2 When I woke in the night I felt nothing but tiredness and regret for having promised to go. Now, I never felt so strong and happy. This is how Mag is feeling. Their kettle is bumping on their spirit lamp too. She loves the sound just in this way, the Sunday morning sound of the kettle with the air full of coming bells and the doors opening--I'm half-dressed, without any effort--and shutting up and down the streets is _perfect_, again, and again; at seven o'clock in the silence, with the air coming in from the Squares smelling like the country is bliss. "You know, little child, you have an extraordinary capacity for happiness." I suppose I have. Well; I can't help it.... I _am_ frantically frantically happy. I'm up here alone, frantically happy. Even Mag has to talk to Jan about the happy things. Then they go, a little. The only thing to do is either to be silent or make cheerful noises. Bellow. If you do that too much people don't like it. You can only keep on making cheerful noises if you are quite alone. Perhaps that is why people in life are always grumbling at 'annoyances' and things; to hide how happy they are ... "there is a dead level of happiness all over the world"--hidden. People go on about things because they are always trying to remember how happy they are. The worse things are the more despairing they get, because they are so happy. You know what I mean. It's there--there's nothing else there.... But some people _know_ more about it than others. Intelligent people. I suppose I am intelligent. I can't _help_ it. I don't want to be different. Yes I do--oh Lord yes I _do_. Mag knows. But she goes in amongst people and the complaints and the fuss and takes sides. But they both come out again; to be by themselves and talk about it all ... they sit down intelligently to life.... They do things that have nothing to do with their circumstances. They were always doing things like this all the year round. Spring and Summer and Autumn and Winter things. They had done, for years. The kind of things that made independent elderly women, widows and spinsters who were free to go about, have that look of intense appreciation ... "a heart at leisure from itself to soothe and sympathise"; no, that type was always inclined to revel in other people's troubles. It was something more than that. Never mind. Come on. Hurry up. _Oh_--for a man, oh for a man _oh_ for a man--_sion_ in the skies.... Wot a big voice I've got, Mother. 3