but in them was an abstract light. He could talk about Persia and the
Trade winds, the Reform Bill and the cycle of the harvests. Books were
on his shelves by Wells and Shaw; on the table serious six-penny
weeklies written by pale men in muddy boots--the weekly creak and
screech of brains rinsed in cold water and wrung dry--melancholy papers.

"I don't feel that I know the truth about anything till I've read them
both!" said Mrs. Plumer brightly, tapping the table of contents with her
bare red hand, upon which the ring looked so incongruous.

"Oh God, oh God, oh God!" exclaimed Jacob, as the four undergraduates
left the house. "Oh, my God!"

"Bloody beastly!" he said, scanning the street for lilac or bicycle--
anything to restore his sense of freedom.

"Bloody beastly," he said to Timmy Durrant, summing up his discomfort at
the world shown him at lunch-time, a world capable of existing--there
was no doubt about that--but so unnecessary, such a thing to believe in--
Shaw and Wells and the serious sixpenny weeklies! What were they after,
scrubbing and demolishing, these elderly people? Had they never read
Homer, Shakespeare, the Elizabethans? He saw it clearly outlined against
the feelings he drew from youth and natural inclination. The poor devils
had rigged up this meagre object. Yet something of pity was in him.
Those wretched little girls--

The extent to which he was disturbed proves that he was already agog.
Insolent he was and inexperienced, but sure enough the cities which the
elderly of the race have built upon the skyline showed like brick
suburbs, barracks, and places of discipline against a red and yellow