{"code":"urban-despair","title":"Urban Despair","collection_type":"theme","subroute":"urban-despair","header_1":"Urban Despair","header_2":"Gutters, fog and pallid faces.","description":"Short stories on living in the city. Henry Lawson, Aleksandr I. Kuprin, Aesop and more.","has_text":true,"image":true,"image_filter":"contrast(1.5) saturate(1.5)","image_alt":"A pencil sketch of sketch itself of a man on a horse being drawn into a binder.","image_title":"Clancy of the Overflow - Sketch","image_code":"clancy-of-the-overflow","quote":{"quote":"“And I somehow rather fancy that I’d like to change with Clancy; Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go.” * Clancy of the Overflow","code":"clancy-of-the-overflow"},"stories":[{"story":"black-fog","description":"A rambunctious Ukrainian barges back into his city friend’s life determined to ‘conquer Petersburg.’ Unfortunately for the so-called ‘provincial’, he finds the city and its dreary black fog to be fighting back."},{"story":"the-town-mouse-and-the-country-mouse","description":"In a short fable from ancient Greece, a mouse from the country is invited by a city mouse to live where there is more food than you could ever need. But the country mouse doesn’t find the lifestyle so easy."},{"story":"in-defence-of-the-bush","description":"A countryman defends the beauty of the country to a townsman who hates the rustic life."},{"story":"clancy-of-the-overflow","description":"An office worker wonders what life would be like as a rural stock drover out in the open country of Australia."},{"story":"faces-in-the-street","description":"The author describes the sad and wan faces of the various kinds of people walking around in the city street."}]}