9–15 April 1855

Fourth Bastion. Have written very, very little of Youth or Sevastopol during these days. My cold and feverish condition were the cause of this. Besides that I am vexed (especially now when I am ill) that it does not occur to anybody that I am good for anything except chair a canon, and of the most useless kind. Feel inclined to fall in love with a nurse I saw at the Ambulance.

Fourth Bastion. Wrote Sevastopol by Day and Night and, I think, not badly, and hope to finish it to- morrow. What a fine spirit there is among the sailors 1 How much superior they are to our soldiers. My little soldiers are also nice, and I am cheerful when with them. Yesterday a fifth mine was exploded : the firing seems to have increased on our side and diminished on theirs. The same Fourth Bastion, which I am beginning to like very much. Am writing a good deal. To-day have finished Sevastopol by Day and Night and written a little of Youth. The constant charm of danger, observing the soldiers with whom I am living, the sailors, and the methods of the war, is so pleasant that I do not want to leave here, especially as I should like to be present at the assault if there is to be one.

The same Fourth Bastion, in which I get on excellently. Yesterday I finished a chapter of Youth and not at all badly. In general work on Youth will now fascinate me by the charm of work begun and nearly half accomplished. To-day I want to write the chapter The Hay-harvest, to begin to revise Sevastopol , and to begin the soldier’s story of how he was hit. O Lord ! I thank Thee for Thy continual protection. How surely Thou leadest me to what is good, and how insignificant a creature I should be shouldst Thou abandon me. Leave me not, O Lord ! Help me, not for the satis- faction of my insignificant aims but for the eternal, great, and unseen, aim of existence of which I am conscious.