Now how did this pretty little alien manage to settle down among simple Devon folk? What has been the relation between Italy and—say Appledore, or Plymouth?24
In London once more, living at her flat and using her furniture.
The Chalcidoidea
The Chalcidoidea are minute winged insects that parasitise other insects, and in the Memoirs of the Queensland Museum (Vol. I, 1912) you shall find an enormous catalogue of them by a person named Girault who writes the following dedication:
“I respectfully dedicate this little portion of work to science, common sense or true knowledge. I am convinced that human welfare is so dependent upon science that civilisation would not endure without it, and that what is meant by progress would be impossible. Also I am convinced that the great majority of mankind are too ignorant, that education is too archaic and impractical as looked at from the standpoint of intrinsic knowledge. There is too little known of the essential unity of the Universe and of things included, for instance, man himself. Opinions and prejudices rule in the place of what is true. …”
Part II is dedicated to:
“The genius of mankind, especially to that form of it expressed in monistic philosophy, whose conceived perception is the highest attainment reached by man.”
I can only echo Whistler’s remark one day as he stood before an execrably bad drawing “God bless my soul”—uttered slowly and thoughtfully and then repeated.
The beauty of it is that the Editor adds a serious footnote, dissociating himself, and a Scarabee to whom I showed the Work, read it with a clouded brow and then said: “I think it rather out of place in a paper of this sort.”
(Tableau.)
Down with influenza.
A Zeppelin raid last night. I am down with a temperature, but our little household remained quite calm, thank God. We heard guns going off, and I had a fit of trembling as I lay in bed. Many dead of heart failure owing to the excitement.
Still in bed. No raid last night. There were two raids on Wednesday, one at 9:30, and another at midnight. The first time the caretaker of the flats came up very alarmed to say “Zeppelins about,” so we put out the lights. Then at midnight when everyone else was asleep I heard a big voice shout up from the street: “Lights out there. They’re about again.” Lay still in bed and waited. Distant gunfire.
Bad heart attack.
Heart intermits. Every three or four minutes. M⸺ said that I ought to be getting used to it by now! Phew!! Very nervy and pusillanimous. Taking strychnine in strong doses. I hope dear E⸺ does not catch the flu. She swallows quinine with large hopes.
Staying at R⸺. Had a ghastly journey down, changing trains twice at Clapham Junction and at Croydon, heart intermitting all the time in every position. Poor E⸺ with me. Today surprised to find myself still alive.
Better today. After much persuasion, I have got E⸺ to let the flat so that we can get away into the country outside the zeppelin zone.
Back in London again. Am better, bolstered up with arsenic and strychnine. Too nervously excited to do any work.
The letting of our flat is now in the hands of an agent, and E⸺, poor dear, is quite resigned to abandoning all her precious wallpapers, etc.
The flat is let and we are now living in rooms at ⸻, 20 miles out of London, to the Westward.
It is a great relief to be down in the country. Zeppelins terrify me. Have just had a delightful experience in reading Conrad’s new book, Victory—a welcome relief from all the tension of the past two months. To outward view, I have been merely a youth getting married, catching flu and giving up a London flat.
Inwardly, I have been whizzing around like a Catherine Wheel. Consider the items:
Concussion of the spine.
Resulting paralysis of left leg ten days before marriage.
Zeppelin raid (heard a cannon go off for the first time).
Severe cold in the head day before marriage (and therefore wild anxiety).
Successful marriage with abatement of cold.
Return to our home.
Ten days later, down with influenza.
A second zeppelin raid.
Bad heart attack.
Then flat sublet and London evacuated.
The record nauseates me. I am nauseated with myself and my self-centredness. … Suppose I have been “whizzing” as I call it—what then? They are but subjective trifles—meanwhile other men are seeing great adventures in Gallipoli and elsewhere. “The Triumph is gone,” exclaimed the Admiral who in a little group of naval officers on board the flagship had been watching H.M.S. Triumph sink in the Aegean. He shuts his telescope with a click and returns in great dudgeon to his own quarters. How I envy all these men who are participating in this War—soldiers, sailors, war correspondents—all who live and throb and are not afraid. I am a timid youth, anaemic, wear spectacles, and am frightened by a zep raid! How humiliating. I hate myself for a white-livered craven: I am suffocated for want of more life and courage. My damnable body is slowly killing off all my spirit and buoyancy. Even my mind is becoming blurred. My memory is like an old man’s exactly. (Ask ⸻.)
Yet through all my nausea, here I remain happy to discuss myself and my little mishaps. I’m damned sick of myself and all my neurotic whimperings, and so I hereby and now intend to lead a new life and throw this Journal to the Devil. I want to mangle it, tear it to shreds. You smug, hypocritical readers! you’ll get no more of me. All you say I know is true before you say it and
