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235
The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft
·
George Gissing
95
XIII.
In
this
high
summertide,
I
remember
with
a
strange
feeling
that
there
are
people
who,
of
their
free
choice,
spend
day
and
night
in
cities,
who
throng
to
the
gabble
of
drawing-rooms,
make
festival
in
public
eating-
houses,
sweat
in
the
glare
of
the
theatre.
They
call
it
life;
they
call
it
enjoyment.
Why,
so
it
is,
for
them;
they
are
so
made.
The
folly
is
mine,
to
wonder
that
they
fulfil
their
destiny.
But
with
what
deep
and
quiet
thanksgiving
do
I
remind
myself
that
never
shall
I
mingle
with
that
well-millinered
and
tailored
herd!
Happily,
I
never
saw
much
of
them.
Certain
occasions
I
recall
when
a
supposed
necessity
took
me
into
their
dismal
precincts;
a
sick
buzzing
in
the
brain,
a
languor
as
of
exhausted
limbs,
comes
upon
me
with
the
memory.
The
relief
with
which
I
stepped
out
into
the
street
again,
when
all
was
over!
Dear
to
me
then
was
poverty,
which
for
the
moment
seemed
to
make
me
a
free
man.
Dear
to
me
was
the
labour
at
my
desk,
which,
by
comparison,
enabled
me
to
respect
myself.
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