29 June 1914 – 5 July 1914

At the Albert Hall Went with R---- to the Albert Hall to the Empress of Ireland Memorial Concert with massed bands. We heard the Symphonie Pathétique, Chopin's Funeral March, Trauermarsch from Götterdammerung, the Ride of the Valkyries and a solemn melody from Bach. This afternoon I regard as a mountain peak in my existence. For two solid hours I sat like an Eagle on a rock gazing into infinity--a very fine sensation for a London Sparrow.... I have an idea that if it were possible to assemble the sick and suffering day by day in the Albert Hall and keep the Orchestra going all the time, then the constant exposure of sick parts to such heavenly air vibrations would ultimately restore to them the lost rhythm of health. Surely, even a single exposure to--say Beethoven's Fifth Symphony--must result in some permanent reconstitution of ourselves body and soul. No one can be quite the same after a Beethoven Symphony has streamed thro' him. If one could develop a human soul like a negative the effect I should say could be seen.... I'll tell you what I wish they'd do--seriously: divide up the arena into a series of cubicles where, unobserved and in perfect privacy, a man could execute all the various movements of his body and limbs which the music prompts. It would be such a delicious self-indulgence and it's torture to be jammed into a seat where you can't even tap one foot or wave an arm. The concert restored my moral health. I came away in love with people I was hating before and full of compassion for others I usually condemn. A feeling of immeasurable well being--a jolly bonhomie enveloped me like incandescent light. At the close when we stood up to sing the National Anthem we all felt a genuine spirit of camaraderie. Just as when Kings die, we were silent musing upon the common fate, and when the time came to separate we were loath to go our several ways, for we were comrades who together had come thro' a great experience. For my part I wanted to shake hands all round--happy travellers, now alas! at the journey's end and never perhaps to meet again--never. R---- and I walked up thro' Kensington Gardens like two young Gods! "I even like that bloody thing," I said, pointing to the Albert Memorial. We pointed out pretty girls to one another, watched the children play ring-a-ring-a-roses on the grass. We laughed exultingly at the thought of our dismal colleagues ... tho' I said (as before!) I loved 'em all--God bless 'em--even old ----. R---- said it was nothing short of insolence on their part to have neglected the opportunity of coming to the Concert. Later on, an old gaffer up from the country stopped us to ask the way to Rotten Row--I overwhelmed him with directions and happy descriptive details. I felt like walking with him and showing him what a wonderful place the world is. After separating from R---- very reluctantly--it was horrible to be left alone in such high spirits, walked up towards the Round Pond, and caught myself avoiding the shadows of the trees--so as to be every moment out in the blazing sun. I scoffed inwardly at the timorousness of pale, anæmic folk whom I passed hiding in the shadows of the elms. At the Round Pond, came across a Bulldog who was biting out great chunks of water and in luxuriant waste-fulness letting it drool out again from each corner of his mouth. I watched this old fellow greedily (it was very hot), as well pleased with him and his liquid "chops" as with anything I saw, unless it were a girl and a man lying full length along the grass and kissing beneath a sunshade. I smiled; she saw me, and smiled, too, in return, and then fell to kissing again.

Dinosaurs There are books which are Dinosaurs--Sir Walter Raleigh's History of the World, Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. There are men who are Dinosaurs--Balzac completing his Human Comedy, Napoleon, Roosevelt. I like them all. I like express trains and motor lorries. I enjoy watching an iron girder swinging in the air or great cubes of ice caught up between iron pincers. I must always stop and watch these things. I like everything that is swift or immense: London, lightning, Popocatepetl. I enjoy the smell of tar, of coal, of fried fish, or a brass band playing a Liszt Rhapsody. And why should those foolish Mænads shout Women's Rights just because they burn down a church? All bonfires are delectable. Civilisation and top hats bore me. My own life is like a tame rabbit's. If only I had a long tail to lash it in feline rage! I would return to Nature--I could almost return to Chaos. There are times when I feel so dour I would wreck the universe if I could. (1917: I think after three years of Armageddon I feel quite ready to go back to top hats and civilisation.)