When I got up yesterday I sat in my long chair in a kind of pleasant daze—never moved—slept and really did not wake until tea when I opened Dorothy Wordsworth and read on steadily for a long time. The air is heavenly, but don't imagine I walk or lift anything or even move more than I need. I can't even if I would—for the least effort makes me cough, and coughing is such fiendish, devilish pain that I'd lie like a mummy to avoid it. However—the divine sea is here, the haze and brightness mingled. I stare at that and wonder about the gulls, and wonder why I must be ill. All the people who pass are so well, so ruddy. They walk or run if they have a mind, or row past in little boats. Perhaps the curse will lift one day.

This place is very good for just now. You see I am going to stay in bed all day, not going to move, and all is done for me so pleasantly by the old 'un. She came in early and threw open my windows at the bottom, and said the air was better than medicine—which it is—and yesterday she patted my cushion and said I must try and gather up a little harnful of strength. I am always astonished, amazed that people should be kind. It makes me want to weep. You know. It's dreadfully upsetting. What! Can it be that they have a heart! They are not playing a trick on me, not ‘having me on’ not ready to burst their sides at my innocence?

A. and D. came in last evening with an armful of those yellow irises that grew in the Marsh near Hocking's Farm. They had been picnicking in the woods all day among the blue-bells and were very burnt and happy. A. must be page 169 doing some kind of good work, for I can feel her state of mind—a sort of still radiant joy which sits in her bosom.

There pipes a blackbird, and the waves chime. Would that you were here! Yet—perhaps—better not.