May 24th. We went together to see George Meredith. I suppose many people have seen him in his little Surrey Cottage; Flint Cottage, Boxhill. He has a wonderful face and a frail old body. He talks without stopping except to drink ginger-beer. He told us many stories, mostly about society scandals of some time back. I remember he asked Gilbert, "Do you like babies?" and when Gilbert said, "Yes," he said "So do I, especially in the comet stage."
June 5th. Granville Barker came to see Gilbert, touching the
possibility of a play.
June 29th. A garden party at the Bishop's House, Kennington. The
Bishop told me that A. J. Balfour was very impressed with "Heretics."
Guild of St. Matthew Service and rowdy supper. Gilbert made an
excellent speech.
July 5th. Gilbert dined at the Asquiths; met Rosebery. I think he
hated it.
July 16th. Gilbert went to see Mrs. Grenfell at Taplow. He met Balfour, Austen Chamberlain and George Wyndham. Had an amusing time, no doubt. Says Balfour is most interesting to talk to but appears bored. George Wyndham is delightful.
One felt always with both Frances and Gilbert that this society life stayed on the surface—amusing, distracting, sometimes welcome, sometimes boring—but never infringing the deeper reality of their relationships with old friends, with their own families, with each other. Frances wrote endless business and other letters for them both: in just a handful, mainly to Father O'Connor, does she show her deeper life of thought and feeling. Gilbert had little time now for writing anything but books and articles. Never a very good correspondent he had become an exceedingly bad one. Annie Firmin's engagement to Robert Kidd produced one of the few letters that exist. It is handwritten and undated.
A Restaurant somewhere.
MY DEAR ANNIE,
I have thought of you, I am quite certain, more often than I have of any human being for a long time past—except my wife who recalls herself continually to me by virtues, splendours, agreeable memories, screams, pokers, brickbats and other things. And yet, though whenever my mind was for an instant emptied of theology and journalism and patriotism and such rot, it has been immediately filled with you, I have never written you a line.
I am not going to explain this and for a good reason. It is a part of the Mystery of the Male, and you will soon, even if you do not already, get the hang of it, by the society of an individual who while being unmistakably a much better man than I am, is nevertheless male. I can only say that when men want a thing they act quite differently to women. We put off everything we want to do, in the ordinary way. If the Archangel Michael wrote me a complimentary letter tomorrow (as perhaps he may) I should put it in my pocket, saying, "How admirable a reply shall I write to that in a week or a month or so." I put off writing to you because I wanted to write something that had in it all that you have been, to me, to all of us. And now instead I am scrawling this nonsense in a tavern after lunch.