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The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft-Part11_George Gissing(1857-1903)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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It seems to me that the very clouds that pass above my house are

more interesting and beautiful than clouds elsewhere.



And to think that at one time I called myself a socialist,

communist, anything you like of the revolutionary kind! Not for



long, to be sure, and I suspect that there was always something in

me that scoffed when my lips uttered such things. Why, no man



living has a more profound sense of property than I; no man ever

lived, who was, in every fibre, more vehemently an individualist.



XIII

In this high summertide, I remember with a strange feeling that



there are people who, of their free choice, spend day and night in

cities, who throng to the gabble of drawing-rooms, make festival in



public eating-houses, sweat in the glare of the theatre. They call

it life; they call it enjoyment. Why, so it is, for them; they are



so made. The folly is mine, to wonder that they fulfil their

destiny.



But with what deep and quiet thanksgiving do I remind myself that

never shall I mingle with that well-millinered and tailored herd!



Happily, I never saw much of them. Certain occasions I recall when

a supposed necessity took me into their dismal precincts; a sick



buzzing in the brain, a languor as of exhausted limbs, comes upon me

with the memory. The relief with which I stepped out into the



street again, when all was over! Dear to me then was poverty, which

for the moment seemed to make me a free man. Dear to me was the



labour at my desk, which, by comparison, enabled me to respect

myself.



Never again shall I shake hands with man or woman who is not in

truth my friend. Never again shall I go to see acquaintances with



whom I have no acquaintance. All men my brothers? Nay, thank

Heaven, that they are not! I will do harm, if I can help it, to no



one; I will wish good to all; but I will make no pretence of

personal kindliness where, in the nature of things, it cannot be



felt. I have grimaced a smile and pattered unmeaning words to many

a person whom I despised or from whom in heart I shrank; I did so



because I had not courage to do otherwise. For a man conscious of

such weakness, the best is to live apart from the world. Brave



Samuel Johnson! One such truth-teller is worth all the moralists

and preachers who ever laboured to humanise mankind. Had HE



withdrawn into solitude, it would have been a national loss. Every

one of his blunt, fearless words had more value than a whole evangel



on the lips of a timidly good man. It is thus that the commonalty,

however well clad, should be treated. So seldom does the fool or



the ruffian in broadcloth hear his just designation; so seldom is

the man found who has a right to address him by it. By the bandying



of insults we profit nothing; there can be no useful rebuke which is

exposed to a tu quoque. But, as the world is, an honest and wise



man should have a rough tongue. Let him speak and spare not!

XIV



Vituperation of the English climate is foolish. A better climate

does not exist--for healthy people; and it is always as regards the



average native in sound health that a climate must be judged.

Invalids have no right whatever to talk petulantly of the natural



changes of the sky; Nature has not THEM in view; let them (if they

can) seek exceptional conditions for their exceptional state,



leaving behind them many a million of sound, hearty men and women

who take the seasons as they come, and profit by each in turn. In



its freedom from extremes, in its common clemency, even in its

caprice, which at the worst time holds out hope, our island weather



compares well with that of other lands. Who enjoys the fine day of

spring, summer, autumn, or winter so much as an Englishman? His



perpetual talk of the weather is testimony to his keen relish for

most of what it offers him; in lands of blue monotony, even as where






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