13 August 1923 – 19 August 1923

The question I want to debate here is the question of my essays: and how to make them into a book. The brilliant idea has just come to me of embedding them in Otway conversation. The main advantage would be that I could then comment and add what I had had to leave out, or failed to get in, e.g. the one on George Eliot certainly needs an epilogue. Also to have a setting for each would “make a book”; and the collection of articles is in my view an inartistic method. But then this might be too artistic; it might run away with me; it will take time. Nevertheless I should very much enjoy it. I should graze nearer my own individuality. I should mitigate the pomposity and sweep in all sorts of trifles. I think I should feel more at my ease. So I think a trial should be made. The first thing to do is to get ready a certain number of essays. There could be an introductory chapter. A family which reads the papers. The thing to do would be to envelop each essay in its own atmosphere. To get them into a current of life, and so to shape the book; to get a stress upon some main line—but what the line is to be, I can only see by reading them through. No doubt fiction is the prevailing theme. Anyhow the book should end with modern literature. 6 Jane Austen 5 Addison In order of time 14 Conrad Montaigne 15 How it strikes a Evelyn contemporary Defoe 11 The Russians Sheridan 4 Evelyn Sterne 7 George Eliot Addison 13 Modern Essays Jane Austen 10 Henry James Charlotte Brontë Re-reading novels George Eliot 8 Charlotte Brontë The Russians 2 Defoe The Americans 12 Modern Novels Thoreau Greeks Emerson Thoreau Henry James Emerson Modern Fiction 3 Sheridan? On re-reading novels 2 Sterne? Essays 9 1a Old Memoirs How it strikes a contemporary These are, roughly, the headings.