I went with a man named Willersley, a man some years senior to
myself, who had just missed a fellowship and the higher division of
the Civil Service, and who had become an enthusiastic member of the
London School Board, upon which the cumulative vote and the support
of the "advanced" people had placed him. He had, like myself, a
small independent income that relieved him of any necessity to earn
a living, and he had a kindred craving for social theorising and
some form of social service. He had sought my acquaintance after
reading a paper of mine (begotten by the visit of Chris Robinson) on
the limits of pure democracy. It had marched with some thoughts of
his own.

We went by train to Spiez on the Lake of Thun, then up the Gemmi,
and thence with one or two halts and digressions and a little modest
climbing we crossed over by the Antrona pass (on which we were
benighted) into Italy, and by way of Domo D'ossola and the Santa
Maria Maggiore valley to Cannobio, and thence up the lake to Locarno
(where, as I shall tell, we stayed some eventful days) and so up the
Val Maggia and over to Airolo and home.

As I write of that long tramp of ours, something of its freshness
and enlargement returns to me. I feel again the faint pleasant
excitement of the boat train, the trampling procession of people
with hand baggage and laden porters along the platform of the
Folkestone pier, the scarcely perceptible swaying of the moored boat
beneath our feet. Then, very obvious and simple, the little emotion
of standing out from the homeland and seeing the long white Kentish
cliffs recede. One walked about the boat doing one's best not to
feel absurdly adventurous, and presently a movement of people
directed one's attention to a white lighthouse on a cliff to the