I commenced my unsuccessful fight in London.

I lived--I can't tell you how--week by week, month by month.

I ate coarse food, I was a hanger-on to the fringe of everything in life which appealed to me, fed intellectually on the crumbs of free libraries and picture galleries.

I met no one of my own station--I was at a public school and my people were gentlefolk--or tastes.

I had no friends in London before whom I dared present myself, no money to join a club where I might have mixed with my fellows, no one to talk to or exchange a single idea with--and I wasn't always the gloomy sort of person I have become; in my younger days I loved companionship.
And the women--my landlady's daughter, with dyed hair, a loud voice, slatternly in the morning, a flagrant imitation of her less honest sisters at night! Who else?
Where was I to meet women when I didn't even know men?
I spent my poor holidays at Detton Magna.