Then he recalled his tedious uninspired youth in London, the hateful day-school, the hateful overcrowded college, the interminable routine of his ten years of teaching. “A double life! A double life!” he muttered under his breath, staring at the grey rump of Mr. Urquhart’s nag, as it swayed before him, and moving his own body a little forward, as he tightened his grip still more fiercely upon his own bony thighs.

Was he going to be plunged now into another world of commonplace tedium, full of the same flat, conventional ambitions, the same sickening clevernesses? It couldn’t be so! It couldn’t⁠ ⁠… it couldn’t⁠ ⁠… with this enchanted springtime stirring in all these leaves and grasses.⁠ ⁠…

What a country this was!