Another stratagem of defence which I adopted at the office was never
to betray to a soul anything about myself. Nobody knew anything
about me, whether I was married or single, where I lived, or what I
thought upon a single subject of any importance. I cut off my office
life in this way from my life at home so completely that I was two
selves, and my true self was not stained by contact with my other
self. It was a comfort to me to think the moment the clock struck
seven that my second self died, and that my first self suffered
nothing by having anything to do with it. I was not the person who
sat at the desk downstairs and endured the abominable talk of his
colleagues and the ignominy of serving such a chief. I knew nothing
about him. I was a citizen walking London streets; I had my opinions
upon human beings and books; I was on equal terms with my friends; I
was Ellen's husband; I was, in short, a man. By this scrupulous
isolation, I preserved myself, and the clerk was not debarred from
the domain of freedom.
It is very terrible to think that the labour by which men are to live
should be of this order. The ideal of labour is that it should be
something in which we can take an interest and even a pride.
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