27 September 1926 – 3 October 1926

I wished to add some remarks to this, on the mystical side of this solicitude; how it is not oneself but something in the universe that one’s left with. It is this that is frightening and exciting in the midst of my profound gloom, depression, boredom, whatever it is. One sees a fin passing far out. What image can I reach to convey what I mean? Really there is none, I think. The interesting thing is that in all my feeling and thinking I have never come up against this before. Life is, soberly and accurately, the oddest affair; has in it the essence of reality. I used to feel this as a child—couldn’t step across a puddle once, I remember, for thinking how strange—what am I? etc. But by writing I don’t reach anything. All I mean to make is a note of a curious state of mind. I hazard the guess that it may be the impulse behind another book.* At present my mind is totally blank and virgin of books. I want to watch and see how the idea at first ocurs. I want to trace my own process.