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The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft-Part5_George Gissing(1857-1903)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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the same time, they were connoisseurs in torn windpipes, shattered

spines and viscera rent open. It is not likely that many of them



would have cared to turn their own hands to butchery, and, for the

matter of that, I must suppose that our Lion Huntress of the popular



magazine is rather an exceptional dame; but no doubt she and the

Roman ladies would get on very well together, finding only a few



superficial differences. The fact that her gory reminiscences are

welcomed by an editor with the popular taste in view is perhaps more



significant than appears either to editor or public. Were this lady

to write a novel (the chances are she will) it would have the true



note of modern vigour. Of course her style has been formed by her

favourite reading; more than probably, her ways of thinking and



feeling owe much to the same source. If not so already, this will

soon, I daresay, be the typical Englishwoman. Certainly, there is



"no nonsense about her." Such women should breed a remarkable race.

I left the inn in rather a turbid humour. Moving homeward by a new



way, I presently found myself on the side of a little valley, in

which lay a farm and an orchard. The apple trees were in full



bloom, and, as I stood gazing, the sun, which had all that day been

niggard of its beams, burst forth gloriously. For what I then saw,



I have no words; I can but dream of the still loveliness of that

blossomed valley. Near me, a bee was humming; not far away, a



cuckoo called; from the pasture of the farm below came a bleating of

lambs.



XVI

I am no friend of the people. As a force, by which the tenor of the



time is conditioned, they inspire me with distrust, with fear; as a

visible multitude, they make me shrink aloof, and often move me to



abhorrence. For the greater part of my life, the people signified

to me the London crowd, and no phrase of temperate" target="_blank" title="a.有节制的；温和的">temperate meaning would



utter my thoughts of them under that aspect. The people as country-

folk are little known to me; such glimpses as I have had of them do



not invite to nearer acquaintance. Every instinct of my being is

anti-democratic, and I dread to think of what our England may become



when Demos rules irresistibly.

Right or wrong, this is my temper. But he who should argue from it



that I am intolerant of all persons belonging to a lower social rank

than my own would go far astray. Nothing is more rooted in my mind



than the vast distinction between the individual and the class.

Take a man by himself, and there is generally some reason to be



found in him, some disposition for good; mass him with his fellows

in the social organism, and ten to one he becomes a blatant



creature, without a thought of his own, ready for any evil to which

contagion prompts him. It is because nations tend to stupidity and



baseness that mankind moves so slowly; it is because individuals

have a capacity for better things that it moves at all.



In my youth, looking at this man and that, I marvelled that humanity

had made so little progress. Now, looking at men in the multitude,



I marvel that they have advanced so far.

Foolishly arrogant as I was, I used to judge the worth of a person



by his intellectual" target="_blank" title="n.知识分子">intellectual power and attainment. I could see no good where

there was no logic, no charm where there was no learning. Now I



think that one has to distinguish between two forms of intelligence,

that of the brain, and that of the heart, and I have come to regard



the second as by far the more important. I guard myself against

saying that intelligence does not matter; the fool is ever as



noxious as he is wearisome. But assuredly the best people I have

known were saved from folly not by the intellect but by the heart.



They come before me, and I see them greatly ignorant, strongly

prejudiced, capable of the absurdest mis-reasoning; yet their faces



shine with the supreme virtues, kindness, sweetness, modesty,

generosity. Possessing these qualities, they at the same time



understand how to use them; they have the intelligence of the heart.

This poor woman who labours for me in my house is even such a one.



From the first I thought her an unusually good servant; after three

years of acquaintance, I find her one of the few women I have known






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