I had been born in the working-class, and I was now, at the age of
eighteen, beneath the point at which I had started. I was down in
the cellar of society, down in the subterranean depths of misery
about which it is neither nice nor proper to speak. I was in the
pit, the abyss, the human cesspool, the shambles and the charnel-
house of our civilization. This is the part of the edifice of
society that society chooses to ignore. Lack of space compels me
here to ignore it, and I shall say only that the things I there saw
gave me a terrible scare.
I was scared into thinking. I saw the naked simplicities of the
complicated civilization in which I lived. Life was a matter of food
and shelter. In order to get food and shelter men sold things. The
merchant sold shoes, the politician sold his manhood, and the
representative of the people, with exceptions, of course, sold his
trust; while nearly all sold their honour. Women, too, whether on
the street or in the holy bond of wedlock, were prone to sell their
flesh.
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