That awful fair! Never again. The time has gone by when one was young and rude enough for such things. It made me so utterly wretched. I felt there was nothing to do but sit on the stairs and lift up one's voice and—weep for Babylon. Were human beings in the mass always so shocking—or does one as one grows older shed a skin? I can't decide….

page 228

I wonder what decision you are arrived at about the cottage with the tower. ¹Perhaps the house itself is very imperfect in many ways but there is a …. something … which makes one long for it. Immediately you get there you are free, free as air. You hang up your hat on a nail and the house is furnished. It is a place where you sit on the stairs and watch the lovely light inhabiting the room below. After nightfall the house has three voices. If you are in the tower and someone comes from the far cottage—he comes from far away. You go by the edge of the field to Katie Berryman's for the bread. You walk home along the rim of the Atlantic with the big fresh loaf—and when you arrive the house is like a ship. I mustn't talk about it. It bewitched me.

Saturday afternoon. J. is downstairs discussing the theory of relativity with S. I feel they are being a trifle portentous. The kittens are trying to kill their mother with love in front of my fire; the wind makes a pleasant sound but all my daffodils are fallen before it. I feel awfully happy. A husband, a home, a great many books and a passion for writing—are very nice things to possess all at once.