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235
The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft
·
George Gissing
76
When
a
child,
I
was
permitted
to
handle
on
Sunday
certain
books
which
could
not
be
exposed
to
the
more
careless
usage
of
common
days;
volumes
finely
illustrated,
or
the
more
handsome
editions
of
familiar
authors,
or
works
which,
merely
by
their
bulk,
demanded
special
care.
Happily,
these
books
were
all
of
the
higher
rank
in
literature,
and
so
there
came
to
be
established
in
my
mind
an
association
between
the
day
of
rest
and
names
which
are
the
greatest
in
verse
and
prose.
Through
my
life
this
habit
has
remained
with
me;
I
have
always
wished
to
spend
some
part
of
the
Sunday
quiet
with
books
which,
at
most
times,
it
is
fatally
easy
to
leave
aside,
one's
very
knowledge
and
love
of
them
serving
as
an
excuse
for
their
neglect
in
favour
of
print
which
has
the
attraction
of
newness.
Homer
and
Virgil,
Milton
and
Shakespeare;
not
many
Sundays
have
gone
by
without
my
opening
one
or
other
of
these.
Not
many
Sundays?
Nay,
that
is
to
exaggerate,
as
one
has
the
habit
of
doing.
Let
me
say
rather
that,
on
many
a
rest-day
I
have
found
mind
and
opportunity
for
such
reading.
Nowadays
mind
and
opportunity
fail
me
never.
I
may
take
down
my
Homer
or
my
Shakespeare
when
I
choose,
but
it
is
still
on
Sunday
that
I
feel
it
most
becoming
to
seek
the
privilege
of
their
companionship.
For
these
great
ones,
crowned
with
immortality,
do
not
respond
to
him
who
approaches
them
as
though
hurried
by
temporal
care.
There
befits
the
garment
of
solemn
leisure,
the
thought
attuned
to
peace.
I
open
the
volume
somewhat
formally;
is
it
not
sacred,
if
the
word
have
any
meaning
at
all?
And,
as
I
read,
no
interruption
can
befall
me.
The
note
of
a
linnet,
the
humming
of
a
bee,
these
are
the
sounds
about
my
sanctuary.
The
page
scarce
rustles
as
it
turns.
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