Something was the matter. I
was not long in tracing what it was. The discord struck by Ramsgate
was the more disastrous because, in my heedlessness, I had placed that
ignoble label within an inch of my point d'appui--the trinity of
Oxford, Newmarket and Assisi. What was I to do? I could not explain to
my fellow-passengers, as I have explained to you, my reason for
Ramsgate. So long as the label was there, I had to rest under the
hideous suspicion of having gone there for pleasure, gone of my own
free will. I did rest under it during the next two or three journeys.
But the injustice of my position maddened me. At length, a too obvious
sneer on the face of a fellow-passenger steeled me to a resolve that I
would, for once, break my rule against obliteration. On the return
journey, I obliterated Ramsgate with the new label, leaving visible
merely the final TE, which could hardly compromise me.
Steterunt those two letters because I was loth to destroy what was,
primarily, a symbol for myself: I wished to remember Ramsgate, even
though I had to keep it secret. Only in a secondary, accidental way
was my collection meant for the public eye. Else, I should not have
hesitated to deck the hat-box with procured symbols of Seville, Simla,
St. Petersburg and other places which I had not (and would have liked
to be supposed to have) visited.
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