Would I live it over again, that life of the garret and the cellar? Not
with the assurance of fifty years' contentment such as I now enjoy to
follow upon it! With man's infinitely pathetic power of resignation, one
sees the thing on its better side, forgets all the worst of it, makes out
a case for the resolute optimist. Oh, but the waste of energy, of zeal,
of youth! In another mood, I could shed tears over that spectacle of
rare vitality condemned to sordid strife. The pity of it! And--if our
conscience mean anything at all--the bitter wrong!
Without seeking for Utopia, think what a man's youth might be. I suppose
not one in every thousand uses half the possibilities of natural joy and
delightful effort which lie in those years between seventeen and seven-
and-twenty. All but all men have to look back upon beginnings of life
deformed and discoloured by necessity, accident, wantonness. If a young
man avoid the grosser pitfalls, if he keep his eye fixed steadily on what
is called the main chance, if, without flagrant selfishness, he prudently
subdue every interest to his own (by "interest" understanding only
material good), he is putting his youth to profit, he is an exemplar and
a subject of pride. I doubt whether, in our civilization, any other
ideal is easy of pursuit by the youngster face to face with life. It is
the only course altogether safe. Yet compare it with what might be, if
men respected manhood, if human reason were at the service of human
happiness. Some few there are who can look back upon a boyhood of
natural delights, followed by a decade or so of fine energies honourably
put to use, blended therewith, perhaps, a memory of joy so exquisite that
it tunes all life unto the end; they are almost as rare as poets. The
vast majority think not of their youth at all, or, glancing backward, are
unconscious of lost opportunity, unaware of degradation suffered. Only
by contrast with this thick-witted multitude can I pride myself upon my
youth of endurance and of combat. I had a goal before me, and not the
goal of the average man. Even when pinched with hunger, I did not
abandon my purposes, which were of the mind. But contrast that starved
lad in his slum lodging with any fair conception of intelligent and
zealous youth, and one feels that a dose of swift poison would have been
the right remedy for such squalid ills.