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 I hold apart and
purposely refuse to look that way, it is because I believe 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!