Now I contend that the least a man who does his day's work should have is
a room to himself, where he can lock the door and be safe in his
possessions; where he can sit down and read by a window or look out;
where he can come and go whenever he wishes; where he can accumulate a
few personal belongings other than those he carries about with him on his
back and in his pockets; where he can hang up pictures of his mother,
sister, sweet-heart, ballet dancers, or bulldogs, as his heart listeth--in
short, one place of his own on the earth of which he can say: "This is
mine, my castle; the world stops at the threshold; here am I lord and
master." He will be a better citizen, this man; and he will do a better
day's work.
I stood on one floor of the poor man's hotel and listened. I went from
bed to bed and looked at the sleepers. They were young men, from twenty
to forty, most of them. Old men cannot afford the working-man's home.
They go to the workhouse. But I looked at the young men, scores of them,
and they were not bad-looking fellows. Their faces were made for women's
kisses, their necks for women's arms. They were lovable, as men are
lovable. They were capable of love.
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