annoyed, not with people, but with things, like a baby;
with the motor for breaking down and with Sunday for
being Sunday. And the sight of the northern slums
expanded and ennobled, but did not decrease, my gloom:
Whitechapel has an Oriental gaudiness in its squalor;
Battersea and Camberwell have an indescribable bustle
of democracy; but the poor parts of North London .
. . well, perhaps I saw them wrongly under that ashen
morning and on that foolish errand.
It was one of those days which more than once this
year broke the retreat of winter; a winter day that
began too late to be spring. We were already
clear of the obstructing crowds and quickening our
pace through a borderland of market gardens and isolated
public-houses, when the grey showed golden patches
and a good light began to glitter on everything.
The cab went quicker and quicker. The open land
whirled wider and wider; but I did not lose my sense
of being battled with and thwarted that I had felt
in the thronged slums. Rather the feeling increased,
because of the great difficulty of space and time.
The faster went the car, the fiercer and thicker
I felt the fight.
The whole landscape seemed charging at me—and
just missing me. The tall, shining grass went
by like showers of arrows; the very trees seemed like
lances hurled at my heart, and shaving it by a hair’s
breadth. Across some vast, smooth valley I saw
a beech-tree by the white road stand up little and
defiant. It grew bigger and bigger with blinding
rapidity. It charged me like a tilting knight,
seemed to hack at my head, and pass by. Sometimes
when we went round a curve of road, the effect was
yet more awful. It seemed as if some tree or
windmill swung round to smite like a boomerang.
The sun by this time was a blazing fact; and I saw
that all Nature is chivalrous and militant. We
do wrong to seek peace in Nature; we should rather
seek the nobler sort of war; and see all the trees
as green banners.
. . . . .
I gave my address, arriving just when everybody was
deciding to leave. When my cab came reeling into
the market-place they decided, with evident disappointment,
to remain. Over the lecture I draw a veil.
When I came back home I was called to the telephone,
and a meek voice expressed regret for the failure of
the motor-cab, and even said something about any reasonable
payment. “Whom can I pay for my own superb
experience? What is the usual charge for seeing
the clouds shattered by the sun? What is the
market price of a tree blue on the sky-line and then
blinding white in the sun? Mention your price
for that windmill that stood behind the hollyhocks
in the garden. Let me pay you for . . .”
Here it was, I think, that we were cut off.
