Katherine Mansfield’s diary, 1918

I woke up early this morning and when I opened the shutters the full round sun was just risen. I began to repeat that verse of Shakespeare's : " Lo, here the gentle…

"Well sit down, Mansfield, and reposez- vous," said F., " and I'll get on with my dressing." So he went into his bedroom and shut the door be- tween, and I sat on…

If I had my way I should stay in the Red- cliffe Road until after the war. It suits me. Whatever faults it has it is not at all bourgeois. There is ' some- thing a…

... I positively feel, in my hideous modern way, that I can't get into touch with my mind. I am standing gasping in one of those dis- gusting telephone boxes and I…

The sea here is real sea. It rises and falls with a loud noise, has a long, silky roll on it as though it purred, seems sometimes to climb half up into the sky and…

Looe. Feature Extraordinary : Shoes that have never squeaked before start up a squeaking. A cold day — the cuckoo singing and the sea like liquid metal. Everything…

The twentieth of June 1918. C'est de la misere. Non, pas ca exactement. II y a quelque chose — une profonde malaise me suive comme un ombre. Oh, why write bad…

What is the matter with to-day? It is thin, white, as lace curtains are white, full of ugly noises (e.g. people opening the drawers of a cheap chest and trying to…

To-day, this evening, after I have come home (for I must go out and buy some fruits) commence encore une vie nouvelle. Turn over and you'll see how good I become —…

2 Portland Villas, Hampstead. Her heart had not spoken. . . . When it does — too late — the pain of it. I ought to have felt like this — often, often. . . .

My fits of temper are really terrify- ing. I had one this (Sunday) morning and tore a page up of the book I was reading — and absolutely lost my head. Very…

I hope this pen works. Yes, it does. The last day in September — immensely cold, a kind of solid cold outside the windows. My lire has played traitor nearly all day…

Hampstead. I ought to write something brief for the Nation to-day and earn a bit more money, a " Little Lunch at the Club " or something of that kind. It's not…

L.M. is going to town. I must take some of my dear money out of the Bank and give it her. I am in bed; I feel very sick. Queer altogether — de- composing a bit.…

This is simply the most Divine Spot. So remote, so peaceful; full of colour, full of Autumn; the sunset is real and the sound of somebody splitting small wood is…

4.45 p.m. Oh, the times when she had walked upside down on the ceiling, run up glittering panes, floated on a lake of light, flashed through a shining beam! And God…