i was running away from england , from my childhood , from the winter , from a sequence of untidy , unattractive love-affairs , from the few sticks of furniture and jumble of overworn clothes that my london life had collected around me ; and i was running away from drabness , fustiness , snobbery , the claustrophobia of close horizons , and from my inability , although i am quite an attractive rat , to make headway in the rat-race .