In conversation I was always a bad hand at assuming a position contrary to the one assumed by the person to whom I might be talking—nor could I persistently maintain my own position if it happened to be opposed. I always rather tried to see as my opponent saw, and to discover how much there was in him with which I could sympathise. I therefore assented weakly to Theresa, and she seemed disappointed. Dinner was just over; she got up and rang the bell and went out of the room. I found my work very hard, and some of it even loathsome. Particularly loathsome was that part of it which brought me into contact with the trade. I had to sell books to the booksellers’ assistants, and I had to collect books myself. These duties are usually undertaken in large establishments by men specially trained, who receive a low rate of wages and who are rather a rough set. It was totally different work to anything I had ever had to do before, and I suffered as a man with soft hands would suffer who was suddenly called to be a blacksmith or a dock-labourer. Specially, too, did I miss the country. London lay round me like a mausoleum. I got into the habit of rising very early in the morning and walking out to Kensington Gardens and back before breakfast, varying my route occasionally so as even to reach Battersea Bridge, which was always a favourite spot with me. Kensington Gardens and Battersea Bridge were poor substitutes for the downs, and for the level stretch by the river towards the sea where I first saw Mardon, but we make too much of circumstances, and the very pressure of London produced a sensibility to whatever loveliness could be apprehended there, which was absent when loveliness was always around me. The stars seen in Oxford Street late one night; a sunset one summer evening from Lambeth pier; and, above everything, Piccadilly very early one summer morning, abide with me still, when much that was more romantic has been forgotten. On the whole, I was not unhappy. The constant outward occupation prevented any eating of the heart or undue brooding over problems which were insoluble, at least for my intellect, and on that very account fascinated me the more.