Oct. 1921. I wonder why it should be so difficult to be humble. I do not think I am a good writer; I realise my faults better than any one else could realise them. I know exactly when I fail. And yet, when I have finished a story and before I have begun another, I catch myself _preening_ my feathers. It is disheartening. There seems to be some bad old pride in my heart; a root of it that puts out a thick shoot on the slightest provocation.... This interferes very much with work. One can’t be calm, clear, good as one must be, while it goes on. I look at the mountains, I try to pray—and I think of something _clever_. It’s a kind of excitement within one which shouldn’t be there. Calm yourself. Clear yourself. And anything that I write in this mood will be no good; it will be full of _sediment_. If I were well, I would go off by myself somewhere and sit under a tree. One must learn, one must practice to _forget_ oneself. I can’t tell the truth about Aunt Anne unless I am free to enter into her life without self-consciousness. Oh, God! I am divided still, I am bad, I fail in my personal life. I lapse into impatience, temper, vanity, and so I fail as thy priest. Perhaps poetry will help. I have just thoroughly cleaned and attended to my fountain pen. If after this it leaks, then it is _no_ gentleman! Nov. 13, 1921. It is time I started a new journal. Come my unseen, my unknown, let us talk together. Yes, for the last two weeks I have written scarcely anything. I have been idle; I have _failed_. Why? Many reasons. There has been a kind of confusion in my consciousness. It has seemed as though there was no time to write. The mornings, if they are sunny, are taken up with sun-treatment; the post eats away the afternoon. And at night I am tired. But it goes deeper. Yes, you are right. I haven’t felt able to yield to the kind of contemplation that is necessary. I haven’t felt pure in heart, not humble, not good. There’s been a stirring up of sediment. I look at the mountains and I see nothing but mountains. Be frank! I read rubbish.... Out of hand? Yes, that describes it. Dissipated, vague, not _positive_, and above all, above everything, not working as I should be working—wasting time. Wasting time! The old cry—the first and last cry. Why do ye tarry? Ah, why indeed? My deepest desire is to be a writer, to have “a body of work” done—and there the work is, there the stories wait for me, _grow tired_, wilt, fade, because I will not come. When first they knock, how eager and fresh they are! And I hear and I _acknowledge_ them, and still I go on sitting at the window, playing with the ball of wool. What is to be done?