34 WAYS BACK TO NATURE 



existence; as so long as they were out, miles from 

 home, they felt free and happy. 



Another who from time to time would suddenly 

 abandon his office, and going to the nearest terminus, 

 take an express train and travel hundreds of miles, 

 north or south, then off in another direction, and so 

 for three or four days, borrowing his night-shirt and 

 whatever he needed at the hotels he stayed at, after 

 which he would return to London and business again. 

 He explained to me that the irksomeness of his con- 

 ventional indoor life, with so many hours each day 

 in his office in the city, appeared to have a cumulative 

 effect, and in the end would become unbearable; 

 and he would then rush or run away, and travelling at 

 express speed over long distances, he would get the 

 illusion that he had made his escape from such an 

 existence, and was flying for ever from it. 



Others there are whose chief delight is in water 

 — the sight and feel of it, running water, pools and 

 lakes and the sea, to bathe in or to sit on the margin 

 or by the shore, poring on it. Such a one was Shelley. 



Still others there are who are exhilarated by thun- 

 der and lightning, who will go out in the most dread- 

 ful storms and stand gazing up delightedly at the 

 tremendous spectacle. 



All these peculiar preferences, and one could add 

 many others, have one and the same origin — the sense 

 of disharmony between the organism and its environ- 

 ment. By a happy chance the poor wretch has dis- 

 covered a way of escape for a brief interval from his 

 imprisonment — in violent exercise, in getting drunk, 



