1936

2 January. My novel came back from Gollancz with a polite note. I also had a long letter from Henry, but as it was written in Latin, German, French, Swedish, Finnish and the English of James Joyce I could not well understand it. We went to Shrewsbury and saw Katherine Hepburn and Charles Boyer in Break of Hearts. Very good.

11 January. I sent Hilary a scarf, also an eyebrush and comb for her birthday. We went to Shrewsbury and saw Conrad Veidt in The Passing of the Third Floor Back.

17 January. In the evening I tried to write a story about Budapest, while Links and Ack were at the pictures.

19 January. The king was much the same all day. While washing up I began to wonder how I could get hold of a typewriter, for without one I am lost.

20 January. The king died tonight at 11.55 p.m. It was a very peaceful ending.

22 January. King Edward VIII was proclaimed. We heard it on the wireless from London.

Newburn,

Hatch End,

Middlesex.

15 May 1936

I don’t know whether you intended me to answer your letter or whether it was just written in a hurry and you didn’t mean a word you said. However it was quite sensible and much that you said I agreed with (look out!) but not all. If you want the truth straight away here it is. I am fed up with the whole business. Of writing gay flippant letters to you and expecting you to see that I didn’t really feel that way. Of meeting you at regular intervals and finding that if anything we get on a little worse than the last time. Of having my peace disturbed for no purpose. And of your promises to write which never came to anything – although fair play to you – you always have plenty of excuses – and of finding that as time goes on you don’t improve or grow any older – I mean grow up in the sense that people ought to. In fact I daresay I’ve become thoroughly selfish and I feel like staying that way. Of course all this probably isn’t your fault, although some of it certainly is. As you said, we have never been real to each other. This may be because of the way Jock has treated us by refusing to take anything seriously – but it is really because you haven’t been sufficiently interested in me to make much effort about it. And of course when things are like that between two people there just isn’t anything that can be done about it. I don’t know whether you agree with me over this – or whether you’ve even thought about it, but I think I am right. But however much Jock may be responsible for the state of affairs between us, I can never forget that he saved me a great deal of unhappiness by his way of looking at things, which I adopted too, at least in our correspondence and conversation. It is an amusing game, and I don’t see why it should affect one’s real self unless one wants it to. I know that as far as I’m concerned, although I’ve learned to treat things in his way, the other side of me is still there to be brought out when necessary. I have no wish that it should be annihilated altogether because I know I couldn’t find any happiness unless I were a real person as well as a ‘flat’ one. (I use your word because it seems a good one and I can’t think of another. I’m finding it rather difficult to explain myself clearly, but I hope you’ll see what I mean).

Did I tell you I had started a new novel? I am just beginning to get into form, although at first I found it something of an effort. It is about time my first novel came back from Macmillan – it has been there over two weeks now.

Oswestry. I’ve got to start writing again. I’ve fallen in love, and with Henry. I feel just as bad as I did three years ago – almost worse because he has been extremely nice to me and we have got on much better together than ever before. We have been together day and night for the past three weeks and yesterday he and Mr B. brought me home and now I’m wretched and missing him terribly. I have been acting as his secretary since June 17th. I’ve typed and taken dictation and copied pages out of the Dictionary of National Biography for him – worked all night for him – and received 30/ – a week.

7 June. Oxford. On this day H., J., Mr B., and I went out in the car for the day. Into the Cotswolds. But somehow I didn’t get on very well with them. It was largely my own fault as I was inclined to be rather aggressive in my ‘lowness’, talking about dance music etc. I think I did this because I felt intellectually inferior to them all, especially Henry, who always makes you feel it more than the others do. I felt that they were all against me and I made things worse by my obstinacy. But I felt resentful of being dominated by them and not being allowed to be myself at all. Also I was so conscious of being much better on paper than in speech. Anyway it was a nice day and we had a very pleasant dinner at the Old Swan at Minster Lovell, where we made up verses to celebrate the approaching nuptials of Count Weiss.

8 June. After tea Henry came round in the car to fetch me to hear a record of James Joyce at the flat. He was morose and bad tempered, hardly speaking to me and arguing with Jock. I felt miserable and left rather abruptly before seven o’clock. Just as I was going Henry came to the door and said goodbye in that lovely gentle way of his which is so surprising. I often think that Henry is never so nice as when he’s standing at the door of the flat saying goodbye.

9 June. I had a long talk with Mr B. I can remember telling him that I thought I didn’t care for Henry, in fact almost hated him at times, and wouldn’t now marry him at any price, as I once thought I would.

15 July. Oswestry. Gerard Langbaine the younger was born on this day in 1656. I was very unhappy in the morning and cried (a) because I missed Henry (b) because I loved him and could see no hope for the future (c) because I couldn’t get any of my works accepted (d) because Oswestry was so frightful after Oxford (e) because it was a dull day. Quite enough reasons for feeling wretched I think. But at lunch things improved. To begin with I had postcards from Scotland from Henry and John Barnicot. Then we had strawberries and cream. And last of all the sun came out, so that I was able to sit in the revolving summerhouse. Here I read Mr Huxley’s new book Eyeless in Gaza and went to sleep. In the evening I realised that I had served nearly half my seven years for Lorenzo – or Henry as he has now become. The service began on 13th February 1933 (as nearly as such things can be dated) – it will therefore be finished on 13 February 1940.

16 July. I remember how hard we were working this time last week. Henry, Mr B. and I in the flat. I was, I suppose, at this moment typing Chapter III (Dramatic Bibliography), all that complicated stuff about the 1680 Catalogue, which I didn’t very well understand. Certainly I know that it was dawn before Henry took me home and several birds had started to sing. The last day of all I worked all through the night – with two hours sleep in Henry’s bed. He had slept between nine and eleven. And at about six o’clock in the morning, I tucked him up in an armchair with a rug, while I went through one of the copies marking in notes. Without me he couldn’t have done the thing at all. I can say this, knowing that it is true. Between seven and nine, or thereabouts, he dictated the last pages of the chapter on the Account. I have been given a taste of how lovely things could be with Henry – and before I had often guessed and imagined it, but never known.

17 July. Henry will be back in Oxford today and I shan’t be at the flat to make tea for him. I can’t help hoping that he will realise this, but naturally he will only look upon it as a fact, it will have no sentimental significance. I am now on the 6th chapter of my second novel [Civil to Strangers, unpublished] and am intending to get on with it as fast as possible.

18 July. In the morning I wrote a little of my novel, and then I have been reading a book on Bibliography and trying to fold pages in 12mo and 4 ° etc. I got a book about it from Blackwell’s. I must work at my novel, that is the only thing there is and the only way to find any happiness at present.

19 July. I haven’t done very much today. I went to church, knitted and talked and listened to a play about Keats.

20 July. I compromised by sending Henry a postcard in cheerful style – but ending with a quotation from ‘Tears, idle Tears’.… ‘Oh Death in Life, the Days that are no more!’ But he will not perhaps know how seriously I meant it. Today I wrote about 8 pages in a large foolscap size notebook. I’d like if possible to get the whole thing done by November. It will be something to work for.

21 July. My Life and Times of Anthony à Wood came – it is a lovely book, although I wish I had the complete one.

I had my hair cut and got two new pairs of trollies – a peach and pale yellow. In the evening I did some typing and finished my socks.

22 July. After supper I wrote about four foolscap pages of my new novel. I don’t quite know what to think of it – I can’t feel it’s really as good as Some Tame Gazelle, but it may stand a better chance of getting accepted.

24 July. Naturally I’ve ceased to miss Henry so agonisingly, but I still hope – though faintly – to hear from him. When I think of him apologising for being irritable with me, and standing in the room in the early hours of the morning, looking like an unshaven Russian prince with a turquoise coloured scarf round his waist – of course I love him!

I have now written 8 chapters, or a hundred pages of my new novel, and feel that I am getting into it. I have worked hard at it today and yesterday.

14 August. Last Monday I had a letter from Jonathan Cape – saying that he was interested in my novel Some Tame Gazelle and thought he might be able to offer to publish it if I would make some alterations. They are quite minor ones – so I hope I shall soon be able to send it off again. And then – I dare not hope too much, but it would be marvellous if he took it.

Morda Lodge,

Oswestry,

Shropshire.

20 August 1936

Thank you for both your pathetic letters. They were a good deal better than nothing. I doubt if either of us will ever be the same again after Gerard and as you’ve had the examining as well you may be worse off. But I don’t think you will be, because your heart will be quite whole and you will have £37.103.

I am quite worn out although we have only just come back from the sea. I daresay Jock has told you about Jonathan Cape and my novel. He is going to consider it again – after I have made a few alterations. They are quite minor ones, but so wearying to do. I’m sure I know it almost by heart – certainly the first few pages. I am greatly cheered about this, but only vaguely hopeful. Why should Jonathan Cape want to publish my novel, when Macmillan and Methuen didn’t? (I don’t count Chatto and Gollancz as nobody but a fool would have published it in its early form.) And anyway I’m only twenty-three. But all the same I shall probably cry if Cape don’t take it. Adam and Cassandra [Civil to Strangers] are getting on quite nicely, though I haven’t done much to them lately. Adam is sweet but very stupid. You are sweet too, but not as consistently stupid as Adam. But I wish you were here to show me where to put commas and to help me with my novel. I can type frightfully fast after doing Gerard, but find that instead of being able to type words like Archdeacon and Belinda I want to type Langbaine and Archi-typographus.

I am all alone in the house, except for the wireless, which you despise so much. I am writing rather slowly and laboriously and every time I think of something nice to say I stop and consider it well before I put it. I don’t believe letters should be written like this, especially from people like me to people like you. It would be better if I could write you a poem and I have written one or two fragments since I last saw you. But I don’t think I shall own them. Your little poem was very touching and far more acceptable to me than your letters in the style of Joyce. I wish I knew something about the modern poets. Nobody will listen to me (except Jock) when I say that I am very fond of Young’s Night Thoughts. I wish you would teach me about them and tell me which ones to read and how to understand them. Even the Finns know more than I do. You ought to try and educate me in things I don’t know about.

I hope you have recovered from your spleen. I haven’t been really unhappy since the week after you went.

Just such a letter might poor Elsie Godenhjelm write to you, only perhaps she has more respect for you than I have – though I have still a certain amount. I hope you will think this is a nice answerable letter although it is rather dull. (Very dull, I think, on reading it through – but there is not much news and I have forgotten how to write a real love letter. I have now for so long mistrusted the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.) And at present I don’t really pine for you – I mean my eyes don’t prick with tears every time I think of you as in July.

30 August. I wish my diary were as interesting and instructive as Anthony à Wood’s. It must be dull reading with nothing but the falseness of Henry in it. There should be more talk of prodigies in it and more intelligent accounts of what I have been doing.

7 September. A very pleasant day with Henry, Jockie and Mr B. They came for me at about 9.30 – having spent the night at the Wynnstay. We went to Port Meirion. This is a very charming, very Henryish place with pink and blue and yellow Italian villas and statues all about in odd corners. Henry was very nice and it was all very pleasant. He goes back to Finland on Tuesday. I envy Elsie Godenhjelm – after all I love him too!

1 October. In the morning I finished (typing) Chapter XIV of Adam and Cassandra. I have now reached p.170 and think I can finish it. It seems to get better as it goes on, I think.