2 October 1933 – 8 October 1933

It’s October now; and we have to go to Hastings Conference tomorrow and Wednesday, to Vita, then back to London. I opened this in order to make one of my self-admonishments previous to publishing a book. Flush will be out on Thursday and I shall be very much depressed, I think, by the kind of praise. They’ll say it’s “charming,” delicate, ladylike. And it will be popular. Well now I must let this slip over me without paying it any attention. I must concentrate on The Pargiters—or Here and Now. I must not let myself believe that I’m simply a ladylike prattler: for one thing it’s not true. But they’ll all say so. And I shall very much dislike the popular success of Flush. No, I must say to myself, this is a mere wisp, a veil of water; and so create, hardly, fiercely, as I feel now more able to do than ever before.