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The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft-Part2_George Gissing(1857-1903)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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half a century of existence has taught me that most of the wrong and



folly which darken earth is due to those who cannot possess their

souls in quiet; that most of the good which saves mankind from



destruction comes of life that is led in thoughtful stillness.

Every day the world grows noisier; I, for one, will have no part in



that increasing clamour, and, were it only by my silence, I confer a

boon on all.



How well would the revenues of a country be expended, if, by mere

pensioning, one-fifth of its population could be induced to live as



I do!

V



"Sir," said Johnson, "all the arguments which are brought to

represent poverty as no evil, show it to be evidently a great evil.



You never find people labouring to convince you that you may live

very happily upon a plentiful fortune."



He knew what he was talking of, that rugged old master of common

sense. Poverty is of course a relative thing; the term has



reference, above all, to one's standing as an intellectual being.

If I am to believe the newspapers, there are title-bearing men and



women in England who, had they an assuredincome of five-and-twenty,

shillings per week, would have no right to call themselves poor, for



their intellectual needs are those of a stable-boy or scullery

wench. Give me the same income and I can live, but I am poor



indeed.

You tell me that money cannot buy the things most precious. Your



commonplace proves that you have never known the lack of it. When I

think of all the sorrow and the barrenness that has been wrought in



my life by want of a few more pounds per annum than I was able to

earn, I stand aghast at money's significance. What kindly joys have



I lost, those simple forms of happiness to which every heart has

claim, because of poverty! Meetings with those I loved made



impossible year after year; sadness, misunderstanding, nay, cruel

alienation, arising from inability to do the things I wished, and



which I might have done had a little money helped me; endless

instances of homely pleasure and contentment curtailed or forbidden



by narrow means. I have lost friends merely through the constraints

of my position; friends I might have made have remained strangers to



me; solitude of the bitter kind, the solitude which is enforced at

times when mind or heart longs for companionship, often cursed my



life solely because I was poor. I think it would scarce be an

exaggeration to say that there is no moral good which has not to be



paid for in coin of the realm.

"Poverty," said Johnson again, "is so great an evil, and pregnant



with so much temptation, so much misery, that I cannot but earnestly

enjoin you to avoid it."



For my own part, I needed no injunction to that effort of avoidance.

Many a London garret knows how I struggled with the unwelcome



chamber-fellow. I marvel she did not abide with me to the end; it

is a sort of inconsequence in Nature, and sometimes makes me vaguely



uneasy through nights of broken sleep.

VI



How many more springs can I hope to see? A sanguinetemper would

say ten or twelve; let me dare to hope humbly for five or six. That



is a great many. Five or six spring-times, welcomed joyously,

lovingly watched from the first celandine to the budding of the



rose; who shall dare to call it a stinted boon? Five or six times

the miracle of earth reclad, the vision of splendour and loveliness



which tongue has never yet described, set before my gazing. To

think of it is to fear that I ask too much.



VII

"Homo animal querulum cupide suis incumbens miseriis." I wonder



where that comes from. I found it once in Charron, quoted without




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