We had a fortnight of deep snow and spent the time in tobogganing, which took me right back to boyhood's days. For that fortnight I was quite easy in my mind and irresponsible again, forgetful of the myriad worries that beset me. We find it very hard to keep going. I get agonies of apprehension just before each post comes in, wondering what manuscripts are going to be returned, hoping against hope that at last something will be accepted. If only I could get a series commissioned, I should be happy. It's a fiendish business thinking out subjects to amuse people, only to be turned down by one editor after another. I spend a small fortune in stamps alone. All the same I ought not to grumble: I make on an average about £100 a year by writing. When editors do pay, they pay handsomely, quite out of proportion to the trouble of writing the one article that finds acceptance. What stupefies me is the enormous drawer full of writings all sent back too often to submit again, or else topical and hence dead. I find that I can't write on the war. I want to be definitely literary or definitely educational. My colleagues dislike my doing the latter, and there is very little market for the former. XVIII _May 4, 1916_ We spent the Easter holidays near a munitions works in Essex and had our first taste of Zeppelins. I was acting in some amateur theatricals to amuse the workers in the factories, and while we were driving home afterwards immediately above us sailed gracefully along the grey cigar-shaped beautiful engine of destruction. The noise of the bursting shells and the bombs she dropped was terrific: but none of the people who live here seemed to worry at all. I was frightened considerably, but there was nothing to be done except go to bed, so we did. I don't care about seeing any more Zeppelins: it would take a considerable time for me to take them all as part of the day's work. I went over the factories and saw the whole business, from danger buildings to the most elementary innocuous part of the concern. It is a colossal undertaking and one that gives a man some slight inkling of the gigantic conflict in which we are engaged. The workers seemed all very cheery and were of all types, from parsons to bricklayers, domestic servants to duchesses.