"Certainly London fascinates.  One visualizes it as a tract of quivering gray; intelligent without purpose, and excitable without love; as a spirit that has altered before it can be chronicled; as a heart that certainly beats, but with no pulsation of humanity.  It lies beyond everything: Nature, with all her cruelty, comes nearer to us than do these crowds of men.  A friend explains himself, the earth is explicable--from her we came, and we must return to her.  But who can explain Westminster Bridge Road or Liverpool Street in the morning--the city inhaling--or the same thoroughfares in the evening--the city exhaling her exhausted air?"

-E.M. Forster, Howard's End