This morning I turned to read with avidity accounts of the last hours of Keats, Gibbon, Oscar Wilde and Baudelaire. I gained astonishing comfort out of this, especially in the last ... who died of G.P.I. in a Brussels Hospital.
E—— is awfully courageous and,—as usual ready to do everything in her power. How can I ever express sufficient gratitude to these two dear women (and my wife, above all) for casting in their lot knowingly with mine?
December 1.
I believe I am good for another 12 months without abnormal worries. Just now, of course, the Slug ain't exactly on the thorn—on the cabbage in fact as E—— suggested. The Grasshopper is much of a burden and the voice of the Turtle has gone from my land (where did all these Bible phrases come from?). The first bark of the Wolf (God save us, 'tis all the Animal Kingdom sliding down my penholder) was heard with the reduction in her work to-day, and I suspect there's worse to come with a sovereign already only worth 12s. 6d.
December 4.
The Baby touch is the most harrowing of all. If we were childless we should be merely unfortunate, but an infant....
December 11.
Am receiving ionisation treatment from an electrical therapeutist—a quack! He is a sort of electrician—still, if he mends my bells I'll kiss his boots. As for ——, he is no better than a byreman, and I call him Hodge. This is not the first time I have felt driven to act behind the back of the Profession. In 1912, being desperate, and M—— worse than a headache, I greedily and credulously sucked in the advice of my boarding-house proprietor and went to see a homœopathist in Finsbury Circus. He proved to be a charlatan at 10s. 6d. a time, and tho' I realised it at once, I religiously travelled about for a month or more with tinctures and drop-bottle. I could write a book on the Doctors I have known and the blunders they have made about me.... The therapeutist took me for 33. I feel 63. I am 27. What a wreck I am, and....