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235
The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft
·
George Gissing
215
Come,
once
more
before
I
die
I
will
read
Don
Quixote.
XVIII.
Somebody
has
been
making
a
speech,
reported
at
a
couple
of
columns'
length
in
the
paper.
As
I
glance
down
the
waste
of
print,
one
word
catches
my
eye
again
and
again.
It's
all
about
"science"--and
therefore
doesn't
concern
me.
I
wonder
whether
there
are
many
men
who
have
the
same
feeling
with
regard
to
"science"
as
I
have?
It
is
something
more
than
a
prejudice;
often
it
takes
the
form
of
a
dread,
almost
a
terror.
Even
those
branches
of
science
which
are
concerned
with
things
that
interest
me--which
deal
with
plants
and
animals
and
the
heaven
of
stars--even
these
I
cannot
contemplate
without
uneasiness,
a
spiritual
disaffection;
new
discoveries,
new
theories,
however
they
engage
my
intelligence,
soon
weary
me,
and
in
some
way
depress.
When
it
comes
to
other
kinds
of
science--the
sciences
blatant
and
ubiquitous--the
science
by
which
men
become
millionaires--I
am
possessed
with
an
angry
hostility,
a
resentful
apprehension.
This
was
born
in
me,
no
doubt;
I
cannot
trace
it
to
circumstances
of
my
life,
or
to
any
particular
moment
of
my
mental
growth.
My
boyish
delight
in
Carlyle
doubtless
nourished
the
temper,
but
did
not
Carlyle
so
delight
me
because
of
what
was
already
in
my
mind?
I
remember,
as
a
lad,
looking
at
complicated
machinery
with
a
shrinking
uneasiness
which,
of
course,
I
did
not
understand;
I
remember
the
sort
of
disturbed
contemptuousness
with
which,
in
my
time
of
"examinations,"
I
dismissed
"science
papers."
It
is
intelligible
enough
to
me,
now,
that
unformed
fear:
the
ground
of
my
antipathy
has
grown
clear
enough.
I
hate
and
fear
"science"
because
of
my
conviction
that,
for
long
to
come
if
not
for
ever,
it
will
be
the
remorseless
enemy
of
mankind.
I
see
it
destroying
all
simplicity
and
gentleness
of
life,
all
the
beauty
of
the
world;
I
see
it
restoring
barbarism
under
a
mask
of
civilization;
I
see
it
darkening
men's
minds
and
hardening
their
hearts;
I
see
it
bringing
a
time
of
vast
conflicts,
which
will
pale
into
insignificance
"the
thousand
wars
of
old,"
and,
as
likely
as
not,
will
whelm
all
the
laborious
advances
of
mankind
in
blood-drenched
chaos.
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