There was a time in my life when, if I had suddenly been set in the position I now enjoy, conscience would have lain in ambush for me.
What! An income sufficient to support three or four working-class families--a house all to myself--things beautiful wherever I turn--and absolutely nothing to do for it all! I should have been hard put to it to defend myself.In those days I was feelingly reminded, hour by hour, with what a struggle the obscure multitudes manage to keep alive.Nobody knows better than I do quam parvo liceat producere vitam.I have hungered in the streets; I have laid my head in the poorest shelter; I know what it is to feel the heart burn with wrath and envy of "the privileged classes." Yes, but all that time I was one of "the privileged" myself, and now I can accept a recognized standing among them without shadow of self-reproach.
It does not mean that my larger sympathies are blunted.By going to certain places, looking upon certain scenes, I could most effectually destroy all the calm that life has brought me.If Ihold apart and purposely refuse to look that way, it is because Ibelieve that the world is better, not worse, for having one more inhabitant who lives as becomes a civilized being.Let him whose soul prompts him to assail the iniquity of things, cry and spare not; let him who has the vocation go forth and combat.In me it would be to err from Nature's guidance.I know, if I know anything, that I am made for the life of tranquillity and meditation.I know that only thus can such virtue as I possess find scope.More than half a century of existence has taught me that most of the wrong and folly which darken earth is due to those who cannot possess their souls in quiet; that most of the good which saves mankind from destruction comes of life that is led in thoughtful stillness.
Every day the world grows noisier; I, for one, will have no part in that increasing clamour, and, were it only by my silence, I confer a boon on all.
How well would the revenues of a country be expended, if, by mere pensioning, one-fifth of its population could be induced to live as I do!
