not Forster make known to all and sundry exactly how Dickens' work

was done, and how the bargains for its production were made? The
multitudinous public saw him at his desk, learnt how long he sat

there, were told that he could not get on without having certain
little ornaments before his eyes, and that blue ink and a quill pen

were indispensable to his writing; and did all this information ever
chill the loyalty of a single reader? There was a difference, in

truth, between the picture of Charles Dickens sitting down to a
chapter of his current novel, and that of the broad-based Trollope

doing his so many words to the fifteen minutes. Trollope, we know,
wronged himself by the tone and manner of his reminiscences; but

that tone and manner indicated an inferiority of mind, of nature.
Dickens--though he died in the endeavour to increase (not for

himself) an already ample fortune, disastrous influence of his time
and class--wrought with an artistic ingenuousness and fervour such

as Trollope could not even conceive. Methodical, of course, he was;
no long work of prose fiction was ever brought into existence save

by methodical labour; but we know that there was no measuring of so
many words to the hour. The picture of him at work which is seen in

his own letters is one of the most bracing and inspiring in the
history of literature. It has had, and will always have, a great

part in maintaining Dickens' place in the love and reverence of
those who understand.

XXIII
As I walked to-day in the golden sunlight--this warm, still day on

the far verge of autumn--there suddenly came to me a thought which
checked my step, and for the moment half bewildered me. I said to

myself: My life is over. Surely I ought to have been aware of that
simple fact; certainly it has made part of my meditation, has often

coloured my mood; but the thing had never definitely" target="_blank" title="ad.明确地；绝对">definitely shaped itself,
ready in words for the tongue. My life is over. I uttered the

sentence once or twice, that my ear might test its truth. Truth
undeniable, however strange; undeniable as the figure of my age last

birthday.
My age? At this time of life, many a man is bracing himself for new

efforts, is calculating on a decade or two of pursuit and
attainment. I, too, may perhaps live for some years; but for me

there is no more activity, no ambition. I have had my chance--and I
see what I made of it.

The thought was for an instant all but dreadful. What! I, who only
yesterday was a young man, planning, hoping, looking forward to life

as to a practically endless career, I, who was so vigorous and
scornful, have come to this day of definite retrospect? How is it

possible? But, I have done nothing; I have had no time; I have only
been preparing myself--a mere apprentice to life. My brain is at

some prank; I am suffering a momentarydelusion; I shall shake
myself, and return to common sense--to my schemes and activities and

eager enjoyments.
Nevertheless, my life is over.

What a little thing! I knew how the philosophers had spoken; I
repeated their musical phrases about the mortal span--yet never till

now believed them. And this is all? A man's life can be so brief
and so vain? Idly would I persuade myself that life, in the true

sense, is only now beginning; that the time of sweat and fear was
not life at all, and that it now only depends upon my will to lead a

worthy existence. That may be a sort of consolation, but it does
not obscure the truth that I shall never again see possibilities and

promises opening before me. I have "retired," and for me as truly
as for the retiredtradesman, life is over. I can look back upon

its completed course, and what a little thing! I am tempted to
laugh; I hold myself within the limit of a smile.

And that is best, to smile, not in scorn, but in all forbearance,
without too much self-compassion. After all, that dreadful aspect

of the thing never really took hold of me; I could put it by without
much effort. Life is done--and what matter? Whether it has been,

in sum, painful or enjoyable, even now I cannot say--a fact which in
itself should prevent me from taking the loss too seriously. What

does it matter? Destiny with the hidden face decreed that I should
come into being, play my little part, and pass again into silence;

is it mine either to approve or to rebel? Let me be grateful that I
have suffered no intolerable wrong, no terrible woe of flesh or

spirit, such as others--alas! alas!--have found in their lot. Is it
not much to have accomplished so large a part of the mortal journey

with so much ease? If I find myself astonished at its brevity and
small significance, why, that is my own fault; the voices of those

gone before had sufficiently warned me. Better to see the truth
now, and accept it, than to fall into dread surprise on some day of

weakness, and foolishly to cry against fate. I will be glad rather
than sorry, and think of the thing no more.

XXIV
Waking at early dawn used to be one of the things I most dreaded.

The night which made me capable of resuming labour had brought no
such calm as should follow upon repose; I woke to a vision of the

darkest miseries and lay through the hours of daybreak--too often--
in very anguish. But that is past. Sometimes, ere yet I know

myself, the mind struggles as with an evil spirit on the confines of
sleep; then the light at my window, the pictures on my walls,

restore me to happy consciousness, happier for the miserable dream.
Now, when I lie thinking, my worst trouble is wonder at the common

life of man. I see it as a thing so incredible that it oppresses
the mind like a haunting illusion. Is it the truth that men are

fretting, raving, killing each other, for matters so trivial that I,
even I, so far from saint or philosopher, must needs fall into

amazement when I consider them? I could imagine a man who, by
living alone and at peace, came to regard the everyday world as not

really existent, but a creation of his own fancy in unsound moments.
What lunatic ever dreamt of things less consonant with the calm

reason than those which are thought and done every minute in every
community of men called sane? But I put aside this reflection as

soon as may be; it perturbs me fruitlessly. Then I listen to the
sounds about my cottage, always soft, soothing, such as lead the

mind to gentle thoughts. Sometimes I can hear nothing; not the
rustle of a leaf, not the buzz of a fly, and then I think that utter

silence is best of all.
This morning I was awakened by a continuous sound which presently

shaped itself to my ear as a multitudinous shrilling of bird voices.
I knew what it meant. For the last few days I have seen the

swallows gathering, now they were ranged upon my roof, perhaps in
the last council before their setting forth upon the great journey.

I know better than to talk about animal instinct, and to wonder in a
pitying way at its resemblance to reason. I know that these birds

show to us a life far more reasonable, and infinitely more
beautiful, than that of the masses of mankind. They talk with each

other, and in their talk is neither malice nor folly. Could one but
interpret the converse in which they make their plans for the long

and perilous flight--and then compare it with that of numberless
respectable persons who even now are projecting their winter in the

South!
XXV

Yesterday I passed by an elm avenue, leading to a beautiful old
house. The road between the trees was covered in all its length and

breadth with fallen leaves--a carpet of pale gold. Further on, I
came to a plantation, mostly of larches; it shone in the richest

aureate hue, with here and there a splash of blood-red, which was a
young beech in its moment of autumnal glory.

I looked at an alder, laden with brown catkins, its blunt foliage
stained with innumerable shades of lovely colour. Near it was a

horse-chestnut, with but a few leaves hanging on its branches, and
those a deep orange. The limes, I see, are already bare.

To-night the wind is loud, and rain dashes against my casement; to-
morrow I shall awake to a sky of winter.

WINTER
I

Blasts from the Channel, with raining scud, and spume of mist
breaking upon the hills, have kept me indoors all day. Yet not for

a moment have I been dull or idle, and now, by the latter end of a
sea-coal fire, I feel such enjoyment of my ease and tranquillity

that I must needs word it before going up to bed.
Of course one ought to be able to breast weather such as this of to-

day, and to find one's pleasure in the strife with it. For the man
sound in body and serene of mind there is no such thing as bad