[The first three volumes of To Keep the Ball Rolling confirm] what one has always suspected: that Powell's sensibility and that given to Nicholas Jenkins, the narrator of his twelve-volume novel, A Dance to the Music of Time, are virtually indistinguishable. This similarity becomes evident in looking at the attitude struck by either Powell or his character toward his own gaffes…. Look … at a sketch of Maurice Bowra in Infants of the Spring:

One evening, dining tête-à-tête with Bowra in his rooms, I spoke of how little I liked being at Oxford, and how I longed to get it over and go down. The lack of finesse in voicing such sentiments in the particular circumstances was, of course, altogether inexcusable…. One learns in due course (without ever achieving the aim in practice) that, more often than not, it is better to keep deeply felt views...