staring villa with sham-antique timbering, stuck on the top of a hill
among raw gardens. It belonged to a man called Moxon Ivery, who
was a kind of academic pacificist and a great god in the place.
Another, a quiet Georgian manor house, was owned by a London
publisher, an ardent Liberal whose particular branch of business
compelled him to keep in touch with the new movements. I used to
see him hurrying to the station swinging a little black bag and
returning at night with the fish for dinner.

I soon got to know a surprising lot of people, and they were the
rummiest birds you can imagine. For example, there were the
Weekeses, three girls who lived with their mother in a house so
artistic that you broke your head whichever way you turned in it.
The son of the family was a conscientious objector who had refused
to do any sort of work whatever, and had got quodded for his
pains. They were immensely proud of him and used to relate his
sufferings in Dartmoor with a gusto which I thought rather heartless.
Art was their great subject, and I am afraid they found me
pretty heavy going. It was their fashion never to admire anything
that was obviously beautiful, like a sunset or a pretty woman, but
to find surprising loveliness in things which I thought hideous.
Also they talked a language that was beyond me. This kind of
conversation used to happen. - miss WEEKES: 'Don't you admire
Ursula jimson?' SELF: 'Rather!' miss w.: 'She is so John-esque in
her lines.' SELF: 'Exactly!' miss w.: 'And Tancred, too - he is so
full of nuances.' SELF: 'Rather!' miss w.: 'He suggests one of
Degousse's countrymen.' SELF: 'Exactly!'

They hadn't much use for books, except some Russian ones, and
I acquired merit in their eyes for having read Leprous Souls. If you