16 January 1933 – 22 January 1933

It must be confessed that The Pargiters are like cuckoos in my nest—which should be Flush. I have only 50 pages to correct and send to Mabel; and these cursed scenes and dialogues will go on springing up in my head; and after correcting one page, I sit mooning for 20 minutes. I daresay this will increase the blood pressure when I come to write. But it is a tiresome bewildering distraction now.

Well, Flush lingers on and I cannot despatch him. That’s the sad truth. I always see something I could press tighter or enwrap more completely. There’s no trifling with words—can’t be done: not when they’re to stand “forever.” So I am battening down my Pargiters, say till Wednesday—it shan’t be later, I swear. And now I grow doubtful of the value of those figures. I’m afraid of the didactic: perhaps it was only that spurious passion that made me rattle away before Christmas. Anyhow I enjoyed it immensely and shall again—oh to be free, in fiction, making up my scenes again—however discreetly. Such is my cry this very fine cold January morning.