"Do stop watering those damned plants," I exclaimed at last. But he went on. I exclaimed again and out of sheer ridiculousness, in reply he proceeded to water the cabbages, the gravel path, the oak tree—and me! While I writhed with laughing.
May 27.
By the Sea
Sat upon a comfortable jetty of rock and watched the waves without a glimmer of an idea in my mind about anything—though to outward view I might have been a philosopher in cerebral parturition with thoughts as big as babies. Instead, little rustling dead leaves of thoughts stirred and fluttered in the brain—the pimple e.g. I recollected on my Aunt's nose, or the boyishness of Dr. ——'s handwriting, or Swinburne's lines: "If the golden-crested wren Were a nightingale—why, then Something seen and heard of men Might be half as sweet as when Laughs a child of seven."
I continued in this pleasurable coma all the afternoon and went home refreshed.
May 29.
Have returned to London and the B.M. My first day at the M. Sat at my table in a state of awful apathy.
At least temporarily, I am quite disenchanted of Zoology. I work—God save the mark—in the Insect Room!
On the way home, purchased:—
Peroxide of hydrogen (pyorrhœa threatened). One bottle of physic (for my appalling dyspepsia).