ng the cost; and oh! the blessedness of that. I would rather have
a three-days' holiday thus than three weeks with an anxious calculation
of resources.

April 8.--I am really off to the Cotswolds. I packed my beloved
knapsack yesterday afternoon. I put in it--precision is the essence of
diarising--a spare shirt, which will have to serve if necessary as a
nightgown, a pair of socks, a pair of slippers, a toothbrush, a small
comb, and a sponge; that is sufficient for a philosopher. A pocket
volume of poetry--Matthew Arnold this time--and a map completed my
outfit. And I sent a bag containing a more liberal wardrobe to a
distant station, which I calculated it would take me three days to
reach. Then I went off by an afternoon train, and, by sunset, I found
myself in a little town, Hinton Perevale, of stone-built houses, with
an old bridge. I had no sense of freedom as yet, only a blessed feeling
of repose. I took an early supper in a small low-roofed parlour with
mullioned windows. By great good fortune I found myself the only guest
at the inn, and had the room to myself; then I went early and
gratefully to bed, utterly sleepy and content, with just enough sense
left to pray for a fine day.

My prayer is answered this morning. I slept a dreamless sleep, and was
roused by the cheerful crowing of cocks, which picked about the back
yard of the inn. I dressed quickly, only suspending my task to watch
the little dramas of the inn yard--the fowls on the pig-sty wall; the
horse waiting meekly, with knotted traces hanging round it, to be
harnessed; the cat, on some grave business of its own, squeezing
gracefully under a closed barn door; the weary, flat-footed duck,
nuzzling the mud of a small pool as delicately as though it were a rich
custard. I was utterly free; I might go and come as I liked. Time had
ceased to exist for me, and it was pleasant to reflect, as I finished
my simple breakfast, that I should under professional conditions have
been hurrying briskly into school for an hour of Latin Prose. The
incredible absurdity and futility of it all came home to me. Half the
boys that I teach so elaborately would be both more wholesomely and
happily employed if they were going out to farm-work for the day. But
they are gentlemen's sons, and so must enter what are called the
liberal professions, to retire at the age of sixty with a poor
digestion, a peevish wife, and a family of impossible children. But it
is only in such inconse