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235
The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft
·
George Gissing
122
XXV.
For
two
things
do
my
thoughts
turn
now
and
then
to
London.
I
should
like
to
hear
the
long
note
of
a
master's
violin,
or
the
faultless
cadence
of
an
exquisite
voice,
and
I
should
like
to
see
pictures.
Music
and
painting
have
always
meant
much
to
me;
here
I
can
enjoy
them
only
in
memory.
Of
course
there
is
the
discomfort
of
concert-hall
and
exhibition-rooms.
My
pleasure
in
the
finest
music
would
be
greatly
spoilt
by
having
to
sit
amid
a
crowd,
with
some
idiot
audible
on
right
hand
or
left,
and
the
show
of
pictures
would
give
me
a
headache
in
the
first
quarter
of
an
hour.
Non
sum
qualis
eram
when
I
waited
several
hours
at
the
gallery
door
to
hear
Patti,
and
knew
not
a
moment's
fatigue
to
the
end
of
the
concert;
or
when,
at
the
Academy,
I
was
astonished
to
find
that
it
was
four
o'clock,
and
I
had
forgotten
food
since
breakfast.
The
truth
is,
I
do
not
much
enjoy
anything
nowadays
which
I
cannot
enjoy
alone.
It
sounds
morose;
I
imagine
the
comment
of
good
people
if
they
overheard
such
a
confession.
Ought
I,
in
truth,
to
be
ashamed
of
it?
I
always
read
the
newspaper
articles
on
exhibitions
of
pictures,
and
with
most
pleasure
when
the
pictures
are
landscapes.
The
mere
names
of
paintings
often
gladden
me
for
a
whole
day--those
names
which
bring
before
the
mind
a
bit
of
seashore,
a
riverside,
a
glimpse
of
moorland
or
of
woods.
However
feeble
his
criticism,
the
journalist
generally
writes
with
appreciation
of
these
subjects;
his
descriptions
carry
me
away
to
all
sorts
of
places
which
I
shall
never
see
again
with
the
bodily
eye,
and
I
thank
him
for
his
unconscious
magic.
Much
better
this,
after
all,
than
really
going
to
London
and
seeing
the
pictures
themselves.
They
would
not
disappoint
me;
I
love
and
honour
even
the
least
of
English
landscape
painters;
but
I
should
try
to
see
too
many
at
once,
and
fall
back
into
my
old
mood
of
tired
grumbling
at
the
conditions
of
modern
life.
For
a
year
or
two
I
have
grumbled
little--all
the
better
for
me.
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