Strachey, John St. Loe, 1860-1927 / 2008-05-30 00:00:00
Johnson, even at the end of his
life, could not speak without profound emotion.
I acted promptly. I at once gave up my nice little room in the Temple.
It was about eight foot square, furnished with one table, one arm-chair,
one cane chair, and a bookcase, and dignified by the name of Chambers. I
sometimes wonder now whether, if I could have looked down the long
avenue of the years and seen the crowded, turbulent series of events
which, as Professor Einstein has taught us, was rushing upon me like a
tiger on its prey, I should have been alarmed or not. I should have seen
many things exciting, many things sad, many things difficult, but above
all I should have seen what could only have been described as a
veritable snowstorm of written and printed pages.
I have sometimes, as every man will, reversed the process, looked back
and reviewed the past. On such occasions I have been half inclined to
make the reflection, common to all journalists, when they survey the
monumental works of our brethren in the superior ranks of the literary
profession: "Have I not cast my life and energy away on things ephemeral
and unworthy? Have not I preferred a kind of glorified pot-boiling to
the service of the spirit?" In the end, however, like the painter with
the journalist's heart in Robert Browning's poem, I console myself for
having enlisted among the tradesmen of literature rather than among the
artists:
For I have done some service in my time,
And not been paid profusely.
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