ieces of a jig-saw
puzzle seen in a nightmare, he asked himself what he was going to do.
Everything was so clear before him, all he had aimed at so long within
reach at last, and now his inconceivable stupidity had erected this new
obstacle. Philip had never been able to surmount what he acknowledged was
a defect in his resolute desire for a well ordered life, and that was his
passion for living in the future; and no sooner was he settled in his work
at the hospital than he had busied himself with arrangements for his
travels. In the past he had often tried not to think too circumstantially
of his plans for the future, it was only discouraging; but now that his
goal was so near he saw no harm in giving away to a longing that was so
difficult to resist. First of all he meant to go to Spain. That was the
land of his heart; and by now he was imbued with its spirit, its romance
and colour and history and grandeur; he felt that it had a message for him
in particular which no other country could give. He knew the fine old
cities already as though he had trodden their tortuous streets from
childhood. Cordova, Seville, Toledo, Leon, Tarragona, Burgos. The great
painters of Spain were the painters of his soul, and his pulse beat
quickly as he pictured his ecstasy on standing face to face with those
works which were more significant than any others to his own tortured,
restless heart. He had read the great poets, more characteristic of their
race than the poets of other lands; for they seemed to have drawn their
inspiration not at all from the general currents of the world's literature
but directly from the torrid, scented plains and the bleak mountains of
their country. A few short months now, and he would hear with his own ears
all around him the language which seemed most apt for grandeur of soul and
passion. His fine taste had given him an inkling that Andalusia was too
soft and sensuous, a little vulgar even, to satisfy his ardour; and his
imagination dwelt more willingly among the wind-swept distances of Castile
and the rugged magnificence of Aragon and Leon. He did not know quite what
those unknown contacts would give him, but he felt that he would gather
from them a strength and a purpose which would make him more capable of
affronting and comprehending the manifold wonders of places more distant
and more strange.

For this was only a beginning. He had got into communication with the
various companies which took surgeons o