“Methodical culture, my dear young lady, yes. But with plenty of revolution.”
Raymond wanted me to look at the programme and I told him crossly that I wanted the music first and didn’t believe in methodical culture. That was before I noticed the man in the cloak on my right.
“And now it’s over, by way of methodical culture, I’ll look.”
Raymond was genuine and the strange man was genuine. I was more pleased by his manner than by the truth in either of them. I held both their views. But wanted to impress both of them. Partly for the sake of the truth. Men are either-or, all the time. But what I liked best was peacocking out of the hall with both of them talking, one in each ear.
Strangeness of the seaside at Christmas time. Sunlit frost on the morning grass. Green garden in full sunlight. Blaze of blue sea and blue transparent sky. Blue and green and gold of summer, and warmth in the tingling air.
All the things of an old-fashioned Christmas except religion. Deliberate Christmassing without belief.
And she came to midday dinner in an old woollen tam held in place by a grubby motor-veil tied under her chin.
“She gets one good, annihilating dress. Devastates about in it. On occasions. For the rest of the time she allows her things ... to accumulate atmosphere.”
He thought her a bit of a charlatan. “No end of a rogue really. But when she smiles that brown smile—she’s a gipsy you know, a certain amount of grime sets her off—one would do anything for her.”
He’s always complaining that women don’t do anything, and when they do, and make others do, he’s at once ready with some belittling explanation.