16 January 1922 – 22 January 1922

A wonderfully pleasant dream about Paris. All went so well. The Doctor and his friends all had the same atmosphere. It was good, kind, quietly happy. I don't know when I've had a dream more de- lightful. But the day has not been delightful. On the con- trary. It snowed heavily, it was bitter cold, and my congestion worse than ever. I have been in pain and discomfort all day. My lung creaks. I have done no work. After tea I simply went to sleep out of sheer inertia. I am in a slough of despond to-day, and like everybody in such an ugly place, I am ugly, I feel ugly. It is the triumph of matter over spirit. This must not be. To-morrow at all costs (here I swear) I shall write a story. This is my first resolution ... in this journal. I dare not break it. Tomlinson's letter to J. came yes- terday. It was a beautiful letter and not to be for- gotten. But why am I so bad?

Tchehov made a mistake in thinking that if he had had more time he would have written more fully, described the rain, and the midwife and the doctor having tea. The truth is one can get only so much into a story; there is always a sacrifice. One has to leave out what one knows and longs to use. Why? I haven't any idea, but there it is. It's always a kind of race to get in as much as one can before it disap- pears. But time is not really in it. Yet wait. I do not under- stand even now. I am pursued by time myself. The only occasion when I ever felt at leisure was while writing The Daughters of the Late Colonel. And at the end I was so terribly unhappy that I wrote as fast as possible for fear of dying before the story was sent. I should like to prove this, to work at real leisure. Only thus can it be done.

H. is a man to remember. At tea that day. Mrs. M. before the huge silver kettle and pots and large plates. The ornate cake ; one must remember that cake. " It seems such a pity to cut it," and the way the old hand, so calmly, grasped the knife. H. leaning back, slapping two pieces of bread and butter together. "More tea, Jim? " "No, thanks. Yes. Half a cup." Pouring from the kettle to the tea-cup, the fat finger on the knob. "And how is he? " "Bleeding like a pig ! " " Oh, dear " — gathering her lace scarf into her lap — " I'm sorry to hear that." H. always collects something — always will. China, silver, " any old thing that comes along." He's musical and collects fiddles. His feeling for his children is so tender that it's pain. He can't understand it. One must remember, too, his extraordinary inse- curity. The world rocks under him, and it's only when he has that stethoscope that he can lay down the law. Then lay it down he does. " What I say is : she's mad. She's not normal. And a person who isn't normal I call mad — barmy" And you hear pride in his voice ; you hear the unspoken : " I am a plain man, you know. . . ." I'm afraid there is a vein of tremendous cynicism in him, too. He feels somewhere that all is ashes. He likes to go to church, to take part, to sing when others sing, to kneel, to intone the responses. This puts his heart at rest. But when it is over and he is at home and there is a smell of beef, there comes this restlessness. When he was little, I imagine he pulled the wings off flies. And I still see suicide as his end, in a kind of melancholia, and ' nobody wants me,' and ' damned if I won't.'

Wrote to de la Mare. Why it should be such an effort to write to the people one loves I can- not imagine. It's none at all to write to those who don't really count. But for weeks I have thought of D., wanted to, longed to write to him, but something held back my pen. What? Once started, really started, all goes easily. ... I told him in this letter how much I thought of him. I suppose it is the effect of isolation that I can truly say I think of de la Mare, Tchehov, Koteliansky, Tomlinson, Lawrence, Orage, every day. They are part of my life. . . . I have got more or less used to pain at last. I wonder sometimes if this is worse or better than what has been ; but I don't expect to be without. But I have a suspicion — sometimes a certainty — that the real cause of my illness is not my lungs at all, but some- thing else. And if this were found and cured, all the rest would heal.

Grandma's birthday. Where is that pho- tograph of my dear love leaning against her husband's shoulder, with her hair parted so meekly and her eyes raised? I love it. I long to have it. For one thing Mother gave it me at a time when she loved me. But for another — so much more important — it is she, my own Grandma, young and lovely. That arm. That baby sleeve. Even the velvet ribbon. I must see them again. And one day I must write about Grandma at length, especially of her beauty in her bath — when she was about sixty. Wiping herself with the towel. I remem- ber now how lovely she seemed to me. And her fine linen, her throat, her scent. I have never really de- scribed her yet. Patience ! The time will come.

My feeling about Ernestine is shameful. But there it is. Her tread, her look, the way her nose is screwed round, her intense stupidity, her wrists — re- volt me. This is bad. For she feels it, I am sure she does. When we speak together she blushes in a way that doesn't seem to me natural. I feel that her self- respect is shamed by my thoughts. Lumbago. This is a very queer thing. So sudden, so painful. I must remember it when I write about an old man. The start to get up — the pause — the look of fury — and how, lying at night, one seems to get locked. To move is an agony; till finally one discovers a movement which is possible. But that helpless feel- ing about with the legs first!