Читать книгу The Workers: An Experiment in Reality. The West онлайн

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It was so short a step by which I could emerge from the submerged, and the temptation to take it was so strong and inviting. The want and hardship and hideous squalor were bad enough, but these things could be endured for the sake of the end in view. It was the longing for fellowship that had grown to almost overmastering desire, the sight of a familiar face, the sound of a familiar voice, the healing touch of cultivated speech to feelings all raw under the brutalities of the street vernacular.

And after all, what real purpose was my experiment to serve? I had set out to learn and in the hope of gaining from what I learned something worth the while of a careful investigation. I had discovered much that was new to me, but nothing that was new to science, and the experience of a single individual could never furnish data for a valid generalization, and all that I had learned or could learn was already set forth in tabulated, statistical accuracy in blue books and economic treatises. Moreover it was impossible for me to rightly interpret even the human conditions in which I found myself, for between me and the actual workers was the infinite difference of necessity in relation to any lot in which I was. How could I, who at any moment could change my status if I chose, enter really into the life and feelings of the destitute poor who are bound to their lot by the hardest facts of stern reality? It was all futile and inadequate and absurd. I had learned something, and as for further inquiry of this kind, I would better give it up, and return to a life that was normal to me.