On the whole, however, his isolated contemplation of what for so long he had taken as a matter of course depressed him.

Life was unutterably and intensely selfish.

Every little unit in that seething mass was so entirely, so strangely self-centered.

None of them had any real love or friendliness for the millions who toiled around them, no one seemed to have time to take his eyes from his own work and his own interests.

Burton became more and more depressed as the days passed.