But one, a man, who is man and nothing more,
May lead within a world which (by your leave)
Is Rome or London, not Fool's-Paradise.
Embellish Rome, idealize away,
Make Paradise of London if you can,
You're welcome, nay, you're wise."
Robert Browning, "Bishop Blougram's Apology."
I
I left Oxford with a sense of oppressive loneliness.
It was not entirely the sorrow of parting from a place I had for four years loved but too well; it was not altogether the prospect of making a fresh start—I was pleasurably excited by that; the feeling of forlornness arose, I think, from the recognition that the next step would have to be taken alone. I suppose I am shy; certainly I lack initiative. There had hitherto always been someone to keep me in countenance—Loring at my private school, at Melton and, later, at Oxford, and there had always been someone to act as a stimulus. At one time it was Burgess, who laid the foundation of any knowledge I have gleaned, and made me as temperate, passionless and sterile as I have become—as deeply imbued, perhaps, with the indifference that masquerades as toleration.