my father inherits its crude and primitive instincts; among them a
passion for the chase. His appearance, as he returned to our
compartment, oppressed me for the hundredth time with a sense of its
superabundant and even riotous vitality. His cheeks were glowing,
and his whiskers sprouted like cabbages on either side of his
otherwise clean-shaven face. An indefinable flavour of the sea
mingled with the odour of tobacco which he diffused about the
carriage. It seemed as if the virile breezes of that shaggy Cornish
coast still blew about him; and I felt again that constriction of the
chest from which I had suffered during the past month.

After all, it is good to be back in London! Newquay, with its
obvious picturesqueness, its violent colouring, its sands, rocks,
breakers and by-laws regulating the costume of bathers, merely
exasperated my nerves. How far more subtle the appeal of these grey
and dun-coloured opacities, these tent-cloths of fog pressed out into
uncouth, dumbly pathetic shapes by the struggle for existence that
seethes below it always--always! Decidedly I must begin to-morrow to
practise walking. It seems a necessary step towards acquainting
myself with the inner life of these inchoate millions, which must be
well worth knowing. Papa, on arriving at our door, plunged into an
altercation with a cab-tout. What a man! And yet sometimes I could
find it in my heart to envy his robustness, his buoyancy. A Huntley
and Palmer's Nursery Biscuit in a little hot water has somewhat
quieted my nerves, which suffered cruelly during the scene.
I believe I shall sleep to-night.

_Tuesday, 8th_. The beginning of _Sturm und Drang_; I am learning to
walk. Moreover I have surprised in myself, during the day, a
tendency to fall in love with my nurse. On the pretence that walking