beat a dark surf of slums. In one foreign street, too deeply
trenched for sunlight, oranges were the only gold. The water,
reaching round in two arms, came close: there was a note of husky
summons in the whistles of passing craft. Almost everywhere,
sharp above many smells of oils and spices, the whiff of coffee
tingled his busy nose. Above one huge precipice stood a gilded
statue--a boy with wings, burning in the noon. Brilliance flamed
between the vanes of his pinions: the intangible thrust of that
pouring light seemed about to hover him off into blue air.

The world of working husbands was more tender than that of
shopping wives: even in all their business, they had left space
and quietness for the dead. Sunken among the crags he found two
graveyards. They were cups of placid brightness. Here, looking
upward, it was like being drowned on the floor of an ocean of
light. Husbands had built their offices half-way to the sky
rather than disturb these. Perhaps they appreciate rest all the
more, Gissing thought, because they get so little of it? Somehow
he could not quite imagine a graveyard left at peace in the
shopping district. It would be bad for trade, perhaps? Even the
churches on the Avenue, he had noticed, were huddled up and
hemmed in so tightly by the other buildings that they had
scarcely room to kneel. If I ever become a parson, he said (this
was a fantastic dream of his), I will insist that all churches
must have a girdle of green about them, to set them apart from
the world.

The two little brown churches among the cliffs had been gifted
with a dignity far beyond the dream of their builders. Their
pointing spires were relieved against the enormous facades of