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This devilish cold persists. I am still in my life jacket, plastered underneath with unguents. Oh, these nights—sitting up in bed, waiting for the black trees to turn into green trees. And yet, when dawn does come, it is always so beautiful and terrible—the coming of the light such a miracle—that it's almost worth waiting for. And then, as the hours strike through the night, I wander through cities—in fancy. Slip along unfamiliar streets, invisible—wonder who lives in these great houses with heavy doors, or, down on some quay side, I watch the boats putting out in the dark and smell the night scent of the open sea—until lying awake becomes an ecstasy.

One's own life—one's own secret private life—what a queer positive thing it is. Nobody knows where you are—nobody has the remotest idea who you are, even.

The Brontës—Last night in bed I was reading Emily's poems. There is one:

I know not how it falls on me
This summer evening, hushed and lone,
Yet the faint wind comes soothingly
With something of an olden tone.

Forgive me if I've shunned so long
Your gentle greeting, earth and air!
Yet sorrow withers e'en the strong
And who can fight against despair?

The first line—why it is so moving? And then the exquisite simplicity of “Forgive me”… I think the Beauty of it is contained in one's certainty that it is not Emily disguised—who writes—it is Emily. Nowadays one of the chief reasons for one's dissatisfaction with modern poetry is one can't be sure that it really does belong to the man who writes it. It is so tiring, isn't it, never to leave the Masked Ball—never—never.

The house is full of women, to-day. The peevish old page 235 lying cook in the kitchen who says it is I who make all the work. L. M. bringing my lunch with a ‘Take, eat, this is my body’ air, an old 'un sweeping the stairs away and down in the studio a little dwarf sewing buttons and strings on to M.'s clothes and making immense pale darns in his Hebridean socks….

M. has moved into his new offices and the burden is a trifle lighter. Tomlinson is in the same building and they occasionally have a little gaiety on the stairs—heat pennies, tie them on a string and slip them under Massingham's door—or lean out of the window and angle for passing hats with a bent pin…. This cheers M. greatly.

I try and console myself with—half a lung is better than no head—but at present I don't feel I've too much of the latter.