I will quote no more: the verse becomes Biblical; and indeed it is of Samson and Delilah. Just what attracts me in a woman revolts me: the 'love strong as death,' which is no more than 'la candeur de l'antique animal,' raised to the power of self-expression. It bewilders, distracts yes, terrifies me. That women are better and worse than we think them, I am certain; and no doubt nature was wise in setting us on our knees before the enigma. To be so mysterious and so contemptible! Merely for us to think that, shuts us away from them, our possible friends, as by a great wall, outside which there can be only enemies. We capitulate, perhaps, but it is the enemy who has conquered. * * * * * April 9.--I have been working hard, going nowhere, and I suppose staying indoors too much. I begin to be restless again. The Kahns have written asking me to dine with them on Sunday: will that woman be there? Hans Greger is coming with his old music, and I should like to hear the viols and harpsichord again. I think I must go. Meanwhile some rumours of war which I read on the newspaper placards have set me puzzling over one of my favourite enigmas. Is it not incredible that there should be people in the world who will kill one another, and even themselves, for any one of a multitude of foolish reasons? As if life was not short enough at the longest, and one's bodily pains troublesome enough without even the added risk of accidents; and yet we must do our best to aid the enemy of us all; we must make ourselves lieutenants of death; and for what? The thing begins in our fantasies of honour, precedence, patriotism, or by whatever name, big or small, we choose to christen the tiny germ of unreason. War reduces to an absurdity, with its pompous mortal emphasis, the whole argument. I have been thinking out a theory of this disease of humanity, to which scientific people should have given a name. It might be studied, in cellars, as they study bacilli. * * * * * April 10.--To-day has been one of those days in which London becomes intolerable. The dust-carts in the street, the reek of chop-houses, the unwashed bodies in frowsy clothes, stink on the air, and the air is too heavy to drain off this odious foulness, and one breathes it, and seems to sicken. I am sure some loathsome gas is rising up out of the canal under my windows; my head turns if I lean out and look over; and now it is between two lights, almost too dark to see by daylight and not dark enough to draw the curtains and turn on the electric light. It is the time of day that I hate most; it is the only time of the day when I actively want to be doing something, and when I am acutely miserable because I have nothing to do.