You doubt my cleverness? Well, some years ago in R——'s presence I called ——"the Rev. Fastidious Brisk,"—the nickname be it recalled which Henley gave to Stevenson (without the addition of "Rev."). At the time I had no intention of appropriating the witticism as I quite imagined R—— was acquainted with it. His unexpected explosion of mirth, however, made me uncomfortably uncertain of this, yet for the life of me I couldn't muster the honesty to assure him that my feather was a borrowed one. A few weeks later he referred to it again as "certainly one of my better ones"—but still I remained dumb and the time for explanations went for once and all. Now see what a pretty pickle I am in: the name "Brisk" or "F.B." is in constant use by us for this particular person—he goes by no other name, meanwhile I sit and wonder how long it will be before R—— finds me out. There are all sorts of ways in which he might find out: he might read about it for himself, someone might tell him or—worst of all—one day when we are dining out somewhere he will announce to the whole company my brilliant appellation as a little after-dinner diversion: I shall at once observe that the person opposite me knows and is about to air his knowledge; then I shall look sternly at him and try to hold him: he will hesitate and I shall land him with a left and right: "I suppose you've read Henley's verses on Stevenson?" I remark easily and in a moment or so later the conversation has moved on.

August 1.

Am getting married at —— Register Office on September 15th. It is impossible to set down here all the labyrinthine ambages of my will and feelings in regard to this event. Such incredible vacillations, doubts, fears. I have been living at a great rate below surface recently. "If you enjoy only twelve months' happiness," the Doctor said to me, "it is worth while." But he makes a recommendation.... At his suggestion E—— went to see him and from his own mouth learnt all the truth about the state of my health, to prevent possible mutual recriminations in the future.[4] To marry an introspective dyspeptic—what a prospect for her!... I exercise my microscopic analysis on her now as well as on myself.... This power in me is growing daily more automatic and more repugnant. It is a nasty morbid unhealthy growth that I want to hide if I cannot destroy. It amounts to being able at will to switch myself in and out of all my most cherished emotions; it is like the case in Sir Michael Foster's Physiology of a man who, by pressing a tumour in his neck could stop or at any rate control the action of his heart.

August 2.

House pride in newly-wed folk, for example, H. and D. to-day at Golder's Green or the Teignmouth folk, is very trying to the bachelor visitor. They will carry a chair across the room as tenderly as tho' it were a child and until its safe transit is assured, all conversation goes by the board. Or the wife suddenly makes a remark to the husband sotto voce, both thereupon start up simultaneously (leaving the fate of Warsaw undecided) while you, silenced by this unexpected manœuvre, wilt away in your chair, the pregnant phrase still-born on your lips. Presently they re-enter the room with the kitten that was heard in the scullery or with a big stick used to flourish at a little Tomtit on the rose tree. She apologises and both settle down again, recompose their countenances into a listening aspect and with a devastating politeness, pick up the poor, little, frayed-out thread of the conversation where it left off with: "Europe? you were saying...." I mobilise my scattered units of ideas but it is all a little chilly for the lady of the house if she listens with her face and speaks with her lips—her heart is far from me: she fixes a glassy eye on the tip of my cigarette, waiting to see if the ash will fall on her carpet.

August 6.

The most intimate and extensive journal can only give each day a relatively small sifting of the almost infinite number of things that flow thro' the consciousness. However vigilant and artful a diarist may be, plenty of things escape him and in any event re-collection is not re-creation....

To keep a journal is to have a secret liaison of a very sentimental kind. A journal intime is a super-confidante to whom everything is told and confessed. For an engaged or married man to have a secret super-confidante who knows things which are concealed from his lady seems to me to be deliberate infidelity. I am as it were engaged to two women and one of them is being deceived. The word "Deceit" comes up against me in this double life I lead, and insists I shall name a plain thing bluntly. There is something very like sheer moral obliquity in these entries behind her back.... Is this journal habit slowly corrupting my character? Can an engaged or married man conscientiously continue to write his journal intime?

This question of giving up my faithful friend after September I must consider.

Of course most men have something to conceal from someone. Most married men are furtive creatures, and married women too. But I have a Gregers Werle-like passion for life to be lived on a foundation of truth in every intercourse. I would have my wife know all about me and if I cannot be loved for what I surely am, I do not want to be loved for what I am not. If I continue to write therefore she shall read what I have written....