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235
The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft
·
George Gissing
127
Among
the
many
reasons
which
make
me
glad
to
have
been
born
in
England,
one
of
the
first
is
that
I
read
Shakespeare
in
my
mother
tongue.
If
I
try
to
imagine
myself
as
one
who
cannot
know
him
face
to
face,
who
hears
him
only
speaking
from
afar,
and
that
in
accents
which
only
through
the
labouring
intelligence
can
touch
the
living
soul,
there
comes
upon
me
a
sense
of
chill
discouragement,
of
dreary
deprivation.
I
am
wont
to
think
that
I
can
read
Homer,
and,
assuredly,
if
any
man
enjoys
him,
it
is
I;
but
can
I
for
a
moment
dream
that
Homer
yields
me
all
his
music,
that
his
word
is
to
me
as
to
him
who
walked
by
the
Hellenic
shore
when
Hellas
lived?
I
know
that
there
reaches
me
across
the
vast
of
time
no
more
than
a
faint
and
broken
echo;
I
know
that
it
would
be
fainter
still,
but
for
its
blending
with
those
memories
of
youth
which
are
as
a
glimmer
of
the
world's
primeval
glory.
Let
every
land
have
joy
of
its
poet;
for
the
poet
is
the
land
itself,
all
its
greatness
and
its
sweetness,
all
that
incommunicable
heritage
for
which
men
live
and
die.
As
I
close
the
book,
love
and
reverence
possess
me.
Whether
does
my
full
heart
turn
to
the
great
Enchanter,
or
to
the
Island
upon
which
he
has
laid
his
spell?
I
know
not.
I
cannot
think
of
them
apart.
In
the
love
and
reverence
awakened
by
that
voice
of
voices,
Shakespeare
and
England
are
but
one.
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