Avalanches of coal glitter blackly.

As usual, painters are slung on planks across the great riverside hotels, and the hotel windows have already points of light in them.

On the other side the city is white as if with age; St.
Paul's swells white above the fretted, pointed, or oblong buildings beside it.

The cross alone shines rosy-gilt.

But what century have we reached?
Has this procession from the Surrey side to the Strand gone on for ever?
That old man has been crossing the Bridge these six hundred years, with the rabble of little boys at his heels, for he is drunk, or blind with misery, and tied round with old clouts of clothing such as pilgrims might have worn.