21 October 1935 – 27 October 1935

I am again held up in The Years by my accursed love of talk. That is to say, if I talk to Rose Macaulay from 4–6:30: to Elizabeth Bowen from 8–12 I have a dull heavy hot mop inside my brain next day and am a prey to every flea, ant, gnat. So I have shut the book—Sal and Martin in Hyde Park—and spent the morning typing out Roger’s memoirs. This is a most admirable sedative and refresher. I wish I always had it at hand. Two days rest of that nerve is my prescription; but rest is hard to come by. I think I shall refuse all invitations to chatter parties till I’m done. Could it only be by Christmas! For instance, if I go to Edith Sitwell’s cocktail this evening I shall only pick up some exacerbating picture: I shall froth myself into sparklets; and there’ll be the whole smoothing and freshening to begin again. But after The Years is done then I shall go everywhere: and expose every cranny to the light. As it is, who doesn’t come here? Every day this week I must talk. But in my own room I’m happier, I think. So I will now plod quietly through the Bridges letters and perhaps begin to arrange all Helen’s tangled mass.