Work and Travel, Travel and Work--and by Work I mean some labour so absorbing as to drug all thought; and by Travel I mean Nature, and books, and art, and music, since these are, after all, but dream-voyages in other men's minds--they alone are for me the panacea of pain. Not the cackle of the human tongue--that for ever leaves me cold; not the sympathy which talks and reproves, or turns on the tap of help and courage by the usual trite source--that never helps me to forget. But Work, and Travel, and (for me) Loneliness--these are the three things by which I flee from haunting terrors towards numbness and indifference. Each one, of course, has his own weapons--these are mine. Years ago, when I was young and timid, I dreaded to leave the little rut down which I wandered. Now experience has given me the knowledge that Life is very little after all, and that it is for the most part worthless where there is no happiness, no forgetfulness of pain, no inner peace. The opinion of other people, beyond the few who love me, leaves me cold. The praise or approbation of the world--what is it worth at best, while it is boring nearly always? Each year as it passes seems to me, not so much a mere passing of time and distance, but a further peak attained towards some world, some inner vision, which I but half comprehend. Each peak is lonelier, but, as I reach it and prepare to ascend the next, there comes into my soul a wider vision of what life, and love, and renunciation really mean, until at last I seem to _see_--what? I cannot really say, but I see, as it were, the early radiance of some Great Dawn where everything will be made clear and, at last and at length, the soul will find comfort, and happiness, and peace. And the things which drag you away from this inner-vision--they are the things which hurt, which age you before your time, which rob you of joy and contentment. As a syren they seem to beckon you into the valleys where all is sunshine and liveliness, and if you go . . . if you go, alas! it is not long before once more you must set your face, a lonelier and a sadder man, towards the mountain peaks. That seems to me to be the story of--oh, so many lives! That seems to me to be the one big theme in a tale which superficially is all jollity and laughter.
[The end]
Richard King's essay: Work