expression of abject humility; sturdy professional
street beggars scowling upon mendicants of a better
stamp, whom despair alone had driven forth into the night for
charity; feeble and ghastly invalids, upon whom death had
placed a sure hand, and who sidled and tottered through the
mob, looking every one beseechingly in the face, as if in search
of some chance consolation, some lost hope; modest young girls
returning from long and late labor to a cheerless home, and
shrinking more tearfully than indignantly from the glances of
ruffians, whose direct contact, even, could not be avoided; women
of the town of all kinds and of all ages—the unequivocal
beauty in the prime of her womanhood, putting one in mind of
the statue in Lucian, with the surface of Parian marble, and the
interior filled with filth—the loathsome and utterly lost leper in
rags—the wrinkled, bejewelled and paint-begrimed beldame, making
a last effort at youth—the mere child of immature form, yet,
from long association, an adept in the dreadful coquetries of her
trade, and burning with a rabid ambition to be ranked the equal
of her elders in vice; drunkards innumerable and indescribable—
some in shreds and patches, reeling, inarticulate, with bruised
visage and lack-lustre eyes—some in whole although filthy
garments, with a slightly unsteady swagger, thick sensual lips,
and hearty-looking rubicund faces—others clothed in materials
which had once been good, and which even now were scrupulously
well brushed—men who walked with a more than naturally,

firm and springy step, but whose countenances were fearfully
pale, whose eyes hideously wild and red, and who clutched
with quivering fingers, as they strode through the crowd, at every
object which came within their reach; beside these, pie-men,
porters, coal-heavers, sweeps; organ-grinders, monkey-exhibiters
and ballad mongers, those who vended with those who sang;
ragged artizans and exhausted laborers of every description, and
all full of a noisy and inordinate vivacity which jarred discordantly
upon the ear, and gave an aching sensation to the eye.

As the night deepened, so deepened to me the interest of the
scene; for not only did the general character of the crowd materially
alter (its gentler features retiring in the gradual withdrawal
of the more orderly portion of the people, and its harsher
ones coming out into bolder relief, as the late hour brought forth
every species of infamy from its den,) but the rays of the gas-lamps,
feeble at first in their struggle with the dying day, had now
at length gained ascendancy, and threw over every thing a fitful
and garish lustre. All was dark yet splendid—as that ebony to
which has been likened the style of Tertullian.

The wild effects of the light enchained me to an examination of
individual faces; and although the rapidity with which the world
of light flitted before the window, prevented me from casting
more than a glance upon each visage, still it seemed that, in my
then peculiar mental state, I could frequently read, even in that
brief interval of a glance, the history of long years.

With my brow to the glass, I was thus occupied in scrutinizing
the mob, when suddenly there came into view a countenance
(that of a decrepid old man, some sixty-five or seventy years of
age,)—a countenance which at once arrested and absorbed my
whole attention, on account of the absolute idiosyncracy of its
expression. Any thing even remotely resembling that expression
I had never seen before. I well remember that my first thought,
upon beholding it, was that Retzch, had he viewed it, would have
greatly preferred it to his own pictural incarnations of the fiend.
As I endeavored, during the brief minute of my original survey,
to form some analysis of the meaning conveyed, there arose confusedly
and paradoxically within my mind, the ideas of vast mental
power, of caution, of penuriousness, of avarice, of coolness,

of malice, of blood-thirstiness, of triumph, of merriment, of excessive
terror, of intense—of supreme despair. I felt singularly
aroused, startled, fascinated. “How wild a history,” I said to
myself, “is written within that bosom!” Then came a craving
desire to keep the man in view—to know more of him. Hurriedly
putting on an overcoat, and seizing my hat and cane, I
made my way into the street, and pushed through the crowd in
the direction which I had seen him take; for he had already disappeared.
With some little difficulty I at length came within
sight of him, approached, and followed him closely, yet cautiously,
so as not to attract his attention.

I had now a good opportunity of examining his person. He
was short in stature, very thin, and apparently very feeble. His
clothes, generally, were filthy and ragged; but as he came, now
and then, within the strong glare of a lamp, I perceived that his
linen, although dirty, was of beautiful texture; and my vision deceived
me, or, through a rent in a closely-buttoned and evidently
second-handed roquelaire which enveloped him, I caught a glimpse
both of a diamond and of a dagger. These observations heightened
my curiosity, and I resolved to follow the stranger whithersoever
he should go.

It was now fully night-fall, and a thick humid fog hung over
the city, soon ending in a settled and heavy rain. This change
of weather had an odd effect upon the crowd, the whole of which
was at once put into new commotion, and overshadowed by a
world of umbrellas. The waver, the jostle, and the hum increased
in a tenfold degree. For my own part I did not much
regard the rain—the lurking of an old fever in my system rendering
the moisture somewhat too dangerously pleasant. Tying
a handkerchief about my mouth, I kept on. For half an hour
the old man held his way with difficulty along the great thoroughfare;
and I here walked close at his elbow through fear of
losing sight of him. Never once turning his head to look back,
he did not observe me. By and bye he passed into a cross
street, which, although densely filled with people, was not quite
so much thronged as the main one he had quitted. Here a
change in his demeanor became evident. He walked more slowly
and with less object than before—more hesitatingly. He crossed

and re-crossed the way repeatedly without apparent aim; and the
press was still so thick that, at every such movement, I was obliged
to follow him closely. The street was a narrow and long one,
and his course lay within it for nearly an hour, during which the
passengers had gradually diminished to about that number which
is ordinarily seen at noon in Broadway near the Park—so vast a
difference is there between a London populace and that of the
most frequented American city. A second turn brought us into
a square, brilliantly lighted, and overflowing with life. The old
manner of the stranger re-appeared. His chin fell upon his
breast, while his eyes rolled wildly from under his knit brows, in
every direction, upon those who hemmed him in. He urged his
way steadily and perseveringly. I was surprised, however, to
find, upon his having made the circuit of the square, that he turned
and retraced his steps. Still more was I astonished to see him
repeat the same walk several times—once nearly detecting me as
he came round with a sudden movement.

In this exercise he spent another hour, at the end of which we
met with far less interruption from passengers than at first. The
rain fell fast; the air grew cool; and the people were retiring to
their homes. With a gesture of impatience, the wanderer passed
into a bye-street comparatively deserted. Down this, some quarter
of a mile long, he rushed with an activity I could not have
dreamed of seeing in one so aged, and which put me to much
trouble in pursuit. A few minutes brought us to a large and
busy bazaar, with the localities of which the stranger appeared
well acquainted, and where his original demeanor again became
apparent, as he forced his way to and fro, without aim, among
the host of buyers and sellers.

During the hour and a half, or thereabouts, which we passed in
this place, it required much caution on my part to keep him within
reach without attracting his observation. Luckily I wore a
pair of caoutchouc over-shoes, and could move about in perfect
silence. At no moment did he see that I watched him. He entered
shop after shop, priced nothing, spoke no word, and looked
at all objects with a wild and vacant stare. I was now utterly
amazed at his behaviour, and firmly resolved that we should not
part until I had satisfied myself in some measure respecting him.

A loud-toned clock struck eleven, and the company were fast
deserting the bazaar. A shop-keeper, in putting up a shutter,
jostled the old man, and at the instant I saw a strong shudder
come over his frame. He hurried into the street, looked anxiously
around him for an instant, and then ran with incredible
swiftness through many crooked and people-less lanes, until we
emerged once more upon the great thoroughfare whence we had
started—the street of the D—Hotel. It no longer wore, however,
the same aspect. It was still brilliant with gas; but the
rain fell fiercely, and there were few persons to be seen. The
stranger grew pale. He walked moodily some paces up the once
populous avenue, then, with a heavy sigh, turned in the direction
of the river, and, plunging through a great variety of devious
ways, came out, at length, in view of one of the principal theatres.
It was about being closed, and the audience were thronging
from the doors. I saw the old man gasp as if for breath
while he threw himself amid the crowd; but I thought that the
intense agony of his countenance had, in some measure, abated.
His head again fell upon his breast; he appeared as I had seen
him at first. I observed that he now took the course in which
had gone the greater number of the audience—but, upon the
whole, I was at a loss to comprehend the waywardness of his actions.

As he proceeded, the company grew more scattered, and his
old uneasiness and vacillation were resumed. For some time he
followed closely a party of some ten or twelve roisterers; but
from this number one by one dropped off, until three only remained
together, in a narrow and gloomy lane little frequented. The
stranger paused, and, for a moment, seemed lost in thought; then,
with every mark of agitation, pursued rapidly a route which
brought us to the verge of the city, amid regions very different
from those we had hitherto traversed. It was the most noisome
quarter of London, where every thing wore the worst impress of
the most deplorable poverty, and of the most desperate crime.
By the dim light of an accidental lamp, tall, antique, worm-eaten,
wooden tenements were seen tottering to their fall, in directions
so many and capricious that scarce the semblance of a passage
was discernible between them. The paving-stones lay at random

displaced from their beds by the rankly-growing grass.
Horrible filth festered in the dammed-up gutters. The whole atmosphere
teemed with desolation. Yet, as we proceeded, the
sounds of human life revived by sure degrees, and at length large
bands of the most abandoned of a London populace were seen
reeling to and fro. The spirits of the old man again flickered up,
as a lamp which is near its death-hour. Once more he strode
onward with elastic tread. Suddenly a corner was turned, a
blaze of light burst upon our sight, and we stood before one of the
huge suburban temples of Intemperance—one of the palaces of
the fiend, Gin.

It was now nearly day-break; but a number of wretched inebriates
still pressed in and out of the flaunting entrance. With a
half shriek of joy the old man forced a passage within, resumed
at once his original bearing, and stalked backward and forward,
without apparent object, among the throng. He had not been
thus long occupied, however, before a rush to the doors gave token
that the host was closing them for the night. It was something
even more intense than despair that I then observed upon
the countenance of the singular being whom I had watched so
pertinaciously. Yet he did not hesitate in his career, but with a
mad energy, retraced his steps at once, to the heart of the mighty
London. Long and swiftly he fled, while I followed him in the
wildest amazement, resolute not to abandon a scrutiny in which I
now felt an interest all-absorbing. The sun arose while we proceeded,
and, when we had once again reached that most thronged
mart of the populous town, the street of the D—Hotel, it presented
an appearance of human bustle and activity scarcely inferior
to what I had seen on the evening before. And here, long,
amid the momently increasing confusion, did I persist in my pursuit
of the stranger. But, as usual, he walked to and fro, and
during the day did not pass from out the turmoil of that street.
And, as the shades of the second evening came on, I grew wearied
unto death, and, stopping fully in front of the wanderer,
gazed at him steadfastly in the face. He noticed me not, but resumed
his solemn walk, while I, ceasing to follow, remained absorbed
in contemplation. “This old man,” I said at length, “is
the type and the genius of deep crime. He refuses to be alone.

He is the man of the crowd. It will be in vain to follow; for I
shall learn no more of him, nor of his deeds. The worst heart of
the world is a grosser book than the `Hortulus Animæ,'[1] and
perhaps it is but one of the great mercies of God that `er lasst
sich nicht lesen.”'