"Why should you care so much for Christminster?" she said pensively.
"Christminster cares nothing for you, poor dear!"
"Well, I do, I can't help it. I love the place--although I know
how it hates all men like me--the so-called self-taught--how it
scorns our laboured acquisitions, when it should be the first
to respect them; how it sneers at our false quantities and
mispronunciations, when it should say, I see you want help, my poor
friend! ... Nevertheless, it is the centre of the universe to me,
because of my early dream: and nothing can alter it. Perhaps it will
soon wake up, and be generous. I pray so! ... I should like to go
back to live there--perhaps to die there! In two or three weeks I
might, I think. It will then be June, and I should like to be there
by a particular day."
His hope that he was recovering proved so far well grounded that
in three weeks they had arrived in the city of many memories; were
actually treading its pavements, receiving the reflection of the
sunshine from its wasting walls.