The early coming of spring in this happy Devon gladdens my heart. I
think with chill discomfort of those parts of England where the primrose
shivers beneath a sky of threat rather than of solace. Honest winter,
snow-clad and with the frosted beard, I can welcome not uncordially; but
that long deferment of the calendar's promise, that weeping gloom of
March and April, that bitter blast outraging the honour of May--how often
has it robbed me of heart and hope. Here, scarce have I assured myself
that the last leaf has fallen, scarce have I watched the glistening of
hoar-frost upon the evergreens, when a breath from the west thrills me
with anticipation of bud and bloom. Even under this grey-billowing sky,
which tells that February is still in rule:--
Mild winds shake the elder brake,
And the wandering herdsmen know
That the whitethorn soon will blow.
I have been thinking of those early years of mine in London, when the
seasons passed over me unobserved, when I seldom turned a glance towards
the heavens, and felt no hardship in the imprisonment of boundless
streets. It is strange now to remember that for some six or seven years
I never looked upon a meadow, never travelled even so far as to the tree-
bordered suburbs. I was battling for dear life; on most days I could not
feel certain that in a week's time I should have food and shelter. It
would happen, to be sure, that in hot noons of August my thoughts
wandered to the sea; but so impossible was the gratification of such
desire that it never greatly troubled me. At times, indeed, I seem all
but to have forgotten that people went away for holiday. In those poor
parts of the town where I dwelt, season made no perceptible difference;
there were no luggage-laden cabs to remind me of joyous journeys; the
folk about me went daily to their toil as usual, and so did I. I
remember afternoons of languor, when books were a weariness, and no
thought could be squeezed out of the drowsy brain; then would I betake
myself to one of the parks, and find refreshment without any enjoyable
sense of change. Heavens, how I laboured in those days! And how far I
was from thinking of myself as a subject for compassion! That came
later, when my health had begun to suffer from excess of toil, from bad
air, bad food and many miseries; then awoke the maddening desire for
countryside and sea-beach--and for other things yet more remote. But in
the years when I toiled hardest and underwent what now appear to me
hideous privations, of a truth I could not be said to suffer at all. I
did not suffer, for I had no sense of weakness. My health was proof
against everything, and my energies defied all malice of circumstance.
With however little encouragement, I had infinite hope. Sound sleep
(often in places I now dread to think of) sent me fresh to the battle
each morning, my breakfast, sometimes, no more than a slice of bread and
a cup of water. As human happiness goes, I am not sure that I was not
then happy.
Most men who go through a hard time in their youth are supported by
companionship. London has no _pays latin_, but hungry beginners in
literature have generally their suitable comrades, garreteers in the
Tottenham Court Road district, or in unredeemed Chelsea; they make their
little _vie de Boheme_, and are consciously proud of it. Of my position,
the peculiarity was that I never belonged to any cluster; I shrank from
casual acquaintance, and, through the grim years, had but one friend with
whom I held converse. It was never my instinct to look for help, to seek
favour for advancement; whatever step I gained was gained by my own
strength. Even as I disregarded favour so did I scorn advice; no counsel
would I ever take but that of my own brain and heart. More than once I
was driven by necessity to beg from strangers the means of earning bread,
and this of all my experiences was the bitterest; yet I think I should
have found it worse still to incur a debt to some friend or comrade. The
truth is that I have never learnt to regard myself as a "member of
society." For me, there have always been two entities--myself and the
world, and the normal relation between these two has been hostile. Am I
not still a lonely man, as far as ever from forming part of the social
order?
This, of which I once was scornfully proud, seems to me now, if not a
calamity, something I would not choose if life were to live again.