Blindness

IT has only just struck me that a kind of informal diary would be rather fun. No driving as to putting down something every day, just a sort of pipe to draw off the swamp water. It has rained all the past week. We went to Henley yesterday and it was wretched: B. G. going off to Phyllis Court and leaving me with Jonson, an insufferable bore who means very well and consequently makes things much worse. Seymour went with Dore who was dressed in what would be bad form at Monte, and at Henley ... Had a row with Seymour and refused to be seen with Dore.

Wonderful T. Carlyle’s letters are, and his wife’s too. One can always tell them at a glance. She is the best letter writer there has ever been, I am told by a modern authority. I should think T. C. runs this pretty fine, his explosive style going well into letters.

9 July.

Two people in my absence just had a water fight in my room, which enraged me.

The usual question asked, “Why not in anyone else’s room?” and of course no answer: however, felt better after calling Brimston an animated cabbage. His retort was, “Oh, cutting!” ...

Seymour, B. G. and I were seriously discussing the production of a revue here next term, as they do at the universities, but as Seymour said, the difficulties were insuperable, too many old men to surmount.

19 July.

Walk with Seymour to-day, who was very charming. Fell in love with a transparent tortoiseshell cigarette case for three guineas, very cheap I thought. He keeps his band of satellites in very good order. When he told them to leave the School Shop they did. They positively worship him. He is an extraordinary creature, I don’t believe he could get on without them: keeping them as some people keep a dog, to let off steam at. A rift between Harington Brown and Seymour, very amusing to watch: H. B. much the same as Seymour but lacks his charm. Seymour furious because H. B. has brought out a bad magazine called The Shop Window. Seymour thinks it is a challenge to his precious Noat Lights. If it is one it is a failure.

Dicky Maitland, who used to try and teach me science, has been writing to the Adjer to say that my Volunteer’s uniform is always untidy; the Adjer says he has had several notes: did you ever hear such cheek? But then the poor man is a military maniac.

As a matter of fact I ought to look quite well to-morrow on the occasion of the Yearly Inspection, as my tunic is nothing but oil stains, and everything else is sketchy and insecure.

J. W. P. told me last night that I was a person who wanted to fail at Noat and who thought (and only he knew how mistakenly) that he was going to be a success in after-life. A typically House-masterish thing to say. But then he was in a bad temper.

_Later._--Have just announced that I go to the dentist to-morrow so shan’t be able to play in the House match that afternoon: frenzy; “I call that rather a shame,” etc. Isn’t it funny what a good player one becomes on a sudden?

The dentist to-morrow will be the third time he has tried to kill a nerve, and it isn’t nearly dead now, but still fairly active.

Tremendous excitement over Hutchinson’s coming novel, everyone trying to get a first edition.

Thursday.

Corps Inspection: all went well.

Afterwards I went up to the dentist, and in the train met Mayo, who is leaving early. Had a long talk mainly about Seymour and Co. As might be expected he did not like him, but what was more to the point, produced a most interesting reason and unanswerable to a person who holds views like his. Firstly, then, he has no use for a person who is no good at anything. He tolerates the clever scholar, he tolerates the half-wit athlete, but since he cannot see that any of us are remotely even one of these, he cannot bear us as a set.

What adds fuel to his fire is a person who glories in his eccentricity, which of course is true of all of us, in that we glory in ourselves. And of course the inevitable immorality touched on, which is always connected with eccentricities.

B. G. of course he merely regards as really and actively evil, and I don’t blame him as he does not know B. G., whose appearance is well calculated to sow the seeds of doubt and dislike in any righteous person. Furthermore, he can’t see what good any of us are going to do in after-life. He said that he was going into the army, he trumpeted that, and then because we were alone together he put me out of the argument by saying that I should be a future financier.

I could not answer him, there was nothing further to say, but in the course of the running fire that we kept up afterwards just to show that there was no ill-feeling, he actually said that Seymour went up in his estimation because he had won his House hundred yards. Extraordinary! Very interesting, and, of course, a view which is almost incredible to me, in fact a great eye-opener.

Had to return in a hurry from the dentist who has given up trying to kill the nerve in my tooth. He prophesied what he called a “sting” in it to-night: he under-estimated it considerably. It is hurting damnably.

21 July.

Am reading a very good book on the Second Empire with Napoleon the Third. It is in the Lytton Strachey style, which after Carlyle’s is, I think, the most amusing.

The Volunteers’ Camp and all its attendant horrors is getting quite close now: though I could get off whenever I wanted to with my hammer-toes, but I want to go just for once.

22 July.

Bell’s, across the way, have bought as many as seven hunting-horns. Each possessor blows it unceasingly, just when one wants to read. They don’t do it all together, but take it in turns to keep up one forced note. Really, it might be Eton. They can only produce the one note during the whole day.

In addition to this trifling detail, it is “the thing to do” now to throw stones at me as I sit at my window. However, I have just called E. N. a “milch cow,” and shall on the first opportunity call D. J. B. a “bovine goat,” which generally relieves matters. These epithets have the real authentic Noat Art Society touch, haven’t they?

24 July.

No Art Society this evening. No one turned up except H. B., who was to have read a paper; he was rather hurt. However, I think it will be all right, he has about as much admiration for the satellites as I have.

Am too tired to do anything but write this. The House rather alarmed and faintly contemptuous to hear I keep this; they have given me up, I think and hope. Rather a funny thing happened while fielding this afternoon. I had thrown myself down to stop a ball and I saw waving specks in my eyes for two minutes afterwards. I suppose my blood pressure was disturbed.

“For those in danger on the sea” is at the moment being sung by Truin’s at House prayers.

26 July.

J. W. P. came in last night to say that I had bad reports, everyone saying that I took no trouble, which is not surprising on both sides of the question: says that next term I shall have to do all my work in his study with the half-wits, a song which I have heard before, I think, though it is so encouraging coming at the end of a term’s boredom.

Camp at Tidworth will be delightful in this soaking weather.

27 July.

Have bought the most gorgeous sun hat for a horse in straw for sixpence, and have painted it in concentric rings. Shall wear it at Camp, and have fixed it up so that it will bend when worn like a very old-fashioned bonnet. In the ear-holes I am going to put violently swearing colours, orange and magenta, in ribbon I got for nothing by being nice to a shopwoman at Bowlay’s. Our little John is getting on, isn’t he?

The hat is a masterpiece, and being so has, of course, started a violent controversy. Those who consider it merely bounderism, and those who think it amusing, talk very seriously together and stop when I approach, while the faithful come in occasionally to tell me what the others have said.

The most beautiful letter ever written is undoubtedly that of Charlotte Brontë’s on her sister Emily’s death.

28 July.

No more work till the summer holidays. Have been relegated by the House selection committee to the dud tent at Camp, which amuses me vastly. Apparently those who manage the affairs of the tent prefer Bulwer and Maston to myself; more amusing still. Shall I get elected into the Reading Room next term? Probably not. I think as a matter of fact they want a mobbing tent which they know I would not join in, anyhow I shall be much more comfortable as I am: at any rate that reads better, and sounds so for that matter.