It is very
cramping to one's style in the bath to reflect that the slightest
splash may call attention to itself on the ceiling of the
gentleman below. This is to share a bathroom with a stranger--an
intolerable position for a proud man. To-day I have a bathroom of
my own for the first time in my life.
I can see already that living in a house is going to be
extraordinarily healthy both for mind and body. At present I go
upstairs to my bedroom (and downstairs again) about once in every
half-hour; not simply from pride of ownership, to make sure that
the bedroom is still there, and that the staircase is continuing
to perform its functions, but in order to fetch something, a
letter or a key, which as likely as not I have forgotten about
again as soon as I have climbed to the top of the house. No such
exercise as this was possible in a flat, and even after two or
three days I feel the better for it. But obviously I cannot go on
like this, if I am to have leisure for anything else. With
practice I shall so train my mind that, when I leave my bedroom
in the morning, I leave it with everything that I can possibly
require until nightfall. This, I imagine, will not happen for
some years yet; meanwhile physical training has precedence.
Getting up to breakfast means something different now; it means
coming down to breakfast. To come down to breakfast brings one
immediately in contact with the morning.
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