It was
irritating not to recollect his name. He longed to be a boy again, like
those he saw sauntering through the quadrangle, so that, avoiding his
mistakes, he might start fresh and make something more out of life. He
felt an intolerable loneliness. He almost regretted the penury which he
had suffered during the last two years, since the desperate struggle
merely to keep body and soul together had deadened the pain of living. In
the sweat of thy brow shalt thou earn thy daily bread: it was not a curse
upon mankind, but the balm which reconciled it to existence.
But Philip was impatient with himself; he called to mind his idea of the
pattern of life: the unhappiness he had suffered was no more than part of
a decoration which was elaborate and beautiful; he told himself
strenuously that he must accept with gaiety everything, dreariness and
excitement, pleasure and pain, because it added to the richness of the
design. He sought for beauty consciously, and he remembered how even as a
boy he had taken pleasure in the Gothic cathedral as one saw it from the
precincts; he went there and looked at the massive pile, gray under the
cloudy sky, with the central tower that rose like the praise of men to
their God; but the boys were batting at the nets, and they were lissom and
strong and active; he could not help hearing their shouts and laughter.
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