If I could only cultivate a sense of arrangement. Here am I a strenuous and not altogether unsuccessful teacher of English, and I can't even string paragraphs together properly. That's why I like writing up my diary. I don't have to worry about arrangement. I can just write down things as they occur to me, matters of infinite moment cheek by jowl with ephemeral topics of the hour. I have been reading Montaigne's "Essays" of late and derived considerable comfort therefrom. I always carry a book about in my pocket wherever I go, one of the "World's Classics" for preference: it effectually prevents me from getting peevish if I have to wait for a train or in a shop to be attended to. These holidays I have read very thoroughly John Stuart Mill "On Liberty" and Hobbes's "Leviathan" in this way. Oh for a lucid pen like Mill's or an orderly mind like Hobbes'. Such books are best read quietly and in small quantities at a time. When I read a novel I tear the heart out of it, just as Doctor Johnson did. There are very few novels I can't get through in a day. I usually sit up to finish them if I can't manage it otherwise. My mother says that I can't possibly remember what I read and that it's pure waste of time to read in this way, but I think I generally manage to squeeze the best out of a book in this way. Anyway I was born to hurry: I think it's a vice, but impetuosity and turbulence are two characteristics that I must have been endowed with by my fairy godmother. It is this same idiosyncrasy which prevents me from being a good letter-writer. I write to dozens and dozens of boys and friends like Ruth, but I never express myself adequately, simply because I don't take enough trouble. If genius really means the taking of infinite pains I must be the least of a genius that ever lived, for I only write when it is easy to me, and on subjects that don't require that I should refer to handbooks all the time. On the other hand, Samuel Butler has some comforting light to shed on that topic. _October 5, 1912_ Eight weeks is too long a holiday. One gets out of touch with all things pertaining to discipline and rules. As time goes on one begins to chafe less at what seem ridiculous restrictions; they become part of the day's work, just as I suppose if I were in the Army the red tape of the orderly room would not worry me after a year or two.