Before I returned to America I had discovered that there were other
genuine reasons for living among the poor than that of practicing medicine upon them, and my brief foray into the profession was never re'
sumed.
The long illness left me in a state of nervous exhaustion with which
I struggled for years, traces of it remaining long after Hull- House was
opened in 1889. At the best it allowed me but a limited amount of
energy, so that doubtless there was much nervous depression at the
foundation of the spiritual struggles which this chapter is forced to record. However, it could not have been all due to my health, for as my
wise little notebook sententiously remarked, "In his own way each
man must struggle, lest the moral law become a far-off abstraction
utterly separated from his active life."
It would, jof course, be impossible to remember that some of these
struggles ever took place at all, were it not for these selfsame notebooks, in which, however, I no longer wrote in moments of high resolve, but judging from the internal evidence afforded by the books
themselves, only in moments of deep depression when overwhelmed
by a sense of failure.
One of the most poignant of these experiences, which occurred during the first few months after our landing upon the other side of the
Atlantic, was on a Saturday night, when I received an ineradicable
impression of the wretchedness of East London, and also saw for the
first time the overcrowded quarters of a great city at midnight. A small
party of tourists were taken to the East End by a city missionary to witness the Saturday night sale of decaying vegetables and fruit, which,
owing to the Sunday laws in London, could not be sold until Monday,
and, as they were beyond safe keeping, were disposed of at auction as
late as possible on Saturday night. On Mile End Road, from the top of
an omnibus which paused at the end of a dingy street lighted by only
occasional flares of gas, we saw two huge masses of ill-clad people
clamoring around two hucksters' carts. They were bidding their farthings and ha'pennies for a vegetable held up by the auctioneer, which
he at last scornfully flung, with a gibe for its cheapness, to the successful bidder. In the momentary pause only one man detached himself
from the groups. He had bidden in a cabbage, and when it struck his
hand, he instantly sat down on the curb, tore it with his teeth, and
hastily devoured it, unwashed and uncooked as it was. He and his fel