er for him if he had not had, of the raking open
country over the top, of broad white light and luminous blue shadows, of
white roads switchbacking through the sheep pastures; fields of bright
yellow mustard in flower on the lower hills; then, rectangular fir
plantations and copses of slender beech trees in the hollows. Somewhere,
far-off, the Severn, faint and still, like a river in a dream.

Memory of the round white town in the round pit of the valley, shining,
smoking through the thick air and the white orchard blossoms; memory
saturated by a smell that is like no other smell on earth, the delicate
smell of the Midland limestone country, the smell of clean white dust,
and of grass drying in the sun and of mustard flowers.

Michael was in Cheltenham.

It was a matter of many unhappinesses, not one unhappiness. A sudden
intolerable unhappiness, the flash and stab of the beauty of the
almond-flowers, seen in passing and never seized, beauty which it would
have been better for him if he had not seen; the knowledge, which he
ought never to have had, that this beauty had to die, was killed because
he had not seized it, when, if he could but have held it for one minute,
it would have been immortal. A vague, light unhappiness that came
sometimes, could not for the life of him think why, from the sight of
his own body stripped, and from the feeling of his own muscles. There
was sadness for him in his very strength. A long, aching unhappiness
that came with his memory of the open country over the tops of the
hills, which, in their incredible stupidity and cruelty, they had let
him see. A quick, lacerating unhappiness when he thought of his mother,
and of the garden on the Heath, and the high ridge of the Spaniards'
Road, and London below it, immense and beautiful.

The unhappiness of never being by himself.

He was afraid of the herd. It was with him night and day. He was afraid
of the thoughts, the emotions that seized it, swaying, moving the
multitude of undeveloped souls as if they had been one monstrous,
dominating soul. He was afraid of their voices, when they chanted, sang
and shouted together. He loathed their slang even when he used it. He
disliked the collective, male odour of the herd, the brushing against
him of bodies inflamed with running, the steam of their speed rising
through their hot sweaters; and the smell of dust and ink and
india-rubber and resinous wood in the warm class-rooms.

Michael was at scho