He was not happy, there was no pretending he was. He longed for Europe
with hungry longing: Florence, with Giotto’s pale tower: or the Pincio
at Rome: or the woods in Berkshire--heavens, the English spring with
primroses under the bare hazel bushes, and thatched cottages among plum
blossom. He felt he would have given anything on earth to be in England.
It was May--end of May--almost bluebell time, and the green leaves
coming out on the hedges. Or the tall corn under the olives in Sicily.
Or London Bridge, with all the traffic on the river. Or Bavaria with
gentian and yellow globe flowers, and the Alps still icy. Oh God, to be
in Europe, lovely, lovely Europe that he had hated so thoroughly and
abused so vehemently, saying it was moribund and stale and finished. The
fool was himself. He had got out of temper, and so had called Europe
moribund: assuming that he himself, of course, was not moribund, but
sprightly and chirpy and too vital, as the Americans would say, for
Europe. Well, if a man wants to make a fool of himself, it is as well to
let him.

Somers wandered disconsolate through the streets of Sydney, forced to
admit that there were fine streets, like Birmingham for example; that
the parks and the Botanical Gardens were handsome and well-kept; that
the harbour, with all the two-decker brown ferry-boats sliding
continuously from the Circular Quay, was an extraordinary place. But
oh, what did he care about it all! In Martin Place he longed for
Westminster, in Sussex Street he almost wept for Covent Garden and St
Martin’s Lane, at the Circular Quay he pined for London Bridge. It was
all London without being London. Without any of the lovely old glamour
that invests London. This London of the Southern hemisphere was all, as
it were, made in five minutes, a substitute for the real thing. Just a
substitute--as margarine is a substitute for butter. And he went home to
the little bungalow bitterer than ever, pining for England.