I desire to paint on it in fire and gore. When the heavens fail
man refuses to fail; when the sky seems to have written on it, in
letters of lead and pale silver, the decree that nothing shall
happen, then the immortal soul, the prince of the creatures, rises
up and decrees that something shall happen, if it be only the
slaughter of a policeman. But this is a digressive way of stating
what I have said already--that the bleak sky awoke in me a hunger
for some change of plans, that the monotonous weather seemed to
render unbearable the use of the monotonous train, and that I set
out into the country lanes, out of the town of Oxford. It was,
perhaps, at that moment that a strange curse came upon me out of
the city and the sky, whereby it was decreed that years afterwards
I should, in an article in the DAILY NEWS, talk about Sir George
Trevelyan in connection with Oxford, when I knew perfectly well
that he went to Cambridge.

As I crossed the country everything was ghostly and colourless.
The fields that should have been green were as grey as the skies;
the tree-tops that should have been green were as grey as the clouds
and as cloudy. And when I had walked for some hours the evening
was closing in. A sickly sunset clung weakly to the horizon,
as if pale with reluctance to leave the world in the dark.
And as it faded more and more the skies seemed to come closer and
to threaten. The clouds which had been merely sullen became swollen;
and then they loosened and let down the dark curtains of the rain.
The rain was blinding and seemed to beat like blows from an enemy
at close quarters; the skies seemed bending over and bawling
in my ears. I walked on many more miles before I met a man,
and in that distance my mind had been made up; and when I met
him I asked him if anywhere in the neighbourhood I could pick up