Blackberries hanging thick upon the hedge bring to my memory something of
long ago. I had somehow escaped into the country, and on a long walk
began to feel mid-day hunger. The wayside brambles were fruiting; I
picked and ate, and ate on, until I had come within sight of an inn where
I might have made a meal. But my hunger was satisfied; I had no need of
anything more, and, as I thought of it, a strange feeling of surprise, a
sort of bewilderment, came upon me. What! Could it be that I had eaten,
and eaten sufficiently, _without paying_? It struck me as an
extraordinary thing. At that time, my ceaseless preoccupation was how to
obtain money to keep myself alive. Many a day I had suffered hunger
because I durst not spend the few coins I possessed; the food I could buy
was in any case unsatisfactory, unvaried. But here Nature had given me a
feast, which seemed delicious, and I had eaten all I wanted. The wonder
held me for a long time, and to this day I can recall it, understand it.
I think there could be no better illustration of what it means to be very
poor in a great town. And I am glad to have been through it. To those
days of misery I owe much of the contentment which I now enjoy; not by
mere force of contrast, but because I have been better taught than most
men the facts which condition our day to day existence. To the ordinary
educated person, freedom from anxiety as to how he shall merely be fed
and clothed is a matter of course; questioned, he would admit it to be an
agreeable state of things, but it is no more a source of conscious joy to
him than physical health to the thoroughly sound man. For me, were I to
live another fifty years, this security would be a delightful surprise
renewed with every renewal of day. I know, as only one with my
experience can, all that is involved in the possession of means to live.
The average educated man has never stood alone, utterly alone, just clad
and nothing more than that, with the problem before him of wresting his
next meal from a world that cares not whether he live or die. There is
no such school of political economy. Go through that course of lectures,
and you will never again become confused as to the meaning of elementary
terms in that sorry science.
I understand, far better than most men, what I owe to the labour of
others. This money which I "draw" at the four quarters of the year, in a
sense falls to me from heaven; but I know very well that every drachm is
sweated from human pores. Not, thank goodness, with the declared tyranny
of basest capitalism; I mean only that it is the product of human labour;
perhaps wholesome, but none the less compulsory. Look far enough, and it
means muscular toil, that swinking of the ruder man which supports all
the complex structure of our life. When I think of him thus, the man of
the people earns my gratitude. That it is gratitude from afar, that I
never was, and never shall be, capable of democratic fervour, is a
characteristic of my mind which I long ago accepted as final. I have
known revolt against the privilege of wealth (can I not remember spots in
London where I have stood, savage with misery, looking at the prosperous
folk who passed?), but I could never feel myself at one with the native
poor among whom I dwelt. And for the simplest reason; I came to know
them too well. He who cultivates his enthusiasm amid graces and comforts
may nourish an illusion with regard to the world below him all his life
long, and I do not deny that he may be the better for it; for me, no
illusion was possible. I knew the poor, and I knew that their aims were
not mine. I knew that the kind of life (such a modest life!) which I
should have accepted as little short of the ideal, would have been to
them--if they could have been made to understand it--a weariness and a
contempt. To ally myself with them against the "upper world" would have
been mere dishonesty, or sheer despair. What they at heart desired, was
to me barren; what I coveted, was to them for ever incomprehensible.
That my own aim indicated an ideal which is the best for all to pursue, I
am far from maintaining. It may be so, or not; I have long known the
idleness of advocating reform on a basis of personal predilection. Enough
to set my own thoughts in order, without seeking to devise a new economy
for the world. But it is much to see clearly from one's point of view,
and therein the evil days I have treasured are of no little help to me.
If my knowledge be only subjective, why, it only concerns myself; I
preach to no one. Upon another man, of origin and education like to
mine, a like experience of hardship might have a totally different
effect; he might identify himself with the poor, burn to the end of his
life with the noblest humanitarianism. I should no further criticize him
than to say that he saw with other eyes than mine. A vision, perhaps,
larger and more just. But in one respect he resembles me. If ever such
a man arises, let him be questioned; it will be found that he once made a
meal of blackberries--and mused upon it.