though I was living among working people, I did not understand them. I shuddered involuntarily at their jokes, their oaths, their drinking, their friendship even. I remained a gentleman, a 'toff.' I remained of a different blood and a different culture. My ideas and my theories would have had me resemble my mates; but all my former life—my birth, my upbringing, my education—all my own and my parents' past, all my inherited instincts were against it. I simply could not fraternize with them. I kept on trying something different, thinking it was that that was amiss: a different sort of work, a different occupation. Nothing made any difference. I remained a harmless, inquisitive amateur; and just that settled conviction, that I could leave off at any time if I wished, was the reason why my life never became the profoundly serious thing which I would have had it. It remained amateurish. It became almost a mockery of the life of my mates. I was free and they were slaves. I was vigorous and they were worked to death. To me, after my brainwork, that manual and muscular labour came as a tonic. If I was overtired, I rested, left my job, looked for something else after a few weeks. The others would be sweated, right up to their old age, till they had yielded the last ounce of their working-power. I should work just as long as I took pleasure in it. I looked healthy and well, even though my face and hands became rough. I ate in proportion
