23 November 1914 – 29 November 1914

Great physical languor, especially in the morning. It is Calvary to get out of bed and shoulder the day's burden. "What's been the matter?" they ask. "Oh! senile decay--general histolysis of the tissues," I say, fencing. To-night, I looked at myself accidentally in the glass and noticed at once the alarming extent of my dejection. Quite unconsciously I turned my head away and shook it, making the noise with my teeth and tongue which means, "Dear, dear." M---- tells me these waves of ill-health are quite unaccountable unless I were "leading a dissolute life, which you do not appear to be doing." Damn his eyes. Reading Nietzsche Reading Nietzsche. What splendid physic he is to Pomeranian puppies like myself! I am a hopeless coward. Thunderstorms always frighten me. The smallest cut alarms for fear of blood poisoning, and I always dab on antiseptics at once. But Nietzsche makes me feel a perfect mastiff. The Test for True Love The test for true love is whether you can endure the thought of cutting your sweetheart's toe-nails--the onychiotomic test. Or whether you find your Julia's sweat as sweet as otto of roses. I told her this to-night. Probably she thinks I only "saw it in a book." Chopin On Sunday, went to the Albert Hall, and warmed myself at the Orchestra. It is a wonderful sight to watch an orchestra playing from the gallery. It spurts and flickers like a flame. Its incessant activity arrests the attention and holds it just as a fire does--even a deaf man would be fascinated. Heard Chopin's Funeral March and other things. It would be a rich experience to be able to be in your coffin at rest and listen to Chopin's Funeral March being played above you by a string orchestra with Sir Henry Wood conducting. Sir Henry like a melanic Messiah was crucified as usual, the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 causing him the most awful agony....

Rodin More than once lately have been to see and admire Rodin's recent gifts to the nation exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The "Prodigal Son" is Beethoven's Fifth Symphony done in stone. It was only on my second visit that I noticed the small pebble in each hand--a superb touch!--what a frenzy of remorse! The "Fallen Angel" I loved most. The legs of the woman droop lifelessly backwards in an intoxicating curve. The eye caresses it--down the thighs and over the calves to the tips of the toes--like the hind limbs of some beautiful dead gazelle. He has brought off exactly the same effect in the woman in the group called "Eternal Spring," which I have only seen in a photograph. This morning at 9 a.m. lay in bed on my back, warm and comfortable, and, for the first time for many weeks, with no pain or discomfort of any kind. The mattress curved up around my body and legs and held me in a soft warm embrace.... I shut my eyes and whistled the saccharine melody for solo violin in Chopin's Funeral March. I wanted the moment prolonged for hours. Ill-health chases the soul out of a man. He becomes a body, purely physical.

This evening she promised to be my wife after a long silent ramble together thro' dark London squares and streets! I am beside myself!