However, he failed the Oxford entrance examination. Reporting this to his father, he took a philosophical stance, telling him that "university lectures interfere very much with my work," which was writing poetry. His verse writing was stimulated by avid readings of Nietzsche, Darwin, and the English Elizabethan and Romantic poets. Among his early fruitful contacts were C.S. Lewis, William Walton, the Sitwells, and Wyndham Lewis. He also began to drink heavily, and continued to do so for the rest of his life.