15 June 1914 – 21 June 1914

Measuring Lice Spent the day measuring the legs and antennæ of lice to two places of decimals! To the lay mind how fantastic this must seem! Indeed, I hope it is fantastic. I do not mind being thought odd. It seems almost fitting that an incurable dilettante like myself should earn his livelihood by measuring the legs of lice. I like to believe that such a bizarre manner of life suits my incurable frivolousness. I am a Magpie in a Bagdad bazaar, hopping about, useless, inquisitive, fascinated by a lot of astonishing things: e.g., a book on the quadrature of the circle, the gabbertushed fustilugs passage in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, names like Mr. Portwine or Mr. Hogsflesh, Tweezer's Alley or Pickle Herring Street, the excellent, conceitful sonnets of Henry Constable or Petticoat Lane on a Sunday morning. Colossal things such as Art, Science, etc., frighten me. I am afraid I should develop a thirst that would make me wish to drink the sea dry. My mind is a disordered miscellany. The world is too distracting. I cannot apply myself for long. London bewilders me. At times it is a phantasmagoria, an opium dream out of De Quincey.

Prof. Geo. Saintsbury's book on Elizabethan literature amuses me. George, there can be no doubt, is a very refined, cultivated fellow. I bet he don't eat periwinkles with a pin or bite his nails--and you should hear him refer to folk who can't read Homer in the original or who haven't been to Oxford--to Merton above all. He also says non so che for je ne sais quoi.