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235
The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft
·
George Gissing
46
XVI.
I
am
no
friend
of
the
people.
As
a
force,
by
which
the
tenor
of
the
time
is
conditioned,
they
inspire
me
with
distrust,
with
fear;
as
a
visible
multitude,
they
make
me
shrink
aloof,
and
often
move
me
to
abhorrence.
For
the
greater
part
of
my
life,
the
people
signified
to
me
the
London
crowd,
and
no
phrase
of
temperate
meaning
would
utter
my
thoughts
of
them
under
that
aspect.
The
people
as
country-folk
are
little
known
to
me;
such
glimpses
as
I
have
had
of
them
do
not
invite
to
nearer
acquaintance.
Every
instinct
of
my
being
is
anti-democratic,
and
I
dread
to
think
of
what
our
England
may
become
when
Demos
rules
irresistibly.
Right
or
wrong,
this
is
my
temper.
But
he
who
should
argue
from
it
that
I
am
intolerant
of
all
persons
belonging
to
a
lower
social
rank
than
my
own
would
go
far
astray.
Nothing
is
more
rooted
in
my
mind
than
the
vast
distinction
between
the
individual
and
the
class.
Take
a
man
by
himself,
and
there
is
generally
some
reason
to
be
found
in
him,
some
disposition
for
good;
mass
him
with
his
fellows
in
the
social
organism,
and
ten
to
one
he
becomes
a
blatant
creature,
without
a
thought
of
his
own,
ready
for
any
evil
to
which
contagion
prompts
him.
It
is
because
nations
tend
to
stupidity
and
baseness
that
mankind
moves
so
slowly;
it
is
because
individuals
have
a
capacity
for
better
things
that
it
moves
at
all.
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