MY TUTORS LET me know that they were grooming me for

a fellowship of All Souls and a career as an Oxford don. For two

years I went along with them, and then in the third year almost
stopped work, cut myself off from college and the university life
and in general made myself unacceptable. I was conceited enough
to think that I could easily make a living by writing whether I
had a profession or not. I was becoming profoundly disillusioned
with Oxford and more and more incompatible. I had therefore
no goal at which to aim. That of going to Oxford had been
achieved; that now proposed, of an academic career, failed to
appeal; and the true goal of life had not yet been revealed.
I had expected more of Oxford than it could give: a home
of culture where men were interested in all that could not be
bought for money. I threw myself into the new life with
enthusiasm. I was assiduous in attending lectures, studying in
libraries and in my room, composing essays for my bi-weekly
tutorials. I also plunged eagerly into the new social life. Scarcelya day passed without my being
invited out or inviting others to
my rooms. However, before even the first term ended, there
was a chill feeling of disillusionment. Where I had expected
understanding I found triviality. Gradually I withdrew upon
myself until, by the end of my third year, there were not half a
dozen people in the whole university whom I knew well enough
to drop in on uninvited. I shrank back from Oxford life: never
spoke in the Union, though fond of debating; never acted in
the OUDS, though attracted to the stage; never wrote for the Isis
or Cherwell, whichever it was called the university weekly
although I considered myself a writer.