New Grub Street by George Gissing (best mobile ebook reader .txt) 📕

to be made with faculties of enjoyment, and those have to fall into atrophy. To be sure, most rich people don’t understand their happiness; if they did, they would move and talk like gods⁠—which indeed they are.”

Amy’s brow was shadowed. A wise man, in Reardon’s position, would not have chosen this subject to dilate upon.

“The difference,” he went on, “between the man with money and the man without is simply this: the one thinks, ‘How shall I use my life?’ and the other, ‘How shall I keep myself alive?’ A physiologist ought to be able to discover some curious distinction between the brain of a person who has never given a thought to the means of subsistence, and that of one who has never known a day free from such cares. There must be some special cerebral development representing the mental anguish kept up by poverty.”

“I should say,” put in Amy, “that it affects every function of the brain. It isn’t a special point of suffering, but a misery that colours every thought.”

“True. Can I think of a single subject in all the sphere of my experience without the consciousness that I see it through the medium of poverty? I have no enjoyment which isn’t tainted by that thought, and I can suffer no pain which it doesn’t increase. The curse of poverty is to the modern world just what that of slavery was to the ancient. Rich and destitute stand to each other as free man and bond. You remember the line of Homer I have often quoted about the demoralising effect of enslavement; poverty degrades in the same way.”

“It has had its effect upon me⁠—I know that too well,” said Amy, with bitter frankness.

Reardon glanced at her, and wished to make some reply, but he could not say what was in his thoughts.

He worked on at his story. Before he had reached the end of it, Margaret Home was published, and one day arrived a parcel containing the six copies to which an author is traditionally entitled. Reardon was not so old in authorship that he could open the packet without a slight flutter of his pulse. The book was tastefully got up; Amy exclaimed with pleasure as she caught sight of the cover and lettering:

“It may succeed, Edwin. It doesn’t look like a book that fails, does it?”

She laughed at her own childishness. But Reardon had opened one of the volumes, and was glancing over the beginning of a chapter.

“Good God!” he cried. “What hellish torment it was to write that page! I did it one morning when the fog was so thick that I had to light the lamp. It brings cold sweat to my forehead to read the words. And to think that people will skim over it without a suspicion of what it cost the writer!⁠—What execrable style! A potboy could write better narrative.”

“Who are to have copies?”

“No one, if I could help it. But I suppose your mother will expect one?”

“And⁠—Milvain?”

“I suppose so,” he replied indifferently. “But not unless he asks for it. Poor old Biffen, of course; though it’ll make him despise me. Then one for ourselves. That leaves two⁠—to light the fire with. We have been rather short of fire-paper since we couldn’t afford our daily newspaper.”

“Will you let me give one to Mrs. Carter?”

“As you please.”

He took one set and added it to the row of his productions which stood on a topmost shelf Amy laid her hand upon his shoulder and contemplated the effect of this addition.

“The works of Edwin Reardon,” she said, with a smile.

“The work, at all events⁠—rather a different thing, unfortunately. Amy, if only I were back at the time when I wrote On Neutral Ground, and yet had you with me! How full my mind was in those days! Then I had only to look, and I saw something; now I strain my eyes, but can make out nothing more than nebulous grotesques. I used to sit down knowing so well what I had to say; now I strive to invent, and never come at anything. Suppose you pick up a needle with warm, supple fingers; try to do it when your hand is stiff and numb with cold; there’s the difference between my manner of work in those days and what it is now.”

“But you are going to get back your health. You will write better than ever.”

“We shall see. Of course there was a great deal of miserable struggle even then, but I remember it as insignificant compared with the hours of contented work. I seldom did anything in the mornings except think and prepare; towards evening I felt myself getting ready, and at last I sat down with the first lines buzzing in my head. And I used to read a great deal at the same time. Whilst I was writing On Neutral Ground I went solidly through the Divina Commedia, a canto each day. Very often I wrote till after midnight, but occasionally I got my quantum finished much earlier, and then I used to treat myself to a ramble about the streets. I can recall exactly the places where some of my best ideas came to me. You remember the scene in Prendergast’s lodgings? That flashed on me late one night as I was turning out of Leicester Square into the slum that leads to Clare Market; ah, how well I remember! And I went home to my garret in a state of delightful fever, and scribbled notes furiously before going to bed.”

“Don’t trouble; it’ll all come back to you.”

“But in those days I hadn’t to think of money. I could look forward and see provision for my needs. I never asked myself what I should get for the book; I assure you, that never came into my head⁠—never. The work was done for its own sake. No hurry to finish it; if I felt that I wasn’t up to the mark, I just waited