A Long Way Round 



no nightingale has ever been known to agree with 

 that opinion. . . . 



I seem to have left Jane caged up in the fruit 

 garden. She will never be able to look a straw- 

 berry in the face again, like those unfortunate rich 

 people in London who are sick of strawberries by 

 March, because by a curious inversion they cannot 

 afford to eat anything in season. To have too much 

 money is a great deal worse than having too little, 

 and when you reach the point of finding ordinary 

 food too cheap for your income, then it is time 

 to take desperate measures. 



Jane, in her youth, was poor, but not too poor. 

 In middle life she was rich, but not too rich, and 

 she has never had any real anxiety, or real trouble. 

 She has never quarrelled with anyone. She is 

 patriotic when other people are patriotic, despon- 

 dent when other people are despondent, not from 

 sympathy, but from sentiment, and because it 

 makes things comfortable to be so. She hates 

 nothing, and she loves nothing. She would admire 

 a villa garden with a Derbyshire spar rockery and 

 oyster-shell edging to the beds of scarlet geranium 

 and blue lobelia as much (and as little) as in her 

 heart of hearts she admires all that I am so 

 proud to display. 



Why worry about her ? 

 85 



