29 October 1934 – 4 November 1934

Ideas that came to me last night dining with Clive; talking to Aldous* and the Kenneth Clarks. About Roger’s life: that it should be written by different people to illustrate different stages. Youth, by Margery† Cambridge, by Wedd? Early London life . . . Clive Sickert Bloomsbury, Desmond V.W. Later life, Julian Blunt Heard and so on. all to be combined say by Desmond and me together. About novels: the different strata of being: the upper, under. This is a familiar idea, partly tried in the Pargiters. But I think of writing it out more closely; and now, particularly, in my critical book: showing how the mind naturally follows that order in thinking: how it is illustrated by literature. I must now do biography and autobiography.

Two teeth out with a new anaesthetic: hence I write here, not seriously. And this is another pen. And my brain is very slightly frozen, like my gums. Teeth become like old roots that one breaks off. He broke and I scarcely felt. My brain frozen thinks of Aldous and the Clarks: thinks vaguely of biography; thinks am I reviewed anywhere—can’t look—thinks it is a fine cold day. I went upstairs to rinse my bleeding gum—the cocaine lasts ½ an hour; then the nerves begin to feel again—and opened the Spectator and read W. L. on me again. An answer to Spender. “I am not malicious. Several people call Mrs. W. Felicia Hemans.” This I suppose is another little scratch of the cat’s claws: to slip that in, by the way—“I don’t say it—others do.” And so they are supercilious on the next page about Sickert; and so—Well L. says I should be contemptible to mind. Yes: but I do mind for 10 minutes: I mind being in the light again, just as I was sinking into my populous obscurity. I must take a pull on myself. I don’t think this attack will last more than two days. I think I shall be free from the infection by Monday. But what a bore it all is. And how many sudden shoots into nothingness open before me. But wait one moment. At the worst, should I be a quite negligible writer, I enjoy writing: I think I am an honest observer. Therefore the world will go on providing me with excitement whether I can use it or not. Also, how am I to balance W. L.’s criticism with Yeats—let alone Goldie and Morgan? Would they have felt anything if I had been negligible? And about two in the morning I am possessed of a remarkable sense of (driving eyeless) strength. And I have L. and there are his books; and our life together. And freedom, now, from money paring. And . . . if only for a time I could completely forget myself, my reviews, my fame, my sink in the scale—which is bound to come now and to last about 8 or 9 years—then I should be what I mostly am: very rapid, excited, amused, intense. Odd, these extravagant ups and downs of reputation; compare the Americans in the Mercury . . . No, for God’s sake don’t compare: let all praise and blame sink to the bottom or float to the top and let me go my ways indifferent. And care for people. And let fly, in life, on all sides. These are very sensible sayings I think. And it’s all forgotten and over. What is uppermost now is (1) the question of writing R.’s* life. Helen† came. Says both she and M.‡ wish it. So I wait. What do I feel about it? If I could be free, then here’s the chance of trying biography; a splendid, difficult chance— better than trying to find a subject—that is, if I am free.