2 June 1913 – 8 June 1913

Spent many dreadful hours cogitating whether to accept their invitation to dinner.... I wanted to go for several reasons. I wanted to see her in a home-setting for the first time, and I wanted to spend the evening with three pretty girls. I also had the idea of displaying myself to the scrutinising gaze of the family as the hero of the old romance: and of showing Her how much I had progressed since last we met and what a treasure she had lost. On the other hand, I was afraid that the invitation was only a casual one, I feared a snuffy reception, a frosty smile and a rigid hand. Could I go up and partake of meat at their board, among brothers and sisters taking me for an ogre of a jilt, and she herself perhaps opposite me making me blush perpetually to recall our one-time passionate kisses, our love letters and our execrable verses to each other! There seemed dreadful possibilities in such an adventure. Yet I badly wanted to experience the piquant situation. At 7 p.m., half an hour before I was due, decided on strong measures. I entered a pub and took a stiff whisky and soda, and then set off with a stout heart to take the icy family by storm--and if need be live down my evil reputation by my amiability and urbanity! I went--and of course everything passed off in the most normal manner. She is a very pretty girl--like velvet. Before dinner, we walked in the garden--and talked only of flowers.

On the Hill, this morning, felt the thrill of the news of my own Death: I mean I imagined I heard the words,-- "You've heard the news about B----?" Second Voice: "No, what?" "He's dead." Silence. Won't all this seem piffle if I don't die after all! As an artist in life I ought to die; it is the only artistic ending --and I ought to die now or the Third Act will fizzle out in a long doctor's bill.

A New Pile in the Pier Watched some men put a new pile in the pier. There was all the usual paraphernalia of chains, pulleys, cranes, and ropes, with a massive wooden pile swinging over the water at the end of a long wire hawser. Everything was in the massive style--even the men--very powerful men, slow, ruminative, silent men. Nothing very relevant could be gathered from casual remarks. The conversation was without exception monosyllabic: "Let go," or "Stand fast." But by close attention to certain obscure movements of the man on the ladder near the water's edge, it gradually came thro' to my consciousness that all these powerful, silent men were up against some bitter difficulty. I cannot say what it was. The burly monsters were silent about the matter.... In fact they appeared almost indifferent--and tired, oh! so very tired of the whole business. The attitude of the man nearest me was that for all he cared the pile could go on swinging in mid-air to the crack of Doom. They continued slow, laborious efforts to overcome the secret difficulty. But these gradually slackened and finally ceased. One massive man after another abandoned his post in order to lean over the rails and gaze like a mystic into the depths of the sea. No one spoke. No one saw anything not even in the depths of the sea. One spat, and with round, sad eyes contemplated the trajectory of his brown bolus (he had been chewing) in its descent into the water. The foreman, an original thinker, lit a cigarette, which relieved the tension. Then, slowly and with majesty, he turned on his heel, and walked away. With the sudden eclipse of the foreman's interest, the incident closed. I should have been scarcely surprised to find him behind the Harbour-master's Office playing "Shove-ha'penny" or skittles with the pile still swinging in mid-air.... After all it was only a bloody pile.