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235
The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft
·
George Gissing
213
XVII.
Why
do
I
give
so
much
of
my
time
to
the
reading
of
history?
Is
it
in
any
sense
profitable
to
me?
What
new
light
can
I
hope
for
on
the
nature
of
man?
What
new
guidance
for
the
direction
of
my
own
life
through
the
few
years
that
may
remain
to
me?
But
it
is
with
no
such
purpose
that
I
read
these
voluminous
books;
they
gratify--or
seem
to
gratify--a
mere
curiosity;
and
scarcely
have
I
closed
a
volume,
when
the
greater
part
of
what
I
have
read
in
it
is
forgotten.
Heaven
forbid
that
I
should
remember
all!
Many
a
time
I
have
said
to
myself
that
I
would
close
the
dreadful
record
of
human
life,
lay
it
for
ever
aside,
and
try
to
forget
it.
Somebody
declares
that
history
is
a
manifestation
of
the
triumph
of
good
over
evil.
The
good
prevails
now
and
then,
no
doubt,
but
how
local
and
transitory
is
such
triumph.
If
historic
tomes
had
a
voice,
it
would
sound
as
one
long
moan
of
anguish.
Think
steadfastly
of
the
past,
and
one
sees
that
only
by
defect
of
imaginative
power
can
any
man
endure
to
dwell
with
it.
History
is
a
nightmare
of
horrors;
we
relish
it,
because
we
love
pictures,
and
because
all
that
man
has
suffered
is
to
man
rich
in
interest.
But
make
real
to
yourself
the
vision
of
every
blood-stained
page--stand
in
the
presence
of
the
ravening
conqueror,
the
savage
tyrant--tread
the
stones
of
the
dungeon
and
of
the
torture-room--feel
the
fire
of
the
stake--hear
the
cries
of
that
multitude
which
no
man
can
number,
the
victims
of
calamity,
of
oppression,
of
fierce
injustice
in
its
myriad
forms,
in
every
land,
in
every
age--and
what
joy
have
you
of
your
historic
reading?
One
would
need
to
be
a
devil
to
understand
it
thus,
and
yet
to
delight
in
it.
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