‘Yes, it is the greatest thing in life — to KNOW. It is really to be happy, to be FREE.’

‘Knowledge is, of course, liberty,’ said Mattheson.

‘In compressed tabloids,’ said Birkin, looking at the dry, stiff little body of the Baronet. Immediately Gudrun saw the famous sociologist as a flat bottle, containing tabloids of compressed liberty. That pleased her. Sir Joshua was labelled and placed forever in her mind.

‘What does that mean, Rupert?’ sang Hermione, in a calm snub.

‘You can only have knowledge, strictly,’ he replied, ‘of things concluded, in the past. It’s like bottling the liberty of last summer in the bottled gooseberries.’