noon
These being thrown back by the attendant -LRB- who was sleeping when I came upon him , and looked a drowsy fellow , as though his close companionship with Time had made him quite indifferent to it -RRB- , disclosed a complicated crowd of wheels and chains in iron and brass , -- great , sturdy , rattling engines , -- suggestive of breaking a finger put in here or there , and grinding the bone to powder , -- and these were the Clock ! Its very pulse , if I may use the word , was like no other clock . It did not mark the flight of every moment with a gentle second stroke , as though it would check old Time , and have him stay his pace in pity , but measured it with one sledge-hammer beat , as if its business were to crush the seconds as they came trooping on , and remorselessly to clear a path before the Day of Judgment . I sat down opposite to it , and hearing its regular and never-changing voice , that one deep constant note , uppermost amongst all the noise and clatter in the streets below , -- marking that , let that tumult rise or fall , go on or stop , -- let it be night or noon , to-morrow or to-day , this year or next , -- it still performed its functions with the same dull constancy , and regulated the progress of the life around , the fancy came upon me that this was London 's Heart , -- and that when it should cease to beat , the City would be no more . It is night . Calm and unmoved amidst the scenes that darkness favours , the great heart of London throbs in its Giant breast . Wealth and beggary , vice and virtue , guilt and innocence , repletion and the direst hunger , all treading on each other and crowding together , are gathered round it .