BOOK THE SECOND

THE RISE OF TONO-BUNGAY



CHAPTER THE FIRST

HOW I BECAME A LONDON STUDENT AND WENT ASTRAY

I came to live in London, as I shall tell you, when I was nearly
twenty-two. Wimblehurst dwindles in perspective, is now in this book a
little place far off, Bladesover no more than a small pinkish speck
of frontage among the distant Kentish hills; the scene broadens
out, becomes multitudinous and limitless, full of the sense of vast
irrelevant movement. I do not remember my second coming to London as I
do my first, for my early impressions, save that an October memory of
softened amber sunshine stands out, amber sunshine falling on grey house
fronts I know not where. That, and a sense of a large tranquillity.

I could fill a book, I think, with a more or less imaginary account
of how I came to apprehend London, how first in one aspect and then in
another it grew in my mind. Each day my accumulating impressions were
added to and qualified and brought into relationship with new ones; they
fused inseparably with others that were purely personal and accidental.
I find myself with a certain comprehensive perception of London,
complete indeed, incurably indistinct in places and yet in some way a
whole that began with my first visit and is still being mellowed and
enriched.