The Roaring Streets

They went quietly down into the roaring streets, inseparable and blessed; and as they passed along in sunshine and shade, the noisy and the eager, and the arrogant and the froward and the vain, fretted and chafed, and made their usual uproar.

Dickens, Little Dorrit

Then she turned resolutely, and followed the path which Anna had taken, out into the bright, dark, dangerous and infinitely welcoming street.

Fraud

For reasons that don't need to be gone into, I found myself this afternoon reading aloud the conclusion to Little Dorrit, and memories returned of the closing lines of Brookner's Fraud. Art may not love us and may not console us, but it certainly enriches our lives.