suggestion had gone likewise. It was merely a Common that deserved
its name. For though this was but the close of May, I found it worn
into threadbare patches, with edges unravelled like those of some old
carpet in a seaside lodging-house. The lanes that fed it were already
thick with dust as in thirsty August, and instead of eglantine,
wild-roses, and the rest, a smell of petrol hung upon hedges that
were quite lustreless. On the crest of the hill, whence we once
thought the view included heaven, I stood by those beaten pines we
named The Fort, counting jagged bits of glass and scraps of faded
newspaper that marred the bright green of the sprouting bracken.

This glorious spot, once sacred to our dreams, was like a great
backyard--the Backyard of the County--while the view we loved as the
birthplace of all possible adventure, seemed to me now without
spaciousness or distinction. The trees and hedges cramped the little
fields and broke their rhythm. No great winds ever swept them clean.
The landscape was confused: there was no adventure in it, suggestion
least of all. Everything had already happened there.

And on my way home, resentful perhaps yet eager still, I did a
dreadful thing. Possibly I hoped still for that divine sensation
which refused to come. I visited the very field, the very poplar . . .
I found the scene quite unchanged, but found it also--lifeless. The
glamour of association did not operate. I knew no poignancy, desire
lay inert. The thrill held stubbornly aloof. No link was
strengthened. . . . I came home slowly, thinking instead of my mother's
plans and wishes for me, and of the clear intention to incorporate me
in the stolid and conventional formulas of what appeared to me as
uninspired English dullness. My disappointment crystallized into
something like revolt. A faint hostility even rose in me as we sat