You think it was a mistake to spend those months abroad ?' 'A mistake from the practical point of view.

That vast broadening of my horizon lost me the command of my literary resources.

I lived in Italy and Greece as a student, concerned especially with the old civilisations; I read little but Greek and Latin.

That brought me out of the track I had laboriously made for myself I often thought with disgust of the kind of work I had been doing; my novels seemed vapid stuff so wretchedly and shallowly modern.

If I had had the means, I should have devoted myself to the life of a scholar.