Mercifully I have no near relations—Mercifully I am still very rich, mercifully I can buy love when I require it, which under the circumstances, is not often.
Why do people write journals? Because human nature is filled with egotism. There is nothing so interesting to oneself as oneself; and journals cannot yawn in one's face, no matter how lengthy the expression of one's feelings may be!
A clean white page is a sympathetic thing, waiting there to receive one's impressions!
Suzette supped with me, here in my appartement last night—When she had gone I felt a beast. I had found her attractive on Wednesday, and after an excellent lunch, and two Benedictines, I was able to persuade myself that her tenderness and passion were real, and not the result of some thousands of francs,—And then when she left I saw my face in the glass without the patch over the socket, and a profound depression fell upon me.
Is it because I am such a mixture that I am this rotten creature?—An American grandmother, a French mother, and an English father. Paris—Eton—Cannes—Continuous traveling. Some years of living and enjoying a rich orphan's life.—The war—fighting—a zest hitherto undreamed of—unconsciousness—agony—and then?—well now Paris again for special treatment.
Why do I write this down? For posterity to take up the threads correctly?—Why?
From some architectural sense in me which must make a beginning, even of a journal, for my eyes alone, start upon a solid basis?
I know not—and care not.
Three charming creatures are coming to have tea with me to-day. They had heard of my loneliness and my savageness from Maurice—They burn to give me their sympathy—and have tea with plenty of sugar in it—and chocolate cake.
I used to wonder in my salad days what the brains of women were made of—when they have brains!—The cleverest of them are generally devoid of a logical sense, and they seldom understand the relative value of things, but they make the charm of life, for one reason or another.