The prospect of seeing Tolstoy filled me with the hope of finding
a clue to the tangled affairs of city poverty. I was but one of
thousands of our contemporaries who were turning toward this
Russian, not as to a seer--his message is much too confused and
contradictory for that--but as to a man who has had the ability
to lift his life to the level of his conscience, to translate his
theories into action.
Our first few weeks in England were most stimulating. A dozen
years ago London still showed traces of "that exciting moment in
the life of the nation when its youth is casting about for new
enthusiasms," but it evinced still more of that British capacity
to perform the hard work of careful research and self-examination
which must precede any successful experiments in social reform.
Of the varied groups and individuals whose suggestions remained
with me for years, I recall perhaps as foremost those members of
the new London County Council whose far-reaching plans for the
betterment of London could not but enkindle enthusiasm. It was a
most striking expression of that effort which would place beside
the refinement and pleasure of the rich, a new refinement and a
new pleasure born of the commonwealth and the common joy of all
the citizens, that at this moment they prized the municipal
pleasure boats upon the Thames no less than the extensive schemes
for the municipal housing of the poorest people.
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