This has been one of the best Easter holidays I can remember. Stapleton managed to get a month's sick leave from his curacy and we set off for Oxford and the Cotswolds, to try to regain something of the irresponsible gaiety of Oxford days. I had no idea how hateful the country round Radchester was until I got back to the City of Spires. It seemed impossible to believe that only two years ago I had still to take my Finals, that I was disporting myself on the upper river and the Cher, lazily enjoying all the sweets of life and now--well, I felt about a hundred years old at the end of last term. There was no beauty or interest anywhere or in anything, and then Stapleton wired for me--and since then life has been one all too short ecstasy. We stayed in Oxford just long enough to buy tobacco, a few books and some clothes, and then set out on foot to go over again some of the country we had learnt to love so well as undergraduates. Rucksacks on back, we climbed Cumnor Hill on a glorious spring morning and made our way down to Bablock Hythe and then kept along by the river for the rest of the day: we strolled languidly and talked rabidly about our scholastic and church experiences, our disappointments and successes. The air cleared our minds: we evolved great schemes of new schools and new religions, undefiled by effete traditions. Gradually the beauty of the meadows and the old-world villages made us forget our worries and we gave ourselves up to the enjoyment of the time. We travelled without map or guide and just wandered at will. When we saw an inn that we liked we stayed there, and ate and drank ourselves drowsy. At night-time, when the bar-parlours were closed and we had reluctantly to say good night to the labourers who came in and gave their views on world-politics, we used to read for a little, and then to a ten hours' sleep. I had taken the "Note Books of Samuel Butler" as my pocket companion for this journey, and I never took a book which served its purpose so well. In compact paragraphs the philosopher sums up with amazing shrewdness, humour and insight into the human mind all that he discovered to be interesting or worth repeating. The "Note Books" are crammed with the cream of his thinking on every sort of subject, science, music, literature, religion, architecture, sheep-farming, authorship--everything that could possibly appeal to any thinking man. It is an invaluable book to argue about. Butler at least clears the brain more than any writer except Swift. He scatters pedagogy and all cant and humbug to the winds: just as the air of the Cotswolds scatters all thoughts of Radchester from one's mind, so does Samuel Butler fill it with new ideas and fresh weapons of thought.