30 March 1914 – 5 April 1914

" I am afraid you are too psychological, Mr. Temple." Then I went off and bought the bacon.

A splendid fine morning, but as I know I have to go out and change the cheque and pay the bills, I can do nothing and I feel wretched. Life is a hateful business, there's no denying it. When G. and J. were talking in the Park of physical well-being and of how they could still look forward to * parties,' I nearly groaned. And I am sure J. could get a great deal of pleasure out of pleasant society. I couldn't. I've done with it, and can't combat it at all now. I had so much rather lean idly over the bridge and watch the boats and the free, unfamiliar people and feel the wind blow. No, I hate society. The idea of the play seems perfect tripe to-day.

Spent another frightful day. Nothing helps or could help me except a person who could guess. Went for a walk and had some vague comfort given by some children and the noise of the water like rising waves.

I have begun to sleep badly again and I've decided to tear up everything that I've written and start again. I'm sure that is best. This misery persists, and I am so crushed under it. If I could write with my old fluency for one day, the spell would be broken. It's the continual effort — the slow building-up of my idea and then, before my eyes and out of my power, its slow dissolving.

Went for a walk by the river this evening and watched the boats. Two had red sails and one had white. The trees are budding almost before one's eyes in this warm weather — big white buds like birds on the chestnut trees, and round trees just sprinkled with green. The world is exceedingly lovely. My letter to L.M. was a great effort. She seemed somehow * out of the running.' But then so does everybody. I feel a real horror of people closing over me. I could not bear them. I wish I lived on a barge, with J. for a husband and a little boy for a son.

Won a moral victory this morning, to my great relief. Went out to spend 2s. nd. and left it unspent. But I have never known a more hideous day. Terribly lonely. Nothing that isn't satirical is really true for me to write just now. If I try to find things lovely, I turn pretty-pretty. And at the same time I am so frightened of writing mockery for satire that my pen hovers and won't settle. Dined with C.'s and D. Afterward to Cafe Royal. The sheep were bleating and we set up a feeble counterpart. Saw a fight. The woman with her back to me — her arms crooked sharp at the elbows, her head thrust out, like a big bird.

No bird sits a tree more proudly than a pigeon. It looks at though placed there by the Lord. The sky was silky blue and white, and the sun shone through the little leaves. But the children, pinched and crooked, made me feel a bit out of love with God.