September 15.
A puzzling afternoon: weather perfect, the earth green and humming like a top, yet a web of dream overlaid the great hill, and at certain moments, which recurred in a kind of pulsation, accompanied by subjective feelings of vague strife and effort, I easily succeeded in letting all I saw—the field and the blackberry bush, the whole valley and the apple orchards—change into something unreal, flimsy, gauzelike, immaterial, and totally unexperienced. Suddenly when the impression was most vivid, the whole of this mysterious tapestry would vanish away and I was back where 2 and 2 make 4. Oh! Earth! how jealously you guard your secrets!
October 4.
Sat at the Civil Service Commission in Burlington House for the exam, for the vacancy in the B.M. No luck at all with the papers. The whole of my nine months' assiduous preparation helped me in only two questions. In fine, I have not succeeded, I shall not obtain the appointment, and in a few weeks I shall be back in the wilds of
N—— again under the old regime, reporting platitudes from greasy guardians of the poor, and receiving condolences from people not altogether displeased at some one else's misfortune.
October 14.
Returned home from London. Felt horribly defeated in crossing the threshold. It was so obviously returning after an unsuccessful flight.
October 22.
Dissected a Squilla for which I paid 2s. 6d. to the Plymouth Marine Laboratory.
October 23.