Wednesday, March 20th
Yes, another attack,* in fact two other attacks: one Sunday week—101 with Angelica there to put me to bed; t'other last Friday, 102 after lunch. So to bed up here in L.'s room, and Dr. Tooth, who keeps me in bed (where I sit up with L. reading proofs) till tomorrow. That's the boring history. What they call recurring with slight bronchitis. Yes. One Sunday (the 101 Sunday) L. gave me a very severe lecture on the first half. We walked in the meadows. It was like being pecked by a very hard strong beak. The more he pecked the deeper, as always happens. At last he was almost angry that I'd chosen "what seems to me the wrong method. It's merely analysis, not history. Austere repression. In fact dull to the outsider. All those dead quotations." His theme was that you can't treat a life like that; must be seen from the writer's angle, unless the liver is himself a seer, which R. wasn't. It was a curious example of L. at his most rational and impersonal: rather impressive: yet so definite, so emphatic, that I felt convinced: I mean of failure; save for one odd gleam, that he was himself on the wrong tack, and persisting for some deep reason—dissympathy with R.? lack of interest in personality? Lord knows. I note this plaited strand in my mind; and even while we walked and the beak struck deeper, deeper, had this completely detached interest in L.'s character. Then Nessa came; disagreed; Margery's letter "Very alive and interesting"; then L. read the second half; thought it ended on the doorstep at Bernard Street: then N.'s note "I'm crying can't thank you"—then N. and D. to tea up here; forbid me to alter anything; then Margery's final letter "It's him ... unbounded admiration." There I pause. Well, I think I re-write certain passages, have even in bed sketched them, but how in time for this spring? That I shelve till tomorrow. Great relief all the same.
Thursday, March 21st
Here is the Good Friday festival beginning. How one can sense that in a garden, with flowers and birds only, I can't say. Now for me begins the twilight hour, the emerging hour, of disagreeable compromise. Up to lunch. In the sitting room for tea. You know the dreary, messy, uncomfortable paper strewn, picking at this and that, frame of mind. And with R. hanging over me. Walk out as soon as possible and keep on reading Hervey's memoirs. And so come to the top slowly. I'm thinking of some articles. Sidney Smith. Madame de Stael. Virgil. Tolstoy, or perhaps Gogol. Now I'll get L. to find a life of Smith in the Lewes Library. A good idea. I'll ring up Nessa about sending Helen that chapter, and establish an engagement. I read Tolstoy at breakfast—Goldenweiser that I translated with Kot in 1923 and have almost forgotten. Always the same reality—like touching an exposed electric wire. Even so imperfectly conveyed—his rugged short cut mind—to me the most, not sympathetic, but inspiring, rousing: genius in the raw. Thus more disturbing, more "shocking," more of a thunderclap, even on art, even on literature, than any other writer. I remember that was my feeling about War and Peace, read in bed at Twickenham.* Old Savage † picked it up, "Splendid stuff!" and Jean ‡ tried to admire what was a revelation to me. Its directness, its reality. Yet he's against photographic realism. Sally is lame and has to go to the vet. Sun coming out. One bird pierces like a needle. All crocuses and squills out. No leaves or buds on trees. I'm quoted, about Russian, in Lit. Sup. leader, oddly enough.
Friday, March 29th
What shall I think of that liberating and freshening? I'm in the mood when I open my window at night and look at the stars. Unfortunately it's 12:15 on a grey dull day, the aeroplanes are active, Botten § is to be buried at 3; and I'm brain creased after Margery, after John and after Q. But it's the little antlike nibblings of M. that infect me—ants run in my brain—emendations, tributes, feelings, dates—and all the detail that seems to the non-writer so easy—("just to add this about Joan" etc.) and to me is torture. Thumbing those old pages—and copying into the carbon. Lord, lord! And influenza damped. Well I recur, what shall I think of? The river. Say the Thames at London Bridge: and buying a notebook; and then walking along the Strand and letting each face give me a buffet; and each shop; and perhaps a Penguin. For we're up in London on Monday. Then I think I'll read an Elizabethan—like swinging from bough to bough. Then back here I'll saunter ... oh yes and we'll travel our books round the Coast—and have tea in a shop and look at antiques; and there'll be a lovely farmhouse—or a new lane—and flowers; and bowls with L., and reading very calmly for C.R.s. but no pressure; and May coming and asparagus and butterflies, Perhaps I'll garden a little; oh and print; and change my bedroom furniture. Is it age, or what, that makes life here alone, no London, no visitors, seem a long trance of pleasure.... I'm inducing a state of peace and sensation feeling—not idea feeling. The truth is we've not seen spring in the country since I was ill at Asheham—1914—and that had its holiness in spite of the depression. I think I'll also dream a poet-prose book; perhaps make a cake now and then. Now, now—never any more future skirmishing or past regretting. Relish the Monday and the Tuesday, and don't take on the guilt of selfishness! feeling: for in God's name I've done my share, with pen and talk, for the human race. I mean young writers can stand on their own feet. Yes, I deserve a spring—I owe nobody nothing. Not a letter I need write (there are the poems in MS all waiting) nor need I have week-enders. For others can do that as well as I can, this spring. Now being drowned by the flow of running water, I will read Whymper till lunch time.
Sunday, March 31st
I would like to tell myself a nice little wild improbable story to spread my wings after this cramped ant-like morning—which I will not detail—for details are the death of me. Thank God, this time next week I shall be free—free of entering M.'s corrections and my own into margins. The story? Oh, about the life of a bird, its cheep cheep—its brandishing of a twig by my window—its sensations. Or about Botten becoming one with the mud—the glory fading—the million tinted flowers sent by the doleful mourners. All black like a moving pillar box the woman was—or the man in a black cardboard casing. A story doesn't come. No, but I may unfurl a metaphor—No. The windows very dove grey and dim blue islanded—a rust red on L. and V.* and the marsh green and dark like the floor of the sea.
At the back of my head the string is still wound tight. I will unwind it playing bowls. To carry the virtues of the sketch—its random reaches, its happy finds—into the finished work is probably beyond me. Sydney Smith did in talk.
Saturday, April 6th
I spent one afternoon at the L.L.,* looking up quotes. Another buying silk for vests. And we did not dine with the Hutchinsons to meet Tom and Desmond. And how glad I was of the drowsy evening. And so at 12:45 yesterday handed L. the two MSS † and we drove off as happy as Bank Holiday clerks. That's off my shoulders! Good or bad—done. So I felt wings on my shoulders: and brooded quietly till the tyre punctured: we had to jackal in midroad; and I was like a stalk, all crumpled, when we got here. And it's a keen spring day; infinitely lit and tinted and cold and soft: all the groups of daffodils yellow along the bank; lost my three games, and want nothing but sleep.
Monday, May 13th
I admit to some content, some closing of a chapter and peace that comes with it, from posting my proofs today. I admit—because we're in the third day of "the greatest battle in history." It began (here) with the 8 o'clock wireless announcing as I lay half asleep the invasion of Holland and Belgium. The third day of the Battle of Waterloo. Apple blossom snowing the garden. A bowl lost in the pond. Churchill exhorting all men to stand together. "I have nothing to offer but blood and tears and sweat." These vast formless shapes further circulate. They aren't substances: but they make everything else minute. Duncan saw an air battle over Charleston—a silver pencil and a puff of smoke. Percy has seen the wounded arriving in their boots. So my little moment of peace comes in a yawning hollow. But though L. says he has petrol in the garage for suicide should Hitler win, we go on. It's the vastness, and the smallness, that makes this possible. So intense are my feelings (about Roger); yet the circumference (the war) seems to make a hoop round them. No, I can't get the odd incongruity of feeling intensely and at
the same time knowing that there's no importance in that feeling. Or is there, as I sometimes think, more importance than ever?
Monday, May 20th
This idea was meant to be more impressive. It bobbed up I suppose in one of the sentient moments. The war is like a desperate illness. For a day it entirely obsesses: then the feeling faculty gives out; next day one is disembodied, in the air. Then the battery is re-charged and again—what? Well, the bomb terror. Going to London to be bombed. And the catastrophe—if they break through: Channel this morning said to be their objective. Last night Churchill asked us to reflect, when being bombed, that we were at least drawing fire from the soldiers, for once. Desmond and Moore * are at this moment reading—i.e. talking under the apple trees. A line windy morning.
Saturday, May 25th
Then we went up to what has been so far the worst week in the war. And so remains. On Tuesday evening, after my freshener, before Tom and Wm. P.† came, the B.B.C. announced the taking of Amiens and Arras. The French P.M. told the truth and knocked all our "holding" to atoms. On Monday they broke through. It's tedious picking up details. It seems they raid with tanks and parachutists: roads crammed with refugees can't be bombed. They crash on. Now are at Boulogne. But it also seems these occupations aren't altogether solid. What are the great armies doing to let this 25 mile hole stay open? The feeling is we're outwitted. They're agile and fearless and up to any new dodge. The French forgot to blow up bridges. The Germans seem youthful, fresh, inventive. We plod behind. This went on the three London days.
Rodmell burns with rumours. Are we to be bombed, evacuated? Guns that shake the windows. Hospital ships sunk. So it comes our way.
Today's rumour is the Nun in the bus who pays her fare with a man's hand.
Tuesday, May 28th
And today at 8, the French P.M. broadcast the treachery of the Belgian King. The Belgians have capitulated. The Government is not capitulating. Churchill to broadcast at 4. A wet dull day.
Wednesday, May 29th
But hope revives. I don't know why. A desperate battle. The Allies holding. How sick one gets of the phrase—how easy to make a Duff Cooper speech about valour; and history, where one knows the end of the sentence. Still it cheers, somehow. Poetry as Tom said is easier to write than prose. I could reel off patriotic speeches by the dozen. L. has been in London. A great thunderstorm. I was walking on the marsh and thought it was the guns on the channel ports. Then, as they swerved, I conceived a raid on London; turned on the wireless; heard some prattler; and then the guns began to lighten; then it rained. Began P.H.* again today and threshed and threshed till perhaps a little grain can be collected. I sent off my Walpole too. After dinner I began Sydney Smith; plan being to keep short flights going; P.H. in between. Oh yes—one can't plan, any more, a long book. H. Brace cable that they accept Roger—whom, which, I'd almost forgotten. So that's a success: where I'd been expecting failure. It can't be so bad as all that. 250 advance. But we shall I suppose certainly postpone. Reading masses of Coleridge and Wordsworth letters of a night—curiously untwisting and burrowing into that plaited nest.
Thursday, May 30th
Walking today (Nessa's birthday) by Kingfisher pool saw my first hospital train—laden, not funereal but weighty, as if not to shake bones: something—what is the word I want—grieving and tender and heavy laden and private—bringing our wounded back carefully through the green fields at which I suppose some looked. Not that I could see them. And the faculty for seeing in imagination always leaves me so suffused with something partly visual, partly emotional, I can't, though it's very pervasive, catch it when I come home—the slowness, cadaverousness, grief of the long heavy train, taking its burden through the fields. Very quietly it slid into the cutting at Lewes. Instantly wild duck flights of aeroplanes came over head; manoeuvred; took up positions and passed over Caburn.
Friday, May 31st
Scraps, orts and fragments, as I said in P.H., which is now bubbling. I'm playing with words: and think I owe some dexterity to finger exercises here—but the scraps: Louie has seen Mr. Westmacott's man. "It's an eyesore"—his description of fighting near Boulogne. Percy weeding: "I shall conquer 'em in the end. If I was sure of our winning the other battle..." Raid, said to be warned, last night. All the searchlights in extreme continual vibration: they have blots of light, like beads of dew on a stalk. Mr. Hanna "stood by" half the night. Rumour, very likely: rumour, which has transported the English in Belgium who, with their golf sticks, ball and some nets in a car coming from Flanders, were taken for parachutists: condemned to death; released; and returned to Seaford. Rumour, via Percy, transplanted them to "somewhere near Eastbourne" and the villagers armed with rifles, pitchforks etc. Shows what a surplus of unused imagination we possess. We—the educated—check it; as I checked my cavalry on the down at Telscombe and transformed them into cows drinking. Making up again. So that I couldn't remember, coming home, if I'd come by the mushroom path or the field. How amazing that I can tap that old river again: and how satisfying. But will it last? I made out the whole of the end: and need only fill in: the faculty, dormant under the weight of Roger, springs up. And to me it's the voice on the scent again. "Any waste paper?" Here I was interrupted by the jangling bell. Small boy in white sweater come, I suppose, for Scouts, and Mabel says they pester us daily at 37; and make off with the spoils. Desperate fighting. The same perorations. Coming through Southease I saw Mrs. Cockell in old garden hat weeding. Out comes a maid in muslin apron and cap tied with blue riband. Why? To keep up standards of civilisation?
Friday, June 7th
Just back * this roasting hot evening. The great battle which decides our life or death goes on. Last night an air raid here. Today battle sparks. Up till 2:30 this morning.
Sunday, June 9th
I will continue—but can I? The pressure of this battle wipes out London pretty quick. A gritting day. As sample of my present mood, I reflect: capitulation will mean All Jews to be given up. Concentration camps. So to our garage. That's behind correcting Roger, playing bowls. One taps any source of comfort—Leigh Ashton at Charleston yesterday for instance. But today the line is bulging. Last night aeroplanes (G.?) over: shafts of light following. I papered my windows. Another reflection: I don't want to go to bed at midday: this refers to the garage. What we dread (it's no exaggeration) is the news that the French Government have left Paris. A kind of growl behind the cuckoos and t'other birds. A furnace behind the sky. It struck me that one curious feeling is, that the writing "I" has vanished. No audience. No echo. That's part of one's death. Not altogether serious, for I correct Roger, send finally I hope tomorrow: and could finish P.H. But it is a fact—this disparition of an echo.
Monday, June 10th
A day off. I mean one of those odd lapses of anxiety which may be false. Anyhow they said this morning that the line is unbroken—save at certain points. And our army has left Norway and is going to their help. Anyhow—it's a day off—a coal gritty day. L. breakfasted by electric light. And cool mercifully after the furnace. Today, too, I sent off my page proofs, and then have read my Roger for the last time. The Index remains. And I'm in the doldrums; a little sunk, and open to the suggestion, conveyed by the memory of Leonard's coolness, enforced by John's * silence, that it's on e of my failures.
Saturday, June 22nd
Waterloo I suppose. And the fighting goes on in France; and the terms aren't yet public; and it's a heavy grey day, and I've been beaten at bowls, feel depressed and irritated and vow I'll play no more, but read my book. My book is Coleridge: Rose Macaulay; the Bessborough letters—rather a foolish flight inspired by Hary-o: I would like to find, one book and stick to it. But can't. I feel, if this is my last lap, oughtn't I to read Shakespeare? But can't. I feel oughtn't I to finish off P.H.: oughtn't I to finish something by way of an end? The end gives its vividness, even its gaiety and recklessness to the random daily life. This, I thought yesterday, may be my last walk. On the down above Baydean I found some green glass tub
es. The corn was glowing with poppies in it. And I read my Shelley at night. How delicate and pure and musical and uncorrupt he and Coleridge read, after the Left Wing Group. How lightly and firmly they put down their feet, and how they sing; and how they compact; and fuse and deepen. I wish I could invent a new critical method—something swifter and lighter and more colloquial and yet intense: more to the point and less composed; more fluid and following the flight; than my C.R. essays. The old problem: how to keep the flight of the mind, yet be exact. All the difference between the sketch and the finished work. And now dinner to cook. A role. Nightly raids in the east and south coast. 6, 3, 22 people killed nightly.
A high wind was blowing: Mabel, Louie picking currants and gooseberries. Then a visit to Charleston threw another stone into the pond. And at the moment, with P.H. only to fix upon, I'm loosely anchored. Further, the war—our waiting while the knives sharpen for the operation—has taken away the outer wall of security. No echo comes back. I have no surroundings. I have so little sense of a public that I forget about Roger coming or not coming out. Those familiar circumvolutions—those standards—which have for so many years given back an echo and so thickened my identity are all wide and wild as the desert now. I mean, there is no "autumn," no winter. We pour to the edge of a precipice ... and then? I can't conceive that there will be a 27th June 1941. This cuts away something even at tea at Charleston. We drop another afternoon into the millrace.