19 May 1919 – 25 May 1919

6 p.m. I wish I had some idea of how old this note book is. The writing is very faint and far away. Now it is May 1919. Six o'clock. I am sitting in my own room thinking of Mother : I want to cry. But my thoughts are beautiful and full of gaiety. I think of our house, our garden, us children — the lawn, the gate, and Mother coming in. " Children ! Children ! " I really only ask for time to write it all — time to write my books. Then I don't mind dying. I live to write. The lovely world (God, how lovely the external world is!) is there and I bathe in it and am refreshed. But I feel as though I had a duty, someone has set me a task which I am bound to finish. Let me finish it : let me finish it without hurrying — leaving all as fair as I can. . . . My little Mother, my star, my courage, my own. I seem to dwell in her now. We live in the same world. Not quite this world, not quite another. I do not care for people : and the idea of fame, of being a suc- cess,— that's nothing, less than nothing. I love my family and a few others dearly, and I love, in the old — in the ancient way, through and through, my husband. Not a soul knows where she is. She goes slowly, thinking it all over, wondering how she can express it as she wants to — asking for time and for peace.