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235
The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft
·
George Gissing
106
XIX.
On
my
breakfast
table
there
is
a
pot
of
honey.
Not
the
manufactured
stuff
sold
under
that
name
in
shops,
but
honey
of
the
hive,
brought
to
me
by
a
neighbouring
cottager
whose
bees
often
hum
in
my
garden.
It
gives,
I
confess,
more
pleasure
to
my
eye
than
to
my
palate;
but
I
like
to
taste
of
it,
because
it
is
honey.
There
is
as
much
difference,
said
Johnson,
between
a
lettered
and
an
unlettered
man
as
between
the
living
and
the
dead;
and,
in
a
way,
it
was
no
extravagance.
Think
merely
how
one's
view
of
common
things
is
affected
by
literary
association.
What
were
honey
to
me
if
I
knew
nothing
of
Hymettus
and
Hybla?--if
my
mind
had
no
stores
of
poetry,
no
memories
of
romance?
Suppose
me
town-pent,
the
name
might
bring
with
it
some
pleasantness
of
rustic
odour;
but
of
what
poor
significance
even
that,
if
the
country
were
to
me
mere
grass
and
corn
and
vegetables,
as
to
the
man
who
has
never
read
nor
wished
to
read.
For
the
Poet
is
indeed
a
Maker:
above
the
world
of
sense,
trodden
by
hidebound
humanity,
he
builds
that
world
of
his
own
whereto
is
summoned
the
unfettered
spirit.
Why
does
it
delight
me
to
see
the
bat
flitting
at
dusk
before
my
window,
or
to
hear
the
hoot
of
the
owl
when
all
the
ways
are
dark?
I
might
regard
the
bat
with
disgust,
and
the
owl
either
with
vague
superstition
or
not
heed
it
at
all.
But
these
have
their
place
in
the
poet's
world,
and
carry
me
above
this
idle
present.
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