24 February.
Had tea with H. B. I have sent him a story for this term’s Noat Days. It won’t be accepted, I suppose. It is an experiment in short sentences. He read me the libretto of the marionettes as far as he had got, and it really was remarkably good. He is producing it in his ephemeral.
10 March.
This morning occurred one of those incidents which render school life at moments unbearable to such as myself. I was raising a spoonful of the watered porridge that they see fit to choke us with, when someone jerked my arm——The puerility of it all, yet the wit which I, for my years, should enjoy according to nature. Of course there was a foul mess, as of one who had vomited, mostly over me. However, it only took an hour or so to regain my equanimity. Incidentally I had a little ink-throwing exhibition in the fool’s room. I had always wanted to see the exact effect of throwing a paint brush at the wall to appreciate Ruskin’s criticism. It was most interesting.
Later.—What an odious superior fellow I am now! It is my mood to-night. Sometimes I think it is better to be just what one is, and not be everlastingly apologising for oneself in so many words. To be rude when you want to be rude—and how very much nicer it would make you when you wanted to be nice. I am sure it is all a matter of relative thought. You think you are working hard by your standards, and to another man you don’t seem to be working at all. Don’t you work just as hard as the other really? Because, after all, it is only a mental question. I shall expound this to J. W. P. I have already done so to Gale with rather marked success. It is a very good principle at Noat.
11 March.
I wish the world was not so ugly and unhappy. And there is so much cynicism. And why does Science label and ticket everything so that the world is like a shop, with their price on all the articles? There are still a few auction rooms where people bid for what they think most worth while, but they are getting fewer and fewer. And people love money so, and I shall too I expect when I have got out of what our elders tell me is youthful introspection. But why shouldn’t one go through something which is so alive and beautiful as that. But they only say, smiling, “Yes; I went through all that once; you will soon get over that.” I shall fight for money and ruin others. Down with Science. Romanticism, all spiritual greatness is going. Soon music will be composed by scientific formulæ; painting has been in France, and look how photography has put art back. Oh, for a Carlyle now! Some prophet one could follow.
15 March.
Spent a whole afternoon at work on the marionette stage. I carpentered while E. V. C. tinkered up the scenes he has painted. Between us we got through surprisingly little in a surprisingly long time.
My story in the new Noat Days will appear shortly. I read the proofs of the story at extreme speed and thought I had never read anything worse or feebler. The paltry humour sickened me, though the end did seem to have some kick in it.