Read "Father Payne" by A.C. Benson online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
I was sitting in the garden one evening in summer with Father Payne and Barthrop. Barthrop was going off next day to Oxford, and was trying to persuade Father Payne to come too.
"No," he said, "I simply couldn't! Oxford is the city east of the sun and west of the moon -- like as a dream when one awaketh! I don't hold with indulging fruitless sentiment, particularly about the past."