In Yorkshire and in Suffolk there had been peace. No one spoke about money or the struggle for existence; there was none of our family talk of “getting on”; there was no anxiety. My brother and I had the freedom of country life; we need not “get on” at all. These influences slowly made me feel that although I was not as clever as many boys at school, I was clever enough and egotistical enough to be able to do what I liked with my life, and that my mind was already deciding what this should be. Money would have nothing to do with it. Just as I could feel myself grow and urge myself to grow more, so I felt that the important thing was to be alone – alone in the street, in the fells or on the Suffolk commons. And always walking and moving away.

V.S. Pritchett, “A Cab at the Door”.