For I always loved a mixed crowd.

I loved the contrasts, the high lights and deep shadows, and the gradations that connect the two, and make all life one.

I saw many, many things that I was not aware of seeing at the time.

I only found out afterwards what treasures my brain had stored up, when, coming to the puzzling places in life, light and meaning would suddenly burst on me, the hidden fruit of some experience that had not impressed me at the time.
How many times, I wonder, did I brush past my destiny on Broadway, foolishly staring after it, instead of going home to pray?
I wonder did a stranger collide with me, and put me patiently out of his way, wondering why such a mite was not at home and abed at ten o'clock in the evening, and never dreaming that one day he might have to reckon with me?
Did some one smile down on my childish glee, I wonder, unwarned of a day when we should weep together?
I wonder--I wonder.

A million threads of life and love and sorrow was the common street; and whether we would or not, we entangled ourselves in a common maze, without paying the homage of a second glance to those who would some day master us; too dull to pick that face from out the crowd which one day would bend over us in love or pity or remorse.