I shall not regret these luxuries. But it is a
sad thought for me that my sons will never steam in a white yacht across the Gulf of California, or travel in a private car from Los Angeles to Mexico City. My sympathy is wasted, since in fact the younger generation hate these things. Far rather would they sleep out among the. thyme and lavender of Mount Hymettus than engage a bedroom and bathroom at a hotel. Far rather would they walk to Siena than endure the bilious animosity of a sleeping-car attendant. They do not in fact desire the luxuries of travel, and . the privacies of travel, provided one be young and strong, will always be achieved. Only the elderly need be pitied, and they at least retain the pleasures of memory. MY present problem, however, is not how and when I shall get to Luxor, but how I shall get to Charing Cross. Governess-cans, go-carts and dog-cans have disappeared from the market and ponies are expensive to buy. I see myself in 5943 shabbily slouching along the roads of Kent pushing a perambulator (we still have a perambulator) containing a suitcase, a cauliflower, and six books from the London Library. This will be most agreeable in the month of May, or when April has put a spirit of youth in everything. But in December it will be disagreeable. It is irritating to realise how dependent so many of us have become upon a machine that few really care for, which depends for its functioning upon a product that is much needed by the fighting services and that comes to us from overseas. The public as a whole almost welcome restrictions, since they are an antidote to frustration and imply discipline and effort. I shall be quite happy with my perambulator, and may even develop for it an affection which, at the moment, I do not feel. As I pant up the hill I shall imagine that I am pushing, not a cauliflower in front of me, but the Unseen Victory. I shall be solaced by the thought that my German counterparts have been pushing perambulators for eighteen months. But there will be weaker moments, as the wind howls and the snow falls, when I shall wish ardently that I did not have to go to the station so often or that the station was not so far away.
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