my disillusions with regard to England were realized subsequently, when
I had moved about the counties, paid many solid visits, and tasted the
land and people in some detail. And the disappointment was the keener
owing to the fact that very soon after my arrival in the old Home Place,
the "thrill" came to me with a direct appeal that was disconcerting. For
coming unexpectedly, as it did, in this familiar scene where yet
previously I had never known it, it had the effect of marking the change
in me with a certainty from which there was no withdrawal possible. It
standardized this change. The new judgment was made uncompromisingly
clear; people and places must inevitably stand or fall by it. And the
first to fall--since the test lies beyond all control of affection or
respect--was our own dear, faithful mother.

You share my reverence and devotion, so you will feel no pain that I
would dishonour a tie that is sacred to us both in the old Bible sense.
But, also, you know what a sturdy and typical soul of England she has
proved herself, and that a sense of beauty is not, alas, by any stretch
of kindliest allowance, a national characteristic. Culture and knowledge
we may fairly claim, no doubt, but the imaginative sense of beauty is o
rare among us that its possession is a peculiarity good form would
suppress. It is a pose, an affectation, it is unmanly--it is not
English. We are too strong to thrill. And that one so near and dear to
me, so honoured and so deeply loved, should prove herself to my new
standard thus typically English, while it came as sharpest pain, ought
not, I suppose, to have caused me the surprise it did. It made me aware,
however, of the importance of my new criterion, while at the same time
aware of a lack of sympathy between us that amounted to disenchantment.
It was a shock, to put it plainly. A breath of solitude, of isolation,
stole on me and, close behind it, melancholy.