I travel abroad constantly on book promotion and research, and the Internet is invaluable to me for accessing U. K. news in places such as America, which most of the time hasn't heard of England.
We had been everywhere. We had really seen nothing. And I catch myself thinking today that our long journey had only defiled with a sinuous trail of slime the lovely, trustful, dreamy, enormous country that by then, in retrospect, was no more to us than a collection of dog-eared maps, ruined tour books, old tires, and her sobs in the night — every night, every night — the moment I feigned sleep.