Page 206 - of-human-bondage-

wrote of old church music and the Alban Hills, and of the
languor of incense and the charm of the streets by night,
in the rain, when the pavements shone and the light of the
street lamps was mysterious. Perhaps he repeated these ad-
mirable letters to various friends. He did not know what a
troubling effect they had upon Philip; they seemed to make
his life very humdrum. With the spring Hayward grew
dithyrambic. He proposed that Philip should come down
to Italy. He was wasting his time at Heidelberg. The Ger-
mans were gross and life there was common; how could the
soul come to her own in that prim landscape? In Tusca-
ny the spring was scattering flowers through the land, and
Philip was nineteen; let him come and they could wander
through the mountain towns of Umbria. Their names sang
in Philip’s heart. And Cacilie too, with her lover, had gone
to Italy. When he thought of them Philip was seized with
a restlessness he could not account for. He cursed his fate
because he had no money to travel, and he knew his uncle
would not send him more than the fifteen pounds a month
which had been agreed upon. He had not managed his al-
lowance very well. His pension and the price of his lessons
left him very little over, and he had found going about with
Hayward expensive. Hayward had often suggested excur-
sions, a visit to the play, or a bottle of wine, when Philip had
come to the end of his month’s money; and with the folly of
his age he had been unwilling to confess he could not afford
an extravagance.
Luckily Hayward’s letters came seldom, and in the in-
tervals Philip settled down again to his industrious life. He

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