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235
The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft
·
George Gissing
214
Injustice--there
is
the
loathed
crime
which
curses
the
memory
of
the
world.
The
slave
doomed
by
his
lord's
caprice
to
perish
under
tortures--one
feels
it
a
dreadful
and
intolerable
thing;
but
it
is
merely
the
crude
presentment
of
what
has
been
done
and
endured
a
million
times
in
every
stage
of
civilization.
Oh,
the
last
thoughts
of
those
who
have
agonized
unto
death
amid
wrongs
to
which
no
man
would
give
ear!
That
appeal
of
innocence
in
anguish
to
the
hard,
mute
heavens!
Were
there
only
one
such
instance
in
all
the
chronicles
of
time,
it
should
doom
the
past
to
abhorred
oblivion.
Yet
injustice,
the
basest,
the
most
ferocious,
is
inextricable
from
warp
and
woof
in
the
tissue
of
things
gone
by.
And
if
anyone
soothes
himself
with
the
reflection
that
such
outrages
can
happen
no
more,
that
mankind
has
passed
beyond
such
hideous
possibility,
he
is
better
acquainted
with
books
than
with
human
nature.
It
were
wiser
to
spend
my
hours
with
the
books
which
bring
no
aftertaste
of
bitterness--with
the
great
poets
whom
I
love,
with
the
thinkers,
with
the
gentle
writers
of
pages
that
soothe
and
tranquillize.
Many
a
volume
regards
me
from
the
shelf
as
though
reproachfully;
shall
I
never
again
take
it
in
my
hands?
Yet
the
words
are
golden,
and
I
would
fain
treasure
them
all
in
my
heart's
memory.
Perhaps
the
last
fault
of
which
I
shall
cure
myself
is
that
habit
of
mind
which
urges
me
to
seek
knowledge.
Was
I
not
yesterday
on
the
point
of
ordering
a
huge
work
of
erudition,
which
I
should
certainly
never
have
read
through,
and
which
would
only
have
served
to
waste
precious
days?
It
is
the
Puritan
in
my
blood,
I
suppose,
which
forbids
me
to
recognise
frankly
that
all
I
have
now
to
do
is
to
enjoy.
This
is
wisdom.
The
time
for
acquisition
has
gone
by.
I
am
not
foolish
enough
to
set
myself
learning
a
new
language;
why
should
I
try
to
store
my
memory
with
useless
knowledge
of
the
past?
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