ABSTRACT
I enjoy the life of the people at the East End – the reality of their efforts and aims, the simplicity of their sorrows and of their joys; I feel I can realize it – see the tragic and comic side of it. To some extent, I can grasp the forces which are swaying to and fro, raising and depressing this vast herd of human beings. I feel that my painstaking study of detail will help me towards that knowledge of the whole, towards which I am constantly striving. Anyway, I shall leave steps cut in the rock, from the summit of which man will eventually map out the conquered land of social life.1
