We conversed around the text: "To travel hopefully is better than to arrive and true success is to labour." She is—well, so graceful. My God! I love her, I love her, I love her!!!
February 3.
A Confession
H—— B—— invited me to tea to meet his fiancée.
Rather pleased with the invitation—I don't know why, for my idea of myself is greater than my idea of him and probably greater than his idea of himself.
Yet I went and got shaved, and even thought of buying a new pair of gloves, but poverty proved greater than vanity, so I went with naked hands. On arriving at Turnham Green, I removed my spectacles (well knowing how much they damage my personal appearance). However, the beauty of the thing was that, tho' I waited as agreed, he never turned up, and so I returned home again, crestfallen—and, with my spectacles on again.
February 9.
... "Now, W——, talk to me prettily," she said as soon as the door was closed on them.
"Oh! make him read a book," whined her sister, but we talked of marriage instead—in all its aspects. Bless their hearts, I found these two dear young things simply sodden with the idea of it.
In the middle I did a knee-jerk which made them scream with laughing—the patellar reflex was new to them, so I seized a brush from the grate, crossed to Her and gently tapped: out shot her foot, and ----cried: "Oh, do do it to me as well." It was rare fun.