9 March 1936 – 15 March 1936

Getting along rather better. So I steal 10 minutes before lunch. Never have I worked so hard at any book. My aim is not to alter a thing in proof. And I begin to suspect there’s something there—it hasn’t flopped yet. But enough of The Years. We walked round Kensington Gardens yesterday discussing politics. Aldous refuses to sign the latest manifesto because it approves sanctions. He’s a pacifist. So am I. Ought I to resign. L. says that considering Europe is now on the verge of the greatest smash for 600 years, one must sink private differences and support the League. He’s at a special L. Party meeting this morning. This is the most feverish overworked political week we’ve yet had. Hitler has his army on the Rhine. Meetings taking place in London. So serious are the French that they’re—the little Intelligence group—is sending a man to confer here tomorrow: a touching belief in English intellectuals. Another meeting tomorrow. As usual, I think, Oh this will blow over. But it’s odd, how near the guns have got to our private life again. I can quite distinctly see them and hear a roar, even though I go on, like a doomed mouse, nibbling at my daily page. What else is there to do—except answer the incessant telephones, and listen to what L. says. Everything goes by the board. Happily we have put off all dinners and so on, on account of The Years. A very concentrated, laborious spring this is: with perhaps two fine days: crocuses out: then bitter black and cold. It all seems in keeping: my drudgery: our unsociability: the crisis: meetings: dark—and what it all means, no one knows. Privately . . . no, I doubt that I’ve seen anyone, or done anything but walk and work—walk for an hour after lunch—and so on.