7 August 1916 – 13 August 1916

I hate elderly women who mention their legs. It makes me shudder. I had two amusing conversations this morning, one with a jealous old man of 70 summers who, in spite of his age, is jealous--I can find no other term--of me in spite of mine, and the other with a social climber. I always tell the first of any of my little successes and regularly hand him all my memoirs as they appear, to which he as regularly protests that he reads very little now. "Oh! never mind," I always answer gaily, "you take it and read it going down in the train--it will amuse you." He submits but is always silent next time I see him--a little, admonitory silence. Or, I mention I am giving an address at ----, and he says "Oom," and at once begins his reminiscences, which I have heard many times before, and am sometimes tempted to correct him when, his memory failing, he leaves out an essential portion of his story. Thus do crabbed age and boastful youth tantalise one another. To the social climber I said slyly: "You seem to move in a very distinguished entourage during your week ends." He smiled a little self-consciously, hesitated a moment and then said: "Oh! I have a few nice friends, you know." Now I am sorry, but though I scrutinised this lick-spittle and arch belly-truck rider very closely, I am quite unable to say whether that smile and unwonted diffidence meant simple pleasure at the now certain knowledge that I was duly impressed, or whether it was genuine confusion at the thought that he had perhaps been overdoing it. Curiously enough, all bores of whatever kind make a dead set at me. I am always a ready listener and my thrusts are always gentle. Hence the pyramids! I constantly act as phlebotomist to the vanity of the young and to the anecdotage of the senile and senescent.

... I stood by his chair and looked down at him, and surveyed carefully the top of his head, neck, and collar, and with admirable restraint and calm, considered my most reasonable contempt of him. In perfect silence, we remained thus, while I looked down at a sore spot in the centre of his calvarium which he scratches occasionally, and toyed with the fine flower of my scorn.... But it is a dangerous license to take. One never knows.... Equilibrium Restored To clear away the cobwebs and to purge my soul of evil thoughts and bitter feelings, went for a walk this evening over the uplands. Among the stubble, I sat down for a while with my back against the corn pook and listened to the Partridges calling. Then wandered around the edge of this upland field with the wind in my face and a shower of delicious, fresh rain pattering down on the leaves and dry earth. Then into a wood among tall forest Beeches and a few giant Larches where I rested again and heard a Woodpecker tapping out its message aloft. This ramble in beautiful B----shire country restored my mental and spiritual poise. I came home serene and perfectly balanced--my equilibrium was something like the just perceptible oscillation of tall Larch-tree tops on the heights of a cliff and the sea below with a just perceptible swell on a calm and perfect June day. I felt exquisite --superb. I could have walked all the way home on a tight rope.