I had luncheon with Cunninghame at his Club. He said that A. does not seem quite so depressed as usual.
Dined at the Club.
Tuesday, May 24th.
A. is giving a dinner to some French députés at his Club. Cunninghame and I have both been invited.
Wednesday, May 25th.
Dined at the Club with Solway. Went to the Opera afterwards, for which Solway had been given two places. Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande. We both enjoyed it.
Thursday, May 26th.
Dined with Aunt Ruth. I had a long talk with her after dinner. She asked after Riley, whom she knows well. "I hear," she said, "he has become a Roman Catholic; of course he will always have a parti-pris now. I wonder if he has realised that." Uncle Arthur joined in the conversation and thought we were talking of someone else, but of whom I have no idea, as he said it all came from not going to school. Riley has been to three schools, besides Oxford, Heidelberg and Berlin universities, and has taken his degree in French law. He, Riley, is staying with me to-morrow night.
Friday, May 27th.
I told Riley that I had heard a lady discussing his conversion lately, and that she had wondered whether he realised that he would have a parti-pris in future. Riley said: "I rather hope I shall. Do you really think one becomes a Catholic to drift like a sponge on a sea of indecision, or to be like an Æolian harp? Don't you yourself think," he said, "that parti-pris is rather a mild term for such a tremendous decision, such a venture? Would your friend think parti-pris the right expression to use of a man who nailed his colours to the mast during a sea-battle? It is a good example of miosis." I asked him what miosis meant. He said that if I wanted another example it would be miosis to say that the French Revolution put Marie Antoinette to considerable inconvenience. Besides which, it was putting the cart before the horse to say you would be likely to have a parti-pris, when by the act of becoming a Catholic you had proclaimed the greatest of all possible parti-pris. It was like saying to a man who had enlisted in the Army: "You will probably become very pro-British." "You won't," he said, "think things out." I said that it was not I who had made the comment, but my aunt, Lady Mellor.