If they lust to destroy, without knowing what to build up instead, so
did I. If they make an almighty idol of that Electoral Reform, which ought
to be, and can be, only a preliminary means, and expect final deliverance
from "their twenty-thousandth part of a talker in the national palaver,"
so did I. Unhealthy and noisome as was the literary atmosphere in which I
now found myself, it was one to my taste. The very contrast between the
peaceful, intellectual luxury which I had just witnessed, and the misery of
my class and myself, quickened my delight in it. In bitterness, in sheer
envy, I threw my whole soul into it, and spoke evil, and rejoiced in evil.
It was so easy to find fault! It pampered my own self-conceit, my own
discontent, while it saved me the trouble of inventing remedies. Yes; it
was indeed easy to find fault. "The world was all before me, where to
choose." In such a disorganized, anomalous, grumbling, party-embittered
element as this English society, and its twin pauperism and luxury, I had
but to look straight before me to see my prey.
And thus I became daily more and more cynical, fierce, reckless.
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