We have acquired a gramophone, and Strauss’ “Last Waltz” has bewitched me. It is such a lovely thing.
NOAT, 4 May.
Back to it again: good old Noat, bloody place! Have just seen a book entitled Up Against it in the Desert, which sufficiently describes my feelings at the moment.
It is so hot as to make writing impossible as my pen and style testify. I shall play no cricket this term, but will just read. I can get off the cricket on the score of health, which becomes increasingly bad. Last holidays we went from doctor to doctor. They look on one as an animal of a certain species, those people, than which nothing is more irritating.
5 May.
The weather continues to be quite lovely. I pass the afternoon watching the cricket, with a book. It is the nicest thing to do I know. This evening I went on the river. What is it that is so attractive in the sound of disturbed water? The contrast of sound to appearance, perhaps. Water looks so like a varnished surface that to see it break up, move and sound in moving is infinitely pleasing. Also it is exhilarating to see an unfortunate upset.
I must work hard at writing. There are all sorts of writers I have never read; Poe, for instance, the master of the suggestive. I think my general reading is fairly good, but I have such an absurd memory.
2 June.
Two portraits of me in the Noat Art Society Summer Exhibition. Not very good, but both striking.
*****