And then there comes an hour when the hidden trains have ceased, and the autobuses have nearly ceased, and the bright beings have withdrawn themselves until the morrow; and now, on all the footpaths of the Circus, move crowded processions of men young and old, slowly, as though in the performance of a rite. It leads to nothing, this tramping; it serves no end; it is merely idiotic, in a peculiarly Anglo-Saxon way. But only heavy rain can interfere with it. It persists obstinately. And the reason of it is that the Circus is the Circus. And after all, though idiotic, it has the merit and significance of being instinctive. The Circus symbolises the secret force which drives forward the social organism through succeeding stages of evolution. The origin of every effort can be seen at some time of day emerging from a crimson autobus in the Circus, or speeding across the Circus in a green taxi. The answer to the singular conundrum of the City is to be found early or late in the Circus. The imponderable spirit of the basic fact of society broods in the Circus forever. Despite all changes, there is no change. I say no change. You may gaze into the jeweller’s shop at the gold slave-bangles, which cannot be dear at six pound ten, since they express the secret attitude of an entire sex. And then you may turn and gaze at the face of a Suffragette, with her poster and her armful of papers, and her quiet voice and her mien of pride. And you may think you see a change fundamental and terrific. Look again.
V—THE BANQUET
In every large London restaurant, and in many small ones, there is a spacious hall (or several) curtained away from the public, in which every night strange secret things go on. Few suspect, and still fewer realise, the strangeness of these secret things.
