I tried my best, I’ve sought every loophole of escape, but I am quite unable to avoid the melancholy fact that her thumbs are—lamentable. I am genuinely upset about it for I like her. No one more than I would be more delighted if they were otherwise. … Poor dear! how I love her! That’s why I’m so concerned about her thumbs.
reviving the dead.
A wire from A⸺ came at 11:50 saying “Darling Mother passed peacefully away yesterday afternoon.” … Yesterday afternoon I was writing Zoology and all last night I slept soundly. … It was quite sudden. Caught the first train home.
The funeral.
Staying at the Hotel du Guesclin at Cancale near St. Malo with my dear A⸺.
This flood of new experiences has knocked my diary habit out of gear. To be candid, I’ve forgotten all about myself. I’ve been too engrossed in living to stand the strain of setting down and in cold blood writing out all the things seen and heard. If I once began I should blow through these pages like a whirlwind. … But what a waste of time with M. le batelier waiting outside with his bisque to take us mackerel fishing! …
Returned to Southampton yesterday. Have spent the night at Okehampton in Devonshire en route for T⸺ Rectory. This morning we hatched the ridiculous idea of hiring two little Dartmoor ponies and riding out from the town. A⸺ rides fairly well though he has not been astride a beast for years. As for me, I cannot ride at all! Yet I had the idea that I could easily manage a pretty little pony with brown eyes and a long tail. On going out into the Inn yard, was horrified—two horses saddled—one a large traction beast. … I climbed on to the smaller one, walked him out of the yard and down the road in good style without accident. Once in the country, however, my animal, the fresher of the two, insisted on a smart trot which shook me up a good deal so that I hardly kept my seat. This eventually so annoyed the animal that it began to fidget and zigzag across the road—no doubt preparing to break away at a stretch gallop when once it had rid itself of the incomprehensible pair of legs across its back.
I got off quickly and swapped horses with A⸺.
Walked him most of the way, while A⸺ cantered forward and back to cheer me on. Ultimately however this beast, too, got sick of walking and began to trot. For a time I stood this well and began to rise in my saddle quite nicely. After two miles, horrible soreness supervened, and I had to get off—very carefully, with a funny feeling in my legs—even looked down at them to assure myself they were not bandy! In doing so, the horse—this traction monster—stepped on my toe and I swore.
On nearing the village, L⸺ arrived, riding A⸺’s animal and holding his sides for laughing at me as I crawled along holding the carthorse by the bridle. Got on again and rode into the Rectory grounds in fine style like a dashing cavalier, everyone jeering at me from the lawn.
Having lived on this planet now for the space of twenty-four years, I can claim with some cogency that I am qualified to express some sort of opinion about it. I therefore hereby record that I find myself in an absorbingly interesting place where I live, move and have my being, dominated by one monstrous feature above all others—the mystery of it all! Everything is so astonishing, my own existence so incredible!
Nothing explains itself. Everyone is dumb. It is like walking about at a masqued Ball. … Even I myself am a mystery to me. How wonderful and frightening that is—to feel yourself—your innermost and most substantial possession to be a mystery, incomprehensible. I look at myself in the mirror and mock at myself. On some days I am to myself as strange and unfamiliar as a Pterodactyl. There is a certain grim humour in finding myself here possessed of a perfectly arbitrary arrangement of lineaments when I never asked to be here and never selected my own attributes. To the dignity of a human being it seems like a coarse practical joke. … My own freakish physique is certainly a joke.
In London Again
K⸺ comes in from her dancing class, nods to me, hugs her sister around the neck and says—
“Oh! you dear thing, you’ve got a cold.”
“I shouldn’t do that,” I remark, green-eyed, “she’s in an awful wax tonight.”
She: “Oh! I don’t mind K⸺!”
(Laughter!)
Heard a knock at the door last night, and, thinking it was R⸺, I unbolted it and let in a tramp who at once asked God to bless me and crown all my sorrow with joy. An amiable fellow to be sure—so I gave him some coppers and he at once repeated with wonderful fervour, “God bless you, sir.”
“I wish He would,” I answered, “I have a horrible cold.”
“Ah, I know, I gets it myself and the hinfluenza—have you had that, sir?”
In ten minutes I should have told him all my personal history. But he was thirsting for a drink and went off quickly and left me with my heart unburdened. London is a lonely place.
Today journeyed to ⸻ where I gave evidence as an expert in Economic Entomology at the County Court in a case concerning damage to furniture by mites for which I am paid £8 8s. fee and expenses and travelled first class. What irony!9
I may be a weak, maundering, vacillating fool but I cannot help loving her on one day, being indifferent the next and on some occasions even disliking her. … Today she was charming, with a certain warm glossy perfection on
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