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[bound book cover]
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[Marbled endpaper inside front cover; with Partidge & Cooper Printers-Stationers Account Book bookplate]
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[Marbled flyleaf]
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[E.C.]
Address of Surveyor
Mr. Frank Folly,
66, Leadenhall Street
London E.C.
Of Louie’s Sollies[?] Lawyer
Messrs H.P. Cobb & Sons
53 Lincoln’s Inn Fields
London W.C.
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[E.C.]
Feasts of S. Michael1
May 8th Apparitio S. Michaelis
Sept 29th dedicatio in Monte
Gargano
Oct. 16th Dedicatio S. Michaelis in
Monte Tumba
________________________________
Address of Dr. Will Sturge’s
Doctor:
Dr⟨George⟩ Pernet
77, Upper Gloucester Place,
Baker Street
N.W.
Telephone
2763 Paddington
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[K.B.]
“I said, I will water my best garden,
& will water abundantly my
garden-bed: & lo, my brook became
a river, dry river became a sea.”
Ecclesiasticus XXIV. 31
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[K.B.]
“Let not him that seeketh cease from his
search until he find, & when he finds he
shall wonder; wondering he shall reach
the Kingdom, and when he reaches the
Kingdom he shall have rest.”
“All Heart they live, all Head, all Eye, all Ears,
All Intellect, all Sense, & as they please,
they Limb themselves.”
Milton’s Paradise Lost bk (in reprint] VI
lls 350
“Che necessario è navigare,
Vivere non è necessario”
Gabrielle d’Annunzio
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[blank]
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[K.B.]
1904
New Year’s Day.
I look forth at midnight to grimmest
fog, fog that is as a garment to the
bitter wind.
A moon in the heavens, bells & cannon
on the air. Then a human cheer
across the waters 1904 is with us –
for our fashioning
More and more I feel this, we are
weavers of the stuff of time
Henry2 says there was lack of
spirituality in us last year. I
remind him the Holy Ghost has his
seasons, winter & spring & summer.
We have been with God, creating.
We need clemency & breadth –
acknowledgement of no boundary.
Strange! - Henry, not having read
this, saw far-open horizons.
He smelt pine & carnation; that is
what is comfortable in the
descent from the opened heavens.
It is terrible to begin with raw time
again, just when one was at
work on a nice bit of mellow stuff.
I feel that my business this year will
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[K.B.]
be loving - I have scarcely touched the
power of loving within me. I mean
that plastic loving that is influence.
Little Amy 3 writes that her motto for
this year is – “Let us beware lest we
act as he did in the fable, who stood
watch in the lighthouse, & gave to the
poor in the cabins about him the oil
of the night’s lanterns that served
to illumine the sea. Every soul in
its sphere has charge of a lighthouse
for which there is more or less need”
Failures & sins of 1903
No influence from art, none from
literature, except the re-reading of
Rénan & the power from Aristophanes
Glimpses from Nature we had,
Heaven bless her!
I will try to read a little this year –
one or two big-lettered books.
But there will be little leisure –
accomplishing, reaping, singing; but
only as we bind the grain – this is
revealed our destiny.
There is an Imagination to feed
dearer than my own, & a soul to
cherish in her cell.
I want to write of Diana of Poictiers4,
& of the French Renaissance.
I want my Beloved to write Caesar’s
tower all by herself.
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[E.C.]

I have set our affairs in order,
while the Eastern frost has
been dissolving into southern
fog. My Love has brought me
tender anemones, & three
lily-buds as green & crisp as
New Year itself.
[K.B.]
January 5th
My Chow5 is ill with gastritis – I suffer
with him. Francis6 is here, so we are
with the Past.
Ernest7 writes to ask us if we will
suffer ourselves to be “re-maindered”
they are removing to premises.
I write to him.
“It makes one’s skin very hot to think
of being “remaindered”. It is one of
those uncomfortable processes,
like what goes on in the grave.
But we in our free spirits are
apart from both these processes,
– so what matter!
So “remainder” freely.
“Tommy”8 who left us without good-bye
& sent us no cake[?] – writes to
excuse himself. He has been
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[K.B.]
lost in the ceremonial of marriage, &
then his mother’s death came on him –
I reply
– Of course we rolled you over the
abyss as a lost friend on New Year’s
Eve. And therefrom[?] you have to toil,
with Marie to help up too! I shouldn’t
wonder, if she helped you up: we shall
see …
We in England have been spending the
time like Masters. Doubtless you will
see the artists’ new pictures, & Ricketts’s
great deposition ....
January 6th
Epiphany – the gracious Star Feast.
– the intellectual recognition of Christ
Wise & with Wisdom wise these
that recognise him, & knew it is
worth while travelling far to
worship him.
Little Francis John before his bubbly[?]
bowl of milk. “Mother, is this
bubble a kiss from Auntie Ethel,
or from God.”
the Mother, I fear, did not
answer “Straight from God.”
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[K.B.]
It is on this blessed feast of the
Epiphany a new play is given to
Henry – a play of Redemption –
Henry must write
But I am with the Savage, blood-
-dripping old grandfather Herod,9 with
his lust for love. He must have
love – Mariamne’s10 love – his children’s
love. He has a burning lust for
love – the love of his wife, his offspring
– his people. He has not the instincts[?]
of his ambition – none. He would like
even to be loved of God, & in profanity he
dedicates the temple. He murders
love wherever it might spring up.
He is a man who seeks tears as
other men seek gold. He would
leave lamentation behind[?], &
regret as a heritage. He would
transfer emotion – the great office
of art – but he is not an artist.
He works in a medium of which
he has not the secret.
Mariamne is to him beauty & desire –
her refusal to love him transcends in
wonder – And that his children
should not love him & that the worms
alone should love him & cleave to
him!
He is not despicable. He has sought
for the best thing life can give.
He seeks to attract & to possess, not
as a God.
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[K.B.]
I saw in the night a scene with
his children. the body of Mariamne
in a sarcophagus in a dim corner
of the room. His Sons still children
have stolen in.
- they approach, but cannot look in.
Do not let us talk of it.
No: we shall remember better if we
do not speak.
It is something they must learn
in silence. But is it our Mother? –
O Aristobulus11 – I do not care. I shall
be a great soldier – let us play now
at taking – Vienna[?].
(they sit down & play at taking
a city)
Herod enters: he stands for a long time
by the coffin.

To-day I will arouse thy sullenness.
that hate in the metres of a woman’s face –
that frenzies – No:
No, Mariamne – deal more patiently,
as I shall weary of this solemn face –
And beauty that is absent as the sky.
Well, children at your play –
(they rise & leave the toys on the
ground. Well, children, children!
Come back! …
Why were you playing in this room.
Who gave you leave – What scares you -
(the children stand trembling
violently before him)
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[K.B.]
Herod convulsively clutches them, & holds
them down one on each side.
– You love her
You shall always love her.
Listen, you know she is a goddess now
Your Mother – She –
But we must be afraid of her, she is not
Close by you on the earth, as I am close –
She cannot understand. But you – my children.
I love you in your play – I would not break it –
This⟨a⟩ city you besiege it.
One of the boys nods: with trembling
hands Herod sets up some of the pieces.
I will play with you. No – do not watch
me. I will play with you. You must
talk, & teach me how to play.
(He sobs as the children remain
stubborn)
What would you like to do?
(They shake their heads]
Not a story – not of – he gives lists of the
Great moments of his life.
You will become great as I am
great. I can teach you that
Will you not listen? When I was in
Rome –
Aristobulus
Father, we wll. go to Rome –
Lead us away to Rome. (they spring away, frightened
Herod – at themselves.]
To Rome – he remains staring[?], at the thought –
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[K.B.]
the younger one turns back, &
kisses his hand.
– May we go father, may we go – We
shall come back.
Friday January 8th – the Palace12
Painter13 is sitting over the fire –
a little bilious. We close into deep
talk, & cannot go on to the Manor –
From 3 to 5.35 we converse.
Painter, believing it is the last
night of the old year, starts for
the theatre on January 30th.
Deep horror freezes his vitals as
he recollects he has not ⟨re-⟩lit the
stoves; & that he will return to
a palace of dead ashes!!!
He prophecies a year of transition –
inevitable transition
“Herod, I have brought you his
history. Consider whether Cleopatra
may come in – not of course Shakespeare’s
Cleopatra – the sweetly[?] disastrous
little wretch of reality.”
John Gray14 has sent another little
blue book. He has called at the Palace.
Ricketts was out, & Shannon15 “denied
himself”.
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[K.B.]
Designs of the gigantic Sabbatai ring are
shown. There will be many windows –
“Will there be any doors” – & this childish
talk between consideration of Cleopatra –
– reaches into art & drama.
The Painter is formed Architect &
Sculptor. vide[?] – his ground-plan of the
ring.
“I am right – he never forgives. A
plant that has been cut, may
shoot out in other directions – not
where its life is destroyed”.
He has done a most exquisite thing –
laid the softest coloured shells in
a bowl of dried rose-leaves.
1st Sunday after Epiphany.
Anyone can see that the rose in the
sky is of the spring – the gale brings
Herod, & the first stage direction to Henry –
– he forms in the round; he is no longer
a fresco.
I write
Shells musical as Eolus had stirred,
Shells moulded finely as the waters mould,
In bloom of ivory breathing through her gold,
Or white of foamy curd
I gave; & found preferred
to a great bowl of rose-leaves where they lie
In open burial crystal to the sky.
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[K.B.]
II
A shell! – It is a lovely testament,
A bequeathed relic, & a treasure wove
Breath upon breath; it holds each element
As in an urn; shall it not speak of love?
Heralds there are of Love, the dusky flock
Of sparrows, or the doves in snowy brood
that steer her chariot through the tempest’s shock,
Or bees, a honey-heaving multitude:
Heralds there are & tokens of our state,
And there are symbols set among the stars
Of Man, his destiny, his chainèd Fate,
the way that opens & the way that bars:
And in between passing from hand to hand,
there is the jewel and the signet-rose,
– Censor, or brand of warm & piny[?] smell;
I, in my mysteries pluck none of those;
But trust for all my spirit would command
the silence & the perfume of a shell.
Sunday – January 10th.
[E.C.]
Delicious American remark on
''Let this be a lesson.'' - ''Nothing
is a lesson, for you always break
out in a new place.''
(16A punctilious old man of Dundee
Who taught little owls to drink tea,
For he said to eat mice
Is not proper nor nice –
That punctilious old man of Dundee.
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[E.C.]
Jan. 12
I approach my birthday (Tues.) with
toothache that for an hour or so
every evening is like Othello’s
sword of ‘ice-brook temper’. The
pain comes out a little distance
into the air, & is a power that
resists touch.
The day before I write the first
scene (end) of Herod. We over-
-work it on my birthday morning.
Amy comes from the old Manor,
charmed with the new matting
& the white rooms in their
bounty of flowers. Re-ceived[?]
lilies, many-budded roses,
a pouting[?] garland for the
white bowl of anemones & their
curls of leafage – young lilas[?] –
all these are from my Love. Amy
brings bubbles of milky ⟨vale-⟩lilies,
& tulips in rathe scarlet. And
the light from the river falls
on the delicate creatures rec[?]
receptively.
My gift from Michael is Placidia
– the satinwood chest that
enwombs Works & Days. Her noble
extra Detmold’s Macchiavelli comes
not. Amy sweetly & unwillingly[?]
gives a cheque toward an old
Eastern rug.
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[E.C.]
Thurs⟨Wednes ⟩day. Jan. 14 th
Michael is in Sloane St.
at 4 – the bee-hit!
I am conscious with pain –
strained in looks – I see he
hesitates to stay. But I
re-assure him that the
actual pain is at night.
I am much vexed he has
hurried to return the vol. of
Graetz17 just on the day Michael
had not offered for a visit –
He explains Thursday & Friday
are engaged – so he trotted
over the first possible day
& never thought of absence
as possible.
He is sombre, unreflexing as
Mist, & makes a dead-set against
Herod,18 whom he conceives as
simply a figure of Eastern
yearning – the desire that
has no ideality. When Caesar
dreams ambitiously it is
to found a world – an order,
a new order. There is ideality,
which is creativeness in him –
in Alexander. But the ambition
of the East is a hunger. It
is like the yearning of the North
for the South – it wants the
limitless stupidly. Only round[?]
the Mediterranean is ambition.
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[E.C.]
a mode of creation. Fay 19 can-be20
interested in nothing that has not
been ‘Mediterranianised’
He is not even caught by the
Arab strain in Herod. The Arabs
are only thin Jews – they merely
lack the fatness of soil of Judæa
The Jews have only given ⟨The world⟩ a
moral code admirable for
barbarians & the lower classes –
the Arabs have added to
Manners on their ⟨a⟩ more superficial
side. They have a calm, a grandeur –
something nobly caressing in
their ways.
The Jews are effective, & therefore
an Artist must admire them;
but they have been a curse
on civilisation blighting it
two fold – by the family & by
their moral code.
In Greece men were reared to be
citizens – the family was but
the means. Life meant the
spiritual conflict of the males.
Wherever Jewish influence has
been preponderant – civilised
life declines – as when the Puritans
ruined the civilisation of England
till a Latin influence ( that[?] of
France) partially restored it.
Morality is a matter of pure
convenience – what is best to do to
get the best results (as gardening
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[E.C.]
is the art of getting the best
flowers) – this the Greek took
for granted; but the Jew
came & made morality
absolute – a Code not an
Art, & this is the Semitic
Curse.
Christ was not by mind a
Jew. His delicate scepticism
was utterly different from
anything found among the
Jews – his ways of behaviour
were opposed to Jewish
morality. The influence
of Christianity has been
Pauline & therefore Jewish
It is only as it were aside &
mostly in free-thinking times
that the direct influence of
Jesus can be traced.
Yet when all is said against the Jews
Fay finds them almost the only
people to talk to in England –
They have two virtues – they are
always foreigners & they have
a tradition behind them. One
always knows what to deal
with – there are order & cleanness
in them … not that incalculable
confused element found in
semi-barbarous people like the
English, who have no permanent
tradition as a nation – only in certain
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[E.C.]
families & castes.
Fay does not find wishes to rub in
the unessentialness of the Jews
– he thinks it is necessary for us,
considering Michael’s old-fashioned
education in the Psalms – “O God,
give me a good dinner” – “O God,
give me health.” &c
He does not find the Knudos[?] in Herod.

She should be treated as the
Virgin Mary in history – she who
felt that the deliverance of England
was from her & of her child.
Only by her means could God’s
Kingdom be established & a
light shine on her people. She
dreams the child – she takes
as husband the perfection ⟨paragon⟩ of
Catholic tradition – The King of
Spain that the child may be
born – then the seven swords
enter her heart. As she decreases
the gay princess Elizabeth, the
symbol of all the irreligion
Mary would stifle, increase, &
throws[?] gleams over the doom[?]
that measure its profundity. As
women, Fay thinks, we should be able
to treat the frustrate religion & maternity
of the woman.
See 1722
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[K.B.]
January 19 th.
Tuesday evening.
The long month so fat with
business & pettiness – mere wash
of refuse to the billows of Herod
– rolls along.
We are firm in Herod now
– the dead eyes are kindling[?] – Cypros 23,
I have seen Herod with his arm
round Aristobulus26, caressing
him.
Lady Anne Blunt’s 27 “Poets of the
Iignorance” comes to us a sheaf from
Arabian store-houses.
We feel the white teeth of the camomile28 –
–we love, & grow weary of love,
& ride to war, & boast, & grow
weary with age.
This Arabian poetry, with Josephus29,
will, I think, stand “back of Herod”,
as Renan and Aristophanes30 stood back
of “A Messiah.”
We are living divinely great days.
Henry is in a cloud.
I increase in vision – vision too of all
that leaps in the heart.
Imaginative speech is however growing
difficult to me.
A beautiful directoire gown is completed.
It is paid for &, perfect: in that direction – peace.
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[E.C.]
On Friday
I continue Fay’s visit –
He came up, fussed as to wh: room
we should sit in – was commanded
into the sitti Sun-Room, & then he told
how Rodin31 heard that Shannon32
admired the torso of his St. John
Baptist (as a study) shown at the
International & offered it through
a third person in exchange for
a picture by Shannon.
It was as if Francis Joseph the
oldest Royal Person in Europe,
of the oldest race, had offered
an ⟨order⟩old (“The Golden Fleece”?)
to Shannon. It was like the
Renaissance. Rodin is the
oldest monarch of art among
the most artistic people of Europe.
The Shannon pictures are the
artistic triumph of the exhibition –
The Deuil Marin of Cottet33 is the
social triumph & the Spaniard
Zulodga34 the popular triumph.
Fay catches sight of The Century35
with pictures of Mrs Gardener’s36
Palace of Art & some of its treasures.
He sends congratulations to Bernard37
that he bought the Holbein [⟨Dürer⟩] & knew
it as Holbein ⟨Dürer⟩. If the face had been
unstippled it wd have been the 3rd or
4th in importance – even as it is it is
about 7th. Fay has always called the
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[E.C.]
picture his Holbein⟨Dürer⟩ – because when
shown at the Old Masters no
one had the penetration or courage
to support him in his certainty
it was a Holbein⟨Dürer⟩.
Tho’ announced, the book on
Raphael38 will not be written ..
It wd provoke the hostility of
all camps – for Guilio Romano39
decreases & Raphael increases –
& most of what Morelli40 said
is unsaid or would be.
I ask him to dine with us
next Tuesday, & he departs, leaving
me weary, & sore vexed to hear
Michael’s ring a moment
or two later.
Friday Jan. 16th
To town in sunned[?] coldness –
at the Carfex[?]41 we look round
at the Blakes, having been
made to pay toll of it for
a Catalogue. Bobbie Ross42 soon
comes to us & presses to return
the toll. He is humorous as
a dog is good-tempered – on a
natural & noble scale.
He shows us the admired of
Shannon “Bathsheba at the
Bath” – “The Bard from Gray43” – that
is what a Ricketts will become
when he is mad – & The Deluge
where the sea is of[?]might[?]to[?]
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[E.C.]
cover a Universe with its ridged
field of waters. There is an
Entombment – very simple, with
a light before the black veils of
the mourners – there is an
Ascension, where the springing
form, with aerial colour in it,
is seen from the back. Ross thinks
this figure unconsciously suggested
Fay’s44 back-treatment of the
Crucifix in Oscar’s45Sphinx46.
Upstairs is the gem – as of course
the perfect witness[?] of all.
Judging Fay has pronounced
on it – The River of Life47, Cap. Butts’48
lovely water-colour. What deliciousness
to swim through meadow-
lands on that stream – in flight
with its flying crystal – with
flutists piping your sylvan
salvation, & the air a
tapestry of the fruit of life!
And such a light in the sky –
yellow as sun setting, before it is
sundown, & while there is not
any sadness in it.
For the rest Blake had a repugnant
effect on the eyes that had not seen
him for many years, & among
the hideousness of nightmare
it seemed quite sane to hear
Bobby giving an account of all the
mad murderers at Broadmore49.
Terriss’s murderer seemed to think
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[E.C.]
we⟨he⟩ had been just a little hasty –
& a man who had cut the throats
of his wife & many children had
made a stained glass window
for the chapel on the subject
‘suffer the little children
to come unto me & forbid them not’.
Fay has refused, like me, to
believe – but Bobby swears as
if he were in chapel. The governor
had never seen anything re-
markable in the window.
Bobby is to come to us on
Septuagesima Sunday & he
actually has wit to see the
humour that lurks in such
an intention!
The Dentist chops to my nerve –
but promises no-more ice-brook
pangs.
Off to the International. All Shannon’s
pictures look more beautiful
than in the studio – They & the
beauteous Symphony in White50, with
together with the Valparaiso51, of
Whistler52 are the things of beauty
there. Fay’s profound Entombmen
Burial is high – he angerly
calls it Skied – It is too high, & a
vile study by a young woman
of a white mousy young woman
chalks the eye sight ascending
gravely. The Committee should
be taken out & shot for such
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[E.C.]
an insult. Shannon has spoken
his mind to the Scotchmen of
The Butter-Scotch Club53, as he
sardonically calls it.
We came on Shannon wandering –
with his lonely[?] gait, his drawn
cheek. He takes us to the
pictures & he talks with
reanimating eyes.
Suddenly – “There is the Monster”
& Fay sidles[?] from the pictures
in a white ill-mood. He
has written he cannot come
on Tuesday & has proposed
Wednesday. The Rodin-Shannon
exchange has been bungled
& turned to exasperating
issues by the influence of
‘so many others’ –––– We see
the torso54; it is lean & vigorous
as archaic Greek work.
Fay takes Michael to his likes &
his dear dislikes – storming
wavily on the Rodin subject –
Latin rage deep in his eyes.
Shannon & I talk the Palace
Pictures – a theme I am not
laggard at. We soothe – we
are nicely dressed – [?] Michael
delicious in the Directoire Hat –
& the occasion prospers. They
have to leave us for a business interview
at the Carfax[?].
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[E.C.]
Friday, Saturday – Sunday – I go out.
I fill my being with air, &
the cold glory of the North
aspect of the wind.
Then Monday – all melted
putrifaction of the Spring.
But such great days with
Herod & Mariamne – our
Arab & Jewess. Our imaginations
have to toil like Explorers –
& we are exhausted to
stupification stone at night
with the effort.
Tuesday - Jan 19 th
By chance I open The Times to
see – & my heart rushes on
the track of my eyes – that
Arthur Strong55 is dead.
Relief for Bernhard56 is my immediate
feeling – the cruel enemy, who
had boasted he would utterly
crush him in England – gone into
the forbidding absolute of
silence! Then I rush to
Michael, & we feel together the
curious pain, as at the loss
of a thing of value, that we
always knew we should feel
when the unknown Strong passed.
Would we could have met
him once! Frailty – scholarship (For
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[E.C.]
wh: women always have a yearning
devoutness) – a humanism, an
inhuman tongue – a face like
Erasmus’57 – he had lure … &
therefore doom is realised
in his having died.
Alice Trusted writes –
“There is always some scarce spectacle in
the valley that fills me with awe
like aerial things are wont to do.
On the 11th it was a rainbow that
shifted from the sky & hung on the
golden elms, for the cluster was
still arrayed with foliage above the
convent. The colours strengthened,
waned & brightened. Picture those[?]
prismatic hues alighting &
tangling[?] several moments on
gold. As the rainbow faded
a gentle shower fell. Not any
wind was stirring through the
valley & the rain drops, clearer
than pearls lingered on the fringe
of these golden leaves in the falling.”
Pater58 would have god–fathered
this catching or seizure of a
moment.
Mary59 writes of a woman’s lunch
at Boston, & how a lady, who is
writing an article upon pictures of
Circe ( she cd not imagine herself one
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[E.C.]
as she resembled an animated rag-bag)
wanted to embrace Mary’s knees
when she heard she knew
Duse60 –– she said she had done
it to a lady who had been in
Samoa with Stevenson61.
She continues – [?]
“William Yeats gave a rather silly
but nice lecture – in manner &
looks he is a cross between
Trevy[?] & Roger62 . . . after the
reception the ‘Circe’ lady brought
up her daughter for Mr Yeats
to kiss on the forehead, so that the
girl could remember all her
life she had been kissed by
a poet – He seemed pleased
though, & he told me he was
making more money than he
had ever made before in his
life. He is going to California
& has 20 more lectures to
give.”
Didn’t we find he liked the wreath!
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[E.C.]
Wednesday Jan. 20th
The Artists came out of the fog to dine - again
not beautiful as diners should
be – but they plead the frightful
weather, and indeed the star Earth
is getting a terrible place to
live in.
Michael wears her black striped silk
Directoire with fischu of ivory net
darned with green and bowed with
green velvet – a scarf of black
crêpe with underfrills[?] of green.
I bear the Manchu necklace
of on my old gold blouse.
Menu
Orleans Soup –
Cod à la crème [?]
Hare (roasted)
Plum pudding & zabajone
Canapés de S. Iral[?]
White Port & old dry Lisbon.
The dinner is, our guests say, “beautiful” –
we have good stories to tell from
America – but . . . there is Fay’s
hard prejudice against Herod & the
Arabs, & there is the dark abysm
of Strong’s death – these to us
spoil the evening. Manlike, Fay
skims the gulf elaborately – yet
once or twice I catch on him
that curious, consternating beauty
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[E.C.]
that seems to burgeon with the
thought of death.
The subtle heightening that
love gives to the appearance
of an animal – so that
its hair is more toyful,
its colour more pricking
to the sense, & in its motions
it lingers & yet is pregnant with
charm sparkle – this subtlety[?]
of effect the thought of death
evokes in Fay & makes him
lovely under it.
The only really good story he
tells is of Bobby Ross at
Edinburgh – during a literary
gathering that discussed Shakespeare’s
Sonnets. An elder of the Kirk
deplored the deep blot on what
would have been a blameless
reputation "But perhaps after
all Shakespeare meant no
harm" said Bobby weakly –
& it happened that just at that
moment the cock crow three
times.
The idea that Cockerell had leant⟨lent⟩
us Lady Anne Blunt’s Arabic
poetry seemed to chafe Fay – and
even Shannon turned abusive . .
Fay called our strip of old Persian
rug “Cockerellian” to punish us
– & then a cloud came round
the god, chilly and mumping[?]
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[E.C.]
– yet at moments ⟨whiles⟩ vaporous
as if about an altar. So
he went, with cold fingers –
mortally cold adieux.
[K.B.]
the day after the artists have dined
with us, I write to Painter.
–
You are painting to-day, – you
are as a bee at her honey. I can
speak to you.
You can listen to one or two of my
songs about shells – & a sonnet, &
another. I have chosen, but who knows
how wisely, for the poet cannot choose,
or distinguish one song from another.
Comfort yourself with anything you
like in these dateless fragments, &
forget the rest.
We are happy this morning in a
big moth-brown Josephus. We have
just read how Cleopatra entreated
Herod ⟨Antony⟩ to give her Judea & Arabia.
These were the ages when one could
play with life, & toss the nations about
in the hollow of one's hand.
It is foolish, Painter, not to enter into
my joy in these great Jews & heathens.
Let this sentence convert you.
"Then were their glorious vessels
carried into captivity.
– there is a verse to move you!
Michael
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[K.B.]
The poems I send are –
Camellias – Onycha II. "Heralds there
are of love, the dusky flock.’’ “For Ever” &
the lovely shepherd
Friday. Bitter fog.
I write
Better it were that ball on finest wires
Frail Jenny Wren63 should perish of the cold
In the thick rime afar from winter fires,
Far from the crumbs that in my hands I hold,
Far better than the murder I have done,
Letting thee see the verse that I have writ,
Too deft, too delicate the couplets run,
Subtle in fancy, tender but in wit. –
Thou wilt not freeze them, that is not my fear –
Terror will strike them dead against the breast,
and very wintry[?] thou wilt make their bier,
And the bare ground, instead of woven nest.
O Sorrow that a woman must not speak
Save in pure symbol from the lip, the cheek.
It is Saturday Jan 23rd – More bitter
fog.
I strive by candle & by tallow-fog
light to read an Arabian ode, & a
chapter of Josephus.
It is awful to think of a studio
in the light of tallow fog also.
We cannot pass in or out.
Strong is in his grave, the whole
world is a grave above his grave –
We are shut up: on the line there are accidents –
"Bellina"64 is a widow now.
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[K.B.]
I write
I have left thee. Was our parting at the grave?
So wide it seems, nothing there is that dooms
And no impediment; I am seeking thee,
As from the river-head one seeks the sea,
Ever thou art, ever affronting me,
And the moon blooms.
Apple-Sunday – Jan 24th
Our Milton is very wonderful this morning
– Adam's appeal to his Creator for a
fellow – Heaven's sly response – the male
understanding – the perfect union of
the angels.
I come to Herod's story – to the great
chapter of the apple & the knife – I have
read this before – now I write it.
Heaven be praised. What precious stones
have been set in this baleful January!
In the afternoon – it is again the South
wind that does it – Henry's brain opens
its windows, & the Scenario.
Joseph. Mariamne – the Sous-Antipater
of the play is built up.
the fog is gone; there is no sunlight –
but we have been greatly visited, greatly
blest.
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[E.C.]
Tues Jan. 26th
We go on damp ground to town
– only for shopping & a dental
appointment. We see Whittaker
Wright65 has been condemned
to 7 years penal servitude. There
is a rush along of news boys –
He is dead.
The charm of the Man was
the velocity of the immense
stream of his idael idealism.
It drew into its own current.
The scale of it lured reason
itself – reason that Tommy66
declares in his own Paper on
Proportion (Monthly Review of the
Month) to be the antagonist of all
known forces other than itself &
therefore its most essential character
is the hope & desire to control &
transform the Universe?
Whittaker Wright perfected this
his Universe and consented to
let it exist on the condition
of dreaming it in millions.
Nothing lures & touches men so
much as a great scale.
A man in the Court is reported
to have murmured "He's had
thousands mine, but, upon my soul,
I could cry to see such an ending to
such a career.”
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[E.C.]
During ⟨the last day of the⟩the trial he was doomed
or had doomed himself to death.
“It was as if the inner soul of
the man was living more rapidly
than the body could follow”.
After he was dead, six bare-headed
officials bore the Convict’s
coffin, & a little knot of men removed
their hats & helmets – he had
become the representative of
Death’s Empire.
Tommy’s Idea of Proportion is
full of fresh things said with
many pebbles in the mouth.
He has hit on my parallel
between artist & saint. He
puts it excellently – “both are
convinced, neither understands.”
Tommy also thinks the thoughts
of Bernhard67 that Art can
give Peace when the imagination
has trained reason to see a
friend in her enemy – the physical
order, & “we spell out from that
wh: Nature presents to us, the
desired word, the congenial” – as
Göthe68 says.
That incarnate dream from Egypt, I
have cut out, finds something
“congenial” in the Korean Post-
Master. I am grateful that Nature
made him.
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[print matter]
Finely carved youthful figure of Khonsu: believed to be a portrait of Hor’m’heb, Eighteenth Dynasty. From the Temple of Khonsu.
Min Sang Ho, the postmaster-general of Korea, is a native who has been educated in America.
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[E.C.]
Now I must return to Monday
January 25th
[K.B.]
Sabbatai – the ring-day
Painters69 comes from ice of a tram-top[?] –
we talk quietly over the fire in the gold
-room till he thaws. He puts aside
the Lettere da Siena . . for a little while –
afterwards: “there are 2 of the poems
I greatly like . . . one might have been
in the Shakespeare Sonnets, & it
appears to me rather taller than some
of his . . . He suggests designing for
me a little writing-table[?].
Tea – then it is announced the
ring in its first modelling is here –
It is a gigantic ring, as Painter says
one of the largest rings in the world.
We lay it on his Baudelaire 70,71 with the
pendant: he gazes at his work. They
are 2 very beautiful objects.
He is persuaded to stay to dinner
& the time goes smoothly &
naturally.
If I were a poet he has said
to me, I should treat of disillusion.
Chopin72 is full of a glittering irony.
Even in painting he wd like to give
something of disillusion. But his
great desire in painting is to
express compassion.
Henry reads to him several of
my Sonnets, while I am in a
cloud of cigarette-smoking, puffing
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[K.B.]
out my his atmosphere at⟨by⟩ the
balcony-window. I am well
started now on this path of
abstract passion I have chosen –
the air is rather fine & trembling[?]
& I suffer, & can report[?] nothing
of what is going on around me.
[E.C.]
Alice Trusted writes deliciously of St. Mawgan[?]
“There has been rime in the valley
for a few days; the gentlest breeze
would have shattered the en-
-chantment & not a breath stirred.
Picture Castle Dinas[?] with an even
mantle of hoar frost & the land-
-scape, soft, sunny & soothing: a
flaxen light falling upon the
waves of the little Path.”
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[E.C.]
My version of Jan. 25 – Monday.
When I come into tea Fay73 is thawing
– he has promised, I hear, to be
very nice when he has thawed.
On the side-table are the Sonnets
in their Italian cover. Fay is
recalcitrant over mustard & cress
– in a sandwich the second bite
of them is corrupt on[?] the taste –
but when he finds them embalmed
in the new Gentleman’s Relish74 –
the bellamy[?]-like hand of
the Fay catches at several.
During tea we hear more of Bobby
Ross75 – & receive charges for the
occasion of his visit. We are con-
vinced that Bobby is being so
elaborately sent in order to
savour our “legend”, & then to
spread its charming meshes –
dyed in the rays of Fay’s glory.
Bobby has the fabulous lips,
touched with the light of humour,
that can assure a tradition.
While I am lighting the Sun-
Room (it is on the verge of a
flood of white-washing, & only
contains some fresh-cold
tulips that wave cleanly) Fay
suggests that he will design a table
(if possible) to stand under the
picture & support the pale flower
that is of ritual beneath it.
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[E.C.]
When Michael & he reach the
Sun-Room, now divided between
the open twilight & the straggling[?]
candle-light Fay proposes that
the Sonnets be read aloud.
Something this side of the
perfectly abstract makes him
say “Let your Fellow Read” – &
I put on the whole armour of
the Abstract, securing every
buckle, & read OchynOnycha,
wh: he had thought was not
quite uni[?] where it passed from
the flower to the shell. My voice converts
him.
I concluded
“And of the busy brain left desolate”
– without parting. Michael has
been standing in blackness
against the twilit window, &
her cigarette was is vaporous
for her screen.
Then I read Cammellias – but
this is even too long.
Finally I read, by the mantel-shelf
The Shepherd of the Wild. He greatly
praises the great exposition of
the first line – a master’s way
of beginning; but he objects to
“O Love, O mystery” as weak in effect
I complain “if we are to have
no statements & no interjections,
what are we to have?” He only
likes interjections when they are
purely instructive & have no trace
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[E.C.]
of formalism or of the literary.
Verlaine’s are perhaps the most
perfect. “O toi “Qu’as tu fait, o toi
que voilà,
De ta jeunesse?”
There is nothing considered about
them.
All this time we have been cold
as moonbeams – he has been
as inquisitive as a moonbeam
into the art of these love-poems.
Yet all through the evening there
is that⟨such⟩ jewelled satisfaction
about his aspect that⟨as⟩ makes
the laurestine resemble the
holy myrtle itself, in a very wide
sense.
Suddenly we learn the Sabbatai Ring
is come in its first state – or is brought
out, with its doors, & spotted
dome, its butresses & its windows,
through wh: a loose emerald
flashes with ranging green, &
the tinkle of it is heard like a
God inside. What fancy assails
& prompts one in this strange
inward life of sound & flash[?]
from their prison! It is a wicked
way if making beauty court on
the sly, when she has conquered
by frank design & ornament. Yet
the courting beauty, though
transparently wicked, is utterly
delightful – & Fay’s joy in it is
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[E.C.]
as a wit[?]’s joy in the rustling
laughter he evokes.
The ring Fay would like to be
ready for Sunday76, & indeed there
is in it an inherent legendary
element to be wished for
Bobby’s attention. It sits
on Michael’s finger like a
blue falcon, soft & indifferent
to any suffering. It does not
care for the blasphemers – it
sits invested in dignity.
Indeed as it lies on Baudelaire77
with the pendant I cannot
wonder that their author finds
them most beautiful.
Fay has been feeling his life shrunk[?] –
he must read Shakespeare.
We speak of Troilus & Cressida
– he writhes with excess of pleasure
in it. Then we press him to stay
& dine, winning his acceptance
when we promise a telegram to
Shannon78 & a nice dinner,
though the cook is out.
During its course we mostly talk
of Mary79 & Berenson80 who are now
at Chicago, visiting pork-kings &
steel-kings –! some with houses
that suggest an orgy – some with
Japanese servants who lecture at
the University on social science
& philology on their evenings out. One
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[E.C.]
Magnate of the Meat-market disbelieves
in war between Russia & Japan81
just because the orders are not
such as accompany the extreme
course[?].
The Fairyman takes daintily[?] & with
content his soup, roast lamb,
junket & damson tart.
Then upstairs over coffee great
talk begins – only to be broken
by arrival of model blouses,
that must be seen & immediately
returned by the bearer. One[?], in
ivory net & black velvet, is
confirmed to me, with a few
sharp-edged⟨eyed⟩ improvements of
a value scarcely believable.
Outside the messenger steals my
money & departs with it.
Then we talk of delusion. It is to
him the poetry of What remains
– of the pot-pourri, of the light
after sunset, of love when
passion is gone, often of religion.
⟨It is what remains of precious in the ashes.⟩
He would love to give it in music.
Baudelaire gave it in literature.
Rossetti82 in the dusty[?]inns[?] has
touched it beautifully, but it is
a very rare theme.
Baudelaire is brought – he reads in
his rapid French too rapid to be
transparent to one’s understanding,
several of his [ his]⟨Baudelaire’s⟩ most cherished poems:
L’Aube Spirituelle.83Le Cr (specially
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[E.C.]
dwelling on the marvellous phrase
“stupides orgies”) & Crépuscule du
Matin84 (full of pity – that
most rare quality in Art) &
La Rebelle.85
The last 4 lines of the Crépescule
ought to have been omitted.
The greatest of Baudelaire’s poems
is La Géante86 – the vast impersonality
that denies its very sex, everything
& expresses itself in a form
so vast & yet plastic. It is
perhaps one of the most remarkable
things man has done.
Next to it comes La Beauté87 – then
L’Aube Spirituelle – then
Femmes Damnées88 (without its last
exclamatory verse)
Just before the reading of Baudelaire
I had read Tommy’s89Don Juan90
aloud – first to the entreaty I
wd leave out the iterated Don Juan
then to the entreaty I would
leave off altogether. Fay sprang
up, stamping[?] & declaring the
childish – almost infamous in
taste. Don Juan is a grand gentleman
– the type of the Debauché wh:
gives the world vast pleasure
& takes on himself almost the
pains of a saint: A creature enjoyed
as a saint is worshipped almst
for his idealism. He would make the
world nearer to the heart’s desire –
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[E.C.]
& Don Juan faced damnation for
his dreams – he never recoiled
fearful . . . & then to be told
he wore silk stockings & they stuck
out under his cloak when the
dance was ended by Death –
Tommy ought to be birched.
Baudelaire’s Don Juan aux Enfers
with its magnificent last lines –
"Mais le calme héros, courbé sur sa rapière,
Regardait le sillage et ne daignait rien voir"
is far more, though not wholly,
adequate.
Then talk goes to the meeting with Bernhard
& the friendship with Oscar91. Fay says
they & Oscar never talked anything
but inspired “rot”. As women, we
probably have no idea how playful
men are among themselves.
Fay said scarcely anything. –
nothing serious – Oscar tried all
his newest paradoxes on them ⟨or⟩
elaborated exciting, fantastic
projects. Before dinner I had
shown Fay our two letters from
Oscar & delighted him specially with
Oscar’s desire to see our characters
in golden masques (we are to show
these letters to Bobby – as two
bricks in “the legend.”)
Then we ⟨have⟩ fine merry times over the
Artists’ Orders – over the Cochon d’Or92– [?]
That we lay for in vain “avec soif
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[E.C.]
inassouvie”.93 No hope of it in
Paragon! Only Sappho can
have it among women, & she
partly from politeness.
Baudelaire w d have all the
orders – Cochon d’Or – L’Oiseau
bleu94 & Couronne des Épines.95
The last, Fay thought, I might
have, with a few thorns
added from time to time for
delapidations – Michael
refuses L’Oiseau bleu, even
with 4 wings, & confesses on
her death-bed she means
to wring Fay’s heart to give
her the Cochon d’Or.
Keats is very difficult to decorate
– he ought to have all the
orders & they none of them have
quite fit.
Shakespeare – Michael denies him
the Cochon d’Or – he is too much
like herself. But Fay says yes,
for the sake of Troilus & Mid-
Summer Night’s dream & such
things as
“Her bed is India & herself a pearl” –
“My God, what a fluke!” – he wrings
his hands with Cochon d’Or Ecxtasy.
Bobby may be made an Associate.
Moore has no Cochon d’Or in him –
Nor, we have to protest, had Browning
enough for the order – dissent too
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[E.C.]
shrewdly fretted the golden floor of
Nature, the Cochon d’Or must
have. Shannon has to have it only[?]
because he is a fellow divinity[?]
by the Grand Master Ricketts –
Mary Berenson might have
the hope dangled before her – if
she would induce some Meat-
Kings to buy it at an enormous
price.
The sm badge is a Golden Pig, with
a pearl in his mouth & the
legend Sweets to the Sweet.
Ah me - - - ah, me! – ah, ah, me!
The Crown of Thorns is only for those who
struggle & agonise for Art’s own
sake – The Oiseau bleu is
for the chosen spirits of
culture and art – those who are
rare & charming in personality.
On this fun we part – after 6 hours
of converse & scarcely tired.
Shannon thinks Fay “forgiving” – we
assure him he is the contrary –
wh: Fay supports by saying of
his enemies “I take the air
from them.”
Fay has looked beautiful at times,
with a crested & lively appearance.
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[E.C.]
Fay quotes for richness, such
as our[?] literature used to have,
Crashaw’s “tender crumbs” – of
the dust of a body.
[K.B.]
On Saturday even Jan 30 th after
a long week of disorder. Whitewashers[?]
& rubs[?] – not pictures on the walls,
we are at work again ie we are
in our rooms, we pace.
Oh the re-lighting of the altars!
A shrine where the blasphemers
have left marks!
Four times I seek flowers -
White, sepulchral with arums –
– the air cannot float a wing[?]
Four times with bitter rain
piercing[?] me to the flesh – [?] I wrestle –
by candle-light time – with Lady-
apples, with Love apples, with
tulips “in answerable style”, & the
red – points[?] of P96Settia[?]-life is
established visible among us.
The first flickering narcissus
flickers on the shrine. A periwinkle
with trailing[?]-wreaths hangs outside
the casement of the lesser gold room.
A
Love-Apple Sunday.
I review the month. We have
fought well in it, facing many things.
Now we must face the publisher
Our mottoes of Diligence & Oassiu[?] must
continue. The pine & [????] scent
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[K.B.]
must come as they will - they will be
scents across the battlefield.
God knows that where He plants the
foot on the sand, He must set the
mirage. It is the absence of a little
cloud before that is making life
so difficult now. One cannot
be looking down on the sand one is
treading.
We turn again to Herod, to the
Creation of Cleopatra.
February 3 rd.
Days large & blank with spring.
I am weary even of my prayers.
No call from Heaven or earth –
I go a’shopping. but mercy I say to
myself: “Why should one buy stockings,
if one has not happy feet?”
Maccabees97 we are reading in the morning –
miserable & wordy & of no account –
with here & there an unforgettable phrase.
Rossetti’s98 complete edition of Christina
arrives. It gives the love episodes of
her life. How this unhappy brother has
blurred the images of his great ones!
One of the purest creatures he has
known; but pure-blank, like a yard
of calico.
Apparently religion was as a deteriorating
influence on her humanity & on her art.
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[K.B.]
She is the creature who could have given
us a cradle-song.
Woe to the gods that ruined her.
For she is essential poet - the female–dove.
She has neither out-look or inlook; she
Knows nothing: she has music &
Fragrance & flight; she passes among us
A singing-bird, & her song drops spices –
Never shall she written what does not
Float, or fall, or pass as a mourner.
Movement always – & a stirring of
feet that are happy.
Take her anywhere - she is the
poet.

I can do nothing but watch
the gray almightiness of the
flood – the inward and
fountainous upheaval
by which it attains the
volume of its power. The
light rolled on it. It is far more
brilliant than the spring sky.
It motions wonder over
it. It arrives like a King’s
silence.
And Herod grows like the river.
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[K.B.]
Friday February 5th
I take love-apples to the Palace, & the shell
is turned out of the Murano jar to make
place. One stained crimson apple pushes
up from the satinwood.
The Sabbatai ring is there - the generous
ring: – the shrine, & the presence, & the blue
dome. I see also a worthless ring
given to a model for a bet. The distance
is immeasurable.
“This ring will cause much offence”
Painter100 says, & I add “That pleases you.”
Tommy’s101 Jewel is seen – still twinkling,
& uncertain, & the just-finished
picture of the Son in the parcelle[?] of the
vineyard.
I pass on to the manor, & see the
small, dear One in her vast
drawing-room. I return to Henry –
– the chief miracle! Henry reads
me in the type-proof Sabbatai Act II – and
part of the 2nd. Cleopatra scene in Herod.
Henry rises from depression to a living
spiral flame. Long after I have fallen
asleep in my bed she is exploring
North’s Plutarch.102
To-day, I feel as if my fields were
covered with Manner[?]
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[K.B.]
Monday. February 8th.
A wild, west gale.
We are absent from each other, being
each present with Herod of Jews.
The ring with Painter was to have
come to-day.
– War is declared between Japan
& Russia
– I write a little of the scene of
Herod’s Return to Mariamne (2nd scene)
these curd-winds of the spring –
the waste, the vanity!
Again I read Christina.103
Her tiny[?] lyrics are like showers
of blossom from the tree.
In multitude they are lovely –
they are shaken down from
the tree of life: they do not grow there.
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[K.B.]
On beholding a ring set with a star-Sapphire
What is it? – not the fetter of Arch[?]-plight,
What is it? – not the signet of a King,
Nor deep-inscribed, nor holy, perfumed ring
With phial for the venoms that requite,
Nor wrought for any separate delight;
It is a dream, a mighty compiling,
A shrine from many windows flickering,
The prison of a tinkling chrysolite.
His religions, for its azure vault
Burys a star above the thick assault
Of golden doors; & it is given us:
It will work much offence, needs must it be
To the wan world matter of injury,
Being of itself profound & generous
Feb. 8th 1904
Of Wednesday, February 10th
Shannon104 calls it “Solomon”, & the
tinkling within “The Song of Solomon”.
It is the most perfectly successful
achieving, of all the jewels. Its
doors are to be smeared with
ambergris, so that it may
appeal to all the five senses.
In its soft cloud a star beams.
But it is not as a ring it excels.
Blessedly, an old, cleaned, favourite
blouse, low, square, with velvet
stomacher[?], turned up.
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[K.B.]
& I put the ring on “breastie[?]” by a gold-
-chain, the full Pegasus-ornament
below on black velvet …
Henry[?] & Painter105 fell to adoration – I
could have laughed at them.
But we were all very happy, &
there is no conversation to
report in the year-book.
My Beloved wore a new blouse, &
the Chinese necklace, & looked
the sweetest. Her grief had been
I should have nothing to wear. But
that gracious old blouse had all
the effect of a “sling.”
A guest is expected to lunch to-
day. Henry has had to plead
for fresh dishes. I wanted him
to have the flaws[?] & bones of
last night’s banquet – bone of
Welsh Mutton, stone-cream
drawn together, chestnuts & apple-
jelly patted down.
However, I consent to one new
cutlet.
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[E.C.]
Yes, February 10 th, was undescribable
indescribable as the changes of
light.
It begins in the wild drift of rain
& wind that is our outward life
now-a-days.
We have given up Fay106 for tea –
when suddenly he comes, more
enlivening than many pots of
tea. The ring is tossed down …
“Here is the distinguished stranger!”
I am allowed to found[?] it on
my finger for a while – such
an exquisite building – a
little gem of space-composition
enshrining a presence, an
emerald green as jealousy – a
song that water-brooks make.
Fay has shown it to the buried
Bobbie Ross107, & bore it on his
finger when he met Roger Fry108
at the Burlington Art Club109. He
was extremely disgusted Roger
took[?] no notice of it; when but
was restrained from himself calling
attention to it by remembrance
of a friend’s remark to Baudelaire110,
when ⟨he ⟩⟨protested ⟩⟨made an⟩ infuriated ⟨protest⟩ that his blue
powdered hair had not received
attention “Oh, everyone is wearing
blue powder just now”.
Bobbie Ross last year took a cabful of
pictures to an ⟨American⟩ Millionaire’s hotel – was
kept waiting 2 hours – laid picture after
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[E.C.]
picture out on the chairs only to
hear the millionaire instruct
his son “give the young man
from Carfax’s[?]111 half-a-crown, &
tell him to take the pictures
away.
We are afraid Bobbie
did not keep the half-crown.
He ought to have had it
pierced for a chain!
Fay is full of the giddiness
of spring – he has little
wings at his heel – &
is attentive to the folly
of the birds – the little
hoopoes in every bush.
His desire is upon Italy.
After dinner we talk long,
Long – of “impressions d’ Italie”112
Fay’s time, that he cannot
forget, is night, when the
spirit comes out from the
past of a place – when
the shadows are so black
– they are neither blue nor
green. The air too of our
Italian night is so gushing
& large in its freshness – the
solitude, save round the
social lights of several cafés,
is complete.
Shannon is tired & fearful
at night-time on their travels
– he sinks down to old numbers of
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[E.C.]
periodicals – then the Latin restlessness
comes on Fay; the climate does
not hurt him – he goes out in
to the shadows where the old
Genius is also & they are together.
Another thing that has struck
him is the way the very buildings
soar into the night air indifferent
to all life of today or tonight.
The Ducal Palace113 is high away
from the Piazza.
Fay loved the Pinciano[?]114 where Messalina115
gave her fashionable dances –
& the little Church built over
Nero’s116 grave. He never saw the
Via Sacra!117
He too have ⟨has⟩ felt the charm of
Verona—the powerful song of
Adige, the colour in the light –
so that blue makes one think
at once of pink, & pink of
the green of the sea.
Also the sturdy growth of foliage
round Bergamo118 had arrested
him.
When we came down for dinner
dressed for dinner, Fay is charmed
by the ring Solomon119 on Michael…
‘entre sein’; we talk toilette – of
how the breasts run wild in the
new Samothrace corsets – they shd
be lifted somewhat, like wine-bottles
raised for pouring! Fay is certain
that in a fortnight he could trim
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[E.C.]
hats – he used to watch his
mother seriously engaged
with millenary.
He sketches a little fan
Watteau120 used to close
the corsage of one of his
models. Shannon has
been using it with delightful
effect.
Then he says to Michael –
“Poet, you should wear a
curl on the shoulder – You
have enough hair for one,
but if it were a bother you
should have a false curl.
It would look extremely
well on you.”
There is a bubble in our
lungs & we do not look
at each other.
This is our little dinner –
Wine Soup
Broiled mullets
Welsh Leg of Lamb – Jelly & Chicory
Stone cream & Pommes aux Marrons
Canapés S t Ival
These last are loved like ⟨as⟩ stone
cream is permanently.
White Port – Fay takes only one
wine.
My flowers are ⟨a⟩ success.
The white bowl with rosy wreath
of anemones, like roses, is
pronounced beautiful; & the
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[E.C.]
silver bowl edged with rusty wallflowers
is just as beautiful, & the
cyprote glass ⟨set⟩ with primroses as
with a girdle of little stars.
The pheasant’s Eye Narcissus121 &
the jug of spinghi[?] are ‘quite
right’.
Fay is much struck with Michael’s
remark that Spring is a bad
time for the Artist – it is un-
limited⟨conditioned⟩ & Art is concrete.
He also agrees with her that,
as she says, an artist’s
individual faults have a
tendency to run wild in the
Spring.
Another remark of Michael’s that
pleases is her strickture on
Christina Rossetti & [?] vaunted
Purity, that it is ⟨blank⟩that of as
piece ⟨a yard⟩ of new calico.
Fay has noticed that I seem always
to be defending my opinion from
a blow. He knows I have not
talked enough in my life. This
causes me to be very slow in
approaching a good remark & so
swift in uttering it that it is lost –
& falls ineffective, unless special attention
catches it.
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[E.C.]
The whole 6 hours of this visit
were filled with confidence –
the quiet passing of time
over a deep harmony.
Fay spoke about his longing
to have a clean way of
getting his living, & of
the difficulty of realisation
seeing he is illiterate
though cultured. He
dwelt on the Catastrophe
of having stooped once
from his haughtiness
& thus allowed a
picture of his to be skyed
(wh: it really is not).
He is not well – dreaming
of this time last year when
he had influenza, till
the dream tends to become
reality.
[K.B.]
February 14 th
Bobby Ross comes – using very
skillfully the wild[?]rain[?] for penitential
tears – to pray forgiveness
Feb 15th A Season of the wildest
floods – with spring sunlight lying
in them.
The Thames rushes past.
One walks in weakness & hope
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[K.B.]
I spent Saturday Feb 13th with Amy Bell.
lunching at the Sesame Club.
“Do you know, Kaing[?], “why Edith
should have been born in February?”
“No, Amy”
“Because, Kaing[?], geniuses are always
born in February” &, “She continued,
(Knowing[?] my birthday was in October?)
Generally people of importance are
born in the first half of the year!!!
“I was born”, she added, with a smile
that illuminated the event between
the day & the dark at half past six.
We drive about Camden Hill & Kensington
looking at the tiny houses – featureless
as toast – in one of wh. She hopes some
day to live.
“Great idealists are always good
house-keepers – You, Kaing[?], are
a good house-keeper. It is true.
She refuses to discuss Fitz-Gerald’s
life. I loathe him. I loathe the
weak pessimism of Omar.
By thee I find the book has been
given as a present – where it
will do harm.
I am hoping to get a book – the
Youth of Balzac.122
He cured love of the prejudice of
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[K.B.]
Youth it is finely said of him.
[E.C.]
Wicked story of ⟨an⟩ old Quaker –
Butterman.
His daughter had been
married, but it was difficult
to bring the him to admit
it when questioned. At last
he confessed the fact with
a groan – that she had
married a man employed
in the manufacture of
pianos. “But” he added,
“it is a matter for rejoicing
that the young man is
not employed upon their
carnal parts.”
This from Mary!
[K.B.]
February 17 th
Ash-Wednesday & – my Father’s123
birthday. He is now in mortal
years, an old man, over ninety.
I bless & honour him. I look
-forward to making his acquaintance
in the Hereafter. I have received
of his power & manhood.
He has bequeathed himself
to his race. The lyric of his
life is sung in Sabbatai
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[K.B.]
Vitality must be the watchword for this
Lent – a constant feeling of life – the fare
from Heaven bounteous[?] – the Eljah Ravens
staggering beneath the load on their
sumpter[?] wings.
Henry after a week of suffering
is, I hope, healing softly by the fire.
Last night we read Callirrhoe 124 – the
work of well-nigh twenty years ago.
How soft, & crescive it all is.
In Herod. I am chipping out Alexandra.
We have decided there shall be
2 plays, one treating of Mariamne,
One, possibly of the sons.
Now Henny is happy – a great
weight is removed from her
brain – Fast & hurrying the tide
can spread itself to the sea!
[E.C.]
Yes – Ash Wednesday; & Miss Bray
sends up a box of red camellias
– one falls in a cone, the others
are founded[?] in our glass-vases.
The contrast of these creatures
of Oriental grain, of the brilliancy
of a syrup, with ashes & salt
fish is entirely piquant.
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[E.C.]
Friday Feb. 19 th
At last, at last!
I have had a snail-walk
to the Terrace this blessed day –
the laurels of the slope in
their shining & dapple, the
channels left by the low-tide
of the flood below me.
And I have seen catkins
waggle.
This morning Barr125 sent some
purple hellebores & they have
been making the light into
wine . . at the same
time a little pair of black
& white evening-shoes appeared
for Michael126, quite as adorable
& worthy of a royal guard
of glances as any Tyrian
flower.
Yesterday Michael brought in
Rochefoucault’s Maxims127,
picked up for 6d. They certainly
are the Panopeptone of Wisdom
– its Essence of beef & wheat.
Our education has been
starved. Not to know Rochefoucault
except by quotation & by name!
Also yesterday Herod128 formed
into two plays – The Asmoneans’
Slave & The Roman – the first on
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[E.C.]
Herod’s passionate love for ⟨& rage against⟩ Mariamne,
the second on his love for & rage
against his sons.
Everything comes straight now;
& we have the motto of
the two plays, that will
have an Over-title of
Herod of Jewry, in Crabbe’s129 –
“The Shapeless purpose of a soul that feels
And half-suppresses rage & half reveals.”
This we found in the Life of Fitzgerald130 –
that record of a sublime crank.
Dr Garnett 131, at lunch the other day,
was marvellously struck with
our conception of Herod’s passion
for Mariamne, as the first
great instance of Chivalry at
the Arabic source. To treat
Herod racially is to have the
germ of a new type – Herod the
Idumæan explains himself . . .
“The voice is that of Esau”- the
love is that of Knight-Errantry.
We have been reading again Callirhoë132 –
with what fresh, young grip it does what
it wants. The lessons of our youth
are penetrative.
We have recalled that day in early
June 1884, when the local publisher
sent a horseman to tell us that
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[E.C.]
there was a review of columns in
The Spectator. Amy133 & I rushed
To Clifton Down, while Michael
watered the roses & lilies in the
round bed before Stoke Green.
No “engagement” has ever changed
the movement of the Spirit
through the flesh, as that
announcement there was a
New Poet – changed the substance
of my youth. I slept no wink,
the paper under my head; & I
heard the rustling summer-
storm pass with its skirts &
gather them together in
the ⟨great⟩ chambers of the night.
Last Sunday Bobbie Ross came
to apologise for his failure to
appear two Sundays before.
He came under penitential
rain. I was wrapped in the
black & golden Persian veil, round
my afflicted cheek – Michael
had to be dressed by Lillias134.
We treated Bobbie as a Deadman
but he insisted on regarding
our Come in as a Viaticum.
Very skillfully with deliberation,
he prepared the story that was
to conquer our forgiveness.
He had been to Florence.
On his return his friends did not ask
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[E.C.]
him about the Baptistry, about
Verrocchio135 . . . only “Have you
seen Berenson?” This got on
the nerves: So one day he
announced a dreadful discovery
had been made in Florence . . . .
!!! . . . ??? . . .
“Berenson was not by Berenson”
The sensation was indescribable
– no one knew what to do . . .
Mrs Berenson was packing
up.
Then we talked about Fay136 –
“You know him subjectively – I
only objectively, as in the world
of Art”. That was Bobbie’s
attitude. We exacted on each
other deep secrecy, & then we
discussed his need of a livelihood
– not dependent on his Art. I shd
not wonder if Bobbie, now he under-
-stands the need, will not create
a position for him, as in the case
of Bimmie who can now marry
on the ₤250 Bobbie has got a
publisher to give him for advice.
Just that money was needed for
parental benediction. Happy
Bimmie137. One day – if there might
be a happiness for Fay.
Little is said on this short visit, of
Oscar138. But we hear that Fay, having
got a legacy soon after Oscar left prison,
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[E.C.]
sent him a ₤100. But Bobbie
saw it was returned to him,
for he knew at that time
Fay’s dire need.
Bobbie has seen a Satinwood
book-case – he is told if he
can secure it for us at ₤15
he will become “a living-
soul”.
He finds my old Dutch Commode
– a “swell piece” – worth ₤20 at
least (I paid ₤8)
So on smiles & satinwood
we parted. All went well⟨excellently⟩
for The Legend. Our Rooms
looked well, & their garlands
of Ricketts & Shannon did
not fail of their effect.
The tea & cigarettes welcomed
the Dead Guest suavely.
Michael was fresh & sovereign
in her 18th Century Gown – I
was decidedly mystic in
the dusky veil with its
glimmerings.
The only Jewel looked at was
Solomon – who was admired
to the top of his star.
Bobbie is a curious mixture of
wit & Catholic seriousness –
only Catholics seem to know
seriousness as a mode of
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[E.C.]
mind & spirit, at the same time
there is something illusive about
this man, with his romantic
kindness, & his wit as
deliberate as a growth. We
do not yet understand him.
The face is dark-skinned – square
about the jaw – a little mastiff
-like; the black eyebrows have
the concave of Spinoza’s139 – in
the eyes there is the character
of a dog’s – something kind &
fixed & not of men – yet
devout.
[K.B.]
Feb 24 th
Yesterday, of his own nature,
Fay came, & of my[?] grace stayed
the evening.
– I cannot write my own gospel; I
leave it to the loving S. John140.
[E.C.]
Feb. 18th
A Word from Fay141 on the Ring Sonnet
“I like the Sonnet immensely – it is
quite admirable in texture & the last
line very fine indeed. It is a pity that
its subject-matter makes it obscure to
anyone who does not know the ring, as
domes, towers, floors &c do not usually
form part of fetters[?] of troth plight or the
guerdons[?] of joy with or without economy”.
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[E.C.]
Feb 24 th
St. John begins.
Black pansies, & purple Hellebore –
A long waiting –
As the late tea-bell rings, the
door-bell rings[?], & Michael
descends with welcoming
bloom, a single long curl
on her shoulder. That has
immediate welcome, with
enthusiasm – Another,
a shorter one, is, as Alice
Trusted says, “desiderated”
Yes – the curl is a triumph!
It winds into the warm
pulses that admire.
Man certainly is Curl-
ridden! Michael boasts
the curl that the Babes[?]
rejected is become the Corner
-stone of an effect.
Man has a sentiment about
the curl – some little wriggle
of silliness in his estimate of
it – something of Richardson
emergent even in a Son of
the 20th Century.
In telling Fay 142 about Georges Rodenbach’s
prostrate grief over the ruin of Bruges
we refer to the way in wh: we
lost a year’s happiness in woe over
the loss of our view. We must not
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[E.C.]
depend for life on these things – we must
rely on our selves – There is nothing
reliable but oneself . . . one must
make a self on which one can rely.
Fay speaks at tea of Christianity, &
its failure among men – through
some lapses of judgment in
its founder (turning the other
cheek – e.g.) it destroys the
sense of Honour, wh: in men
has been of the highest importance
to their perfection. The difference
of the effects of a virile & of
a feminine creed are⟨is⟩ sharply
marked among Eastern Christians
& Mohammedans, when they
are in juxtaposition.
The passive virtues are not of
the essence of manhood.
“Not that I am speaking with favour
of Mohammedanism, like Strong143;
for it has blighted wherever it has
fallen” he adds. “But it is a great
pity Christianity made an initial
mistake.”
Upstairs Fay pockets the 6d Letters
of Lord Chesterfield144 – a little old book.
Michael had been most brilliant
& dramatic upstairs – the Curl
was an inspirer.
I am all the time wrapped up in a
Persian Scarf, clouding face-ache in
a tangle of gold. Fay stays to
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[E.C.]
Dinner, receiving his ambergris
just before descending.
We give him Sabbataї to take
back. Will he like it? We
guess No on the whole. Its rhythms
may confuse him.
Then we talk of “Anthony &
Cleopatra”. She has not held
him profoundly. He gives me the
impression that to him she
is lacking in sensuality (of
the Cochon d’Or kind145) & in
mysteriousness – the spell
is too rattling & voluble.
In the same way Anthony is
wanting in that sudden
self-question that comes to a
man even when he has
broken up under infatuation –
“Is the spell worth all this?”
These humiliating are felt
by all in love.
There comes a crack into a
man’s nature in these matters.
Love is not of the substance
of his very life as with woman
& when it comes to him
it leads ⟨sometimes⟩ to the holy un-
accountable.
Fay feels the relation of Anthony
& Cleopatra, except in the wonderous
early scenes, is of a divine
rhetoric – perfect in its mighty
tone. He has so far valued
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[E.C.]
Julius Caesar more intensely, as being
more on a human level.
We should read Troilus & Othello
constantly. Othello is so modern
that even the lovely rhetoric of
the Sibyl passages startles us
back three centuries.
Fay likes Lady Macbeth & would love
to see her come on, with a roller
in her hand, & flour on her arms,
like a good housewife.
I tell Fay of Callirhoë & the the
swift horseman bearing news
of the first Review.
Then Michael tells charmingly
of the defection of her youthful
lover & her surprise – while
Fay bubbles at the rosy drama
she enacts from her perch on
the settee.
Still later we talk of his parents –
of his English father who re-
-sembled Holmes & called
his only son Madmoiselle.
Fay was 17, when he met Shannon,
still a ‘fluffy’ boy. Shannon
does not care to talk of the
past – so uncomplimentary of
him!
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[K.B.]
29th. Feb. Ember Saturday
– So flees away into Eternity
another month!
–But we turned with prayer for the
Creation of Cleopatra in February –
Cleopatra is created. The floods
are subsiding. With mere patience
we shall do well. Only the cry of
the Saints is us ours – O for a closer
walk with God!
Full thanks for our lives, & the
accomplishing of our lives!
March in its “devotion” considers
S. Joseph. Let it be with us the
month of “fostering” – gracious fostering
of all gracious things.
Yesterday I arrived tired at the
Palace146. Fay147 was fresh-shaven, & had
the bleak appearance of an
East wind. Late a Count –
arrived, a well-bred personage, full
of easeful tact. The speech was
formal; but the eyes need not be
formal, even with strangers.
Tall & injured by illness & suffering
Helen Fry148 came in to Miss Toplady’s149
yesterday.
Very simply she said she was
going to pray –
Ah, would it were so with us!
Would indeed we all went forth to
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[K.B.]
Confess & be shriven, & to pray.
Worship as spectators – without the
crooked[?] knee & the contrite heart – without
the real, personal sacrifice – is disinterprating[?]
We do not meditate, or pray, or believe...
God keep us in our little home; it is
unexpressibly dear to us, & we ask to
live no where else.
[E.C.]
I must suppliment this time, from
what Michael150 told me by the
fireside.
Fay is “woolly” & ill. He might
have been seen that morning
running from the Marble Arch to his
book-shop for an Anatole France 151,
running though he felt ill. He
returned also with a bottle of Baltic
herrings – “Would you like to see
them?” They appear; & Michael
remarks “they are as beautiful as
precious stones” They lie silvering
round the sides of the bottle,
in white wine, with corals & pink
sea-weed, as it were, a’shimmer
between. Anatole France gives him
great delight, though he knows in
ten years the books will be
intolerable. “Oh yes, you are so
strictly contemporaneous now”
scolds Michael.
He brings out portraits of Mrs Richard
Green & Mrs Hacon 152. He rejoices in
Michael’s remark that Mrs Hacon
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[E.C.]
has a beauty as if born of itself
like true apple-ness of the
apple. She has also that great
mark of beauty the breaking
of the lips into flower.
Discussing women’s beauty,
Michael says that eyebrows
are the most important
point in the face for appearance.
Fay assents & rejoins that
any woman if she arranges
her hair properly, takes care
of her eyebrows & tries to
have a bit of black velvet
at her neck will look well.
Michael repeats praise of Shannon’s153
portrait. “Shannon always did
appeal to the vulgar taste of
the vulgar” Fay gibes.
He has to confess he will have
no pictures ready for the spring
– not till winter. O Fay, frittered
Fay!
He opens a box by Korin 154 – “full
of Illusion & Disillusion” . . . .
The little ball of ambergris &
two opals given by Michael
& some designs for Omar155.
Michael pleads that the opals are
not disillusion & is referred to
the unused set of designs for Omar.
Mrs Tommy’s pendant is on view –
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[E.C.]
it has been drawn out a success
by its marvellous little Inventer.
The modelling of Psyche156 & the Dog
of Hell157 is magnificent – the
effect is gorgeous.
Birny’s[?]158 bride only has a Holbein
Pendant159 – this is well.
Birny[?] is to the true poet what
an adopted design is to a
created one.
When the Count comes there is talk
of Fay’s birthplace – Geneva. The
Count proposes as a game
to find the place where each ought
to have been born. Fay had a
narrow escape of being born at
the right place – Naples. Michael
would like to have been born in
London. Fay says “that is where
a poet should be born”.
The rapidity of the river at Basle[?]
is mentioned. Michael says the
rushing of a river along gives
her the sense of perfect repose.
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[E.C.]
We have had a card from Tommy in
Rome. He thought of us at the
Borgia apartments where he went
not with subtle poisons
“To thin the scarlet conclave of
old men”160 but to stare at
Pinturicchio’s161 pretty, mellow
frescoes. He picked a leaf & violet
-bud off Keats’ grave for us –
“that is if you have not already
got several. It is a delicious spot,
covered by violets, shaded by
beautiful pines & ilex-bushes, &
strange with stone-monuments,
looking at one another like
foreigners with different tongues
but the same thoughts &
business . . . Woe, I must out
with it! I met Arthur Symons
yesterday. Duse162 has accepted
a play of his on Tristram & Isolt163
& is going to begin to study in it
in May. I felt so angry with
him. We also thought of you
at the baths of Caracalla &c
It is well to be thought of in Rome.
O blessed, O Empire of our
Imagination! – Than⟨Even⟩ if Duse
takes Symons’ Tristan – Little
Arthur, who lifted me up to see the
Procession in Notre Dame de
Paris!
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[K.B.]
March 2 nd, Wednesday. S. Chad’s Day
Henry has read to me the scene at
Sundown[?] between Herod & Salome
– the waiting for Mariamne’s death.
– It is level up with Othello.
It has made March already a
month of huge experience
And there is verdure & quickening
green all round[?] the smaller
scenes. More & more the
story is tightening[?] to the throttling
love-grip of Mariamne. Herod’s
passion in its curse, its cheeks,
its headlong fall into the sea –
the theme. He asked the
Infinite in his affections, the
infinite of Woman, Child, &
God. He was infinite in praise
and in the art of praise-
building. His memory built
in monuments.
The vacant memory of regret he
could not bear, – that is why he
carried Mariamne about with
his embalmment[?].
In Herod I create myself Man –
– the make of Herod’s nature is
mine.
How wonderful Heaven is to us –
– setting us on the track, giving us
the clue to its hid treasure –
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[K.B.]
3rd Sunday in Lent.
“Yesterday I bought a T.P. to help me
on my[?] underground way to a
matinée – Behold the sixties[?] & George
Dawson!
Question at the Birm: School
board of the introduction of an
unsectarian hymn-book. George
Dawson turns over the leaves.
“Lord I ascribe it to thy grace
And not to chance as others do,
that I was born of Christian race,
and not a heathen or a Jew.”164
“Would members have any objection”
he said, “if this were altered to run
“Lord, I ascribe it to thy grace,
And not to luck, or chance’s work,
that I was born of Jewish race,
And not a Christian or a Turk.
I am proud the worth & influence of
my first great teacher, as in this
T.P., should be recognised nearly
40 years after this his quoted saying.
The matinée was Ray Blas.
Mrs. Pat should be Mariamne –
Lewis Waller might be Herod. His race has
some power of inflection.
If Mrs. Pat’s voice is her own, & not worn
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[K.B.]
like false hair. What a fungus creature
she is – not a wholesome growth for
blossom & fruit – well-coloured & of
the abnormal-earthly.
– I speak of her as shown in Ray Blas.
[E.C.]
Thursday, March 3 rd
The Artists dine. Shannon
comes first – vengeful from a
committee. He is looking &
confesses to being well.
His sanguines[?] are fluent
& his eyes have a transparency
they have not had for very
long. He immediately admires
the blouses & Michael’s
stronger-curl.
Then Fay comes, hurried, looking
very small, meeting Shannon
with amity, & the Curl with
the assurance it makes its
mistress look years younger –
“into three figures” she intensifies.
Dinner
Clear Soup
Cod à la Crême
Black cocks
Chocolate Jelly
Pine-chunks & Junket
Champignons Farcis
Fay has been reading Josephus’ portrait
of Cleopatra. This [????]aised Queen of
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[E.C.]
Egypt lends herself to farce. She
is a fruit of a putrescent
civilisation like the Chinese
Empress. He is greatly interesting⟨ed⟩
in hearing about Dryden’s
All for Love, in wh: Cleopatra
becomes a Nell Gwynn. He
specially enjoys Dryden’s
fine bit of psychology, where
Anthony, forced again to meet
the deserted Cleopatra, Ex
Exclaims “Gods, I thank you:
I formed the danger greater than it was,
and now ’tis near, ’tis lessened”
Michael & Fay get up to betting
a box of chocolates to a
green tie that Duse will
not play little Arthur’s
Tristram.
When the mushrooms come
there is exhortation:
“Hush! No-one is to speak to me
for several moments” – & he
begins to listen.
Fay has been talking to an
Architect, named Wilson, who
has pleased him by realising that
the Greeks & the Japs are the
only two peoples who have lived
for beauty – & the Japs have per-
-sisted for centuries, while the
Greeks were blighted only too
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[E.C.]
quickly.
In the Drawing-Room there is
again betting that Dr Garnett
will dedicate Shakspere, Pedagogue
& Poacher to us.
Then Fay reads Verlaine’s
marvelous Langeur (“Jadis
et Naguère”)
I shall always hear his voice,
low as an underground
rillet – now & then with
petulant emphasis – as it
gave:
“O n'y vouloir, o n'y pouvoir mourir
un peu!
Ah, Tout est bu, toute est mangé – plus
rien à dire.”
And again:
“L'Ame seulette a mal au coeur d'un
ennui dense”
And the massive first line
becomes of fate, yet altogether
personal, in his convinced
voice –
“Je suis l'Empire à la fin de la décadence.”
Fay says this poem is that rarest
thing, that had only been known
in English & Italian, a Dramatic
Sonnet, as Browning wrote Dramatic
Lyrics. Michael grieves Browning
never found the Dramatic Sonnet.
Rossetti has several examples. Fay
hates specially the exquite exquisite repetitions
– A special charm in Verlaine – & the even
more wonderful diminutive “Seulette”.
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[E.C.]
We end the Evening by an hour
with Bernhard’s Italian Florentine
Drawings – specially the Leonardo
Drawings & the Michael Angelo
Drawings.
Fay keeps wandering nearer
& nearer as Shannon & I
look – then he stands
over us, pouring[?] into
Shannon’s ear the wondrous
story of how this figure is
for that picture &c. Always
he judges by quality
of draughtsmanship or
modelling – the life
under the bodily forms,
the life of the line.
They both agree with me
the youth with Curls,
& the face of the Louvre
Bacchus, is no Leonardo –
& Fay holds that the attribution
of the Pieta of Michael
Angelo to Piombo165 is a howler.
Nearly as bad is the ascription
of the Casa Buonarrotti166Mother
& Child to Bugiardini – the
supreme masterpiece of
child-modelling! These out-
cast Michael Angelos are of
the Master’s very essential
might; the trouble seems to
be that Bernhard seems to
have⟨has⟩ gone initially wrong
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[E.C.]
on Michael Angelo, because he
takes him on the side of the
Windsor Drawings, wh:, if
genuine, are fluffy & in-
essential in technique, &
not by his salient
& inapproachable work
in black & white.
When the Artists hear that
Bernhard is coming to England
simply to see us, Shannon
maintains this is the excuse.
He does not like Land’s End
& remembers the Calais
passage.
Ah, so deeply have I been involved
with the doom[?] of our Edomite. I
have not written a word of
Mary’s letter from Washington
Feb. 18th that undoes all the
harshness of the letter that
struck the last night in the old
year. She writes
“Dearest Michael,
Your letter was a perfect joy – no, I
can’t possibly tell you how the Doctrine
& I enjoyed it, nor how we hope you
have, by this time ‘happy feet’! [ Michael
had said she thought as she was buying
new stockings ‘What is the use of stockings
for feet that are not happy? ]167… Our
feet are happy for we are turning East
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[E.C.]
again. Logan says we must bring
home something equivalent to
Columbus’ cocoanuts & parrots to
show that an[?] America really
exists – the wonderful, genial,
tolerant, growing New World
we have discovered! We shall
bring home a tongueful of things to
tell you at least; & may we
come & tell them some evening,
either the 23 or 24 of March??
For the Doctrine is stopping over
just to see you two, dear Michael
& Field, who mean so much more
to him than you can possibly
know.”
It is curious how crocusy I feel
under the yellow fog, how
white-violety under the
abortive snow-flakes. I
pretend to live with the Muses
& not to notice Aphrodite is
among them.
Friday, March 5
I am in bed sick to misery with
the cold fog. Michael ventures
out to take Grace Worthington[?] on
a visit to the Palace. All the
hollow time of her absence I
read Anatole France’s Histoire
Comique – a secondary book
as all his are, with moments
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[E.C.]
of amazing psychology & sudden
new views opening on humanity.
The haunting Actor-lover is well
Done, & the little Actress herself
has biting traits of personality, while
the situations frankly due to
her temperament are not fantastic.
How naked & unashamed a
French Writer can be in his
story! It prevents one fall – the
sins of stuffiness in a work of
Art. The last scene of the
Nude Acting before Love of the
part that would be dressed before
the World is a fresh piece of
achievement.
Grace was wild with joy that Michael
appeared – she was waiting arid.
A plumed hat, much admired in
America, fresh new gloves, a
whiteness of front had all been
put on that Michael should not
feel ashamed of her at the Palace.
Fay would not let his visitors move
about at first “Not till they we
are a little more used to each
other”. Grace praised the beauty
of Neville Lytton – Fay dispraised
Cockerill “You must not speak
against him – He is in Egypt: he may
be ill” warned Michael mock-heroically
then they talked of Tommy’s child-like
appearance. Then Fay gave the
two notes of the robin – one ordinary,
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[E.C.]
One a divine delight of four notes.
He spoke of the “sour” note
of the swallow. He cannot touch
birds. He babbled very unattachingly
of the Dogs. They so barked he
often almost turned from the
door, till he remembered the
Stone Cream inside.
Grace saw with happy recognition
the Toplady glass pot, still
half-heaped with little love-
apples. “Still alive!” exclaimed
Michael “ – ah, I see, you put
the top on & keep them without
air, like your enemies!”
He showed the Tommy-Pendant, & –
let Day hide its face! – a broach
for Marie – a white bird.
Never will he see my blue bird
again. Like the Bride of the
Riccardi it disappears.
Then the Villain remarks he is sorry
he did not do a more elaborate
pendant for Tommy – a Muse
riding on a Dragon with a Sphinx
behind. Michael claims to see
the design. The Diary is opened –
there among the leaves is the
great, thorny Michaelian Script.
More vital that custody than
the depth of drawer or chest.
The Muse can only be found ‘in
small’ – it was only brought
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[E.C.]
up as a subject with wh: to sting &
blandish Michael. It was designed
some years ago.
[K.B.]
March 12th. Sat.
Tommy’s poem – the Gazelles.
A real poet, a fresh note – Oh to wake
to it!
Desire musing desires sheaf the loved
one’s lap with scented cones, Fir cones!
They remain fir. Good for Tommy.
This morning Henry & I formally give up
“trying[?]” – We will see what mooding
does. No fighting with Satan – no more
giving the least heed to him[?].
– More prayer & creeping up to God –
as if there were no devil – & indeed
can there be where God is.
It has been the sharp[?] fighting that
is not defence, but a sort of ineffective
assculing[?] & striving. Striving is a
mistake. Of a spiritual-teacher, I
should urge absorbing – being interested –
– best of all last.
Of course when there is no echo
Death comes. Death is the unechoing
Herod died[?] of this disease, & not of
worms.
– I ordered a pot of white violets
for Painter. A pot of green leaves arrives
& a name[?]– the White Czar!
So Painter has no blooms[?] – merely
a title. The unreality[?] of things
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[K.B.]
– the giving one ghosts, when one
wants blood – is changing one
from man to inanimate
I heard the other day blood was
the best nourishment for roses –
– a scripture[?] of life –
– the best for the renewing of the best
March 15th.
To-day Bernhard sails.
My hatred of Fog is becoming cumulative –
everyday 24 hours more hatred.
To-day full of spring scowl. North &
South East, & the cawing of rooks.
I go forth excited even over the
pipless orange & the first English
strawberry.
I buy Devonshire Cream, &
brown, fresh eggs. Heaven sends
me down 2 bunches of grapes[?] by a [????],
white & blue with which to crown
my Loved.
I keep walking in & out. The
River from the garden is silver-
gilded, in a dusky grove.
We are reading Jane Harrison’s
Prolegomena[?]. And as one approaches
the deeper mysteries of one’s own
Christian faith, one gives thanks
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[K.B.]
That it is late, that it says Yea, &
that its mysteries are spiritual.
On an aspic found gliding towards the
seer.
Who art thou, Aspic of the dazzled eyes,
And swaying as a drunkard from his drink?
Seaward thou glidest, in the sea to sink,
A sacred alien, a sacrifice.
Who hath devoted thee? What hast thou done?
that wound is as a jewel ’mid thy scales;
thy forkèd tongue still tenderly assails.
As some amazing honour thou hadst won,
As thou went stricken by too vast a doom,
And to the gods must recommend my plight,
Thou foamest through the sand. Back to a tomb
I follow thy fresh steps. Ah, there in sight
the golden spindle that devised thy wound,
And Cleopatra marvelously swooned.
Tuesday March 15th. (Bernhard sails) 1904.
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[K.B.]
Saturday March 19th
A rain as of April has fallen –
Hennie’s heart is broken to Herod.
We work together; Bernhard is on the
high seas, Fuk[?]Shope[?], is still reading
his Sonnet, & the clothes of spring
have been arriving post on post.
I am happy after an arid, desperate
week.
One afternoon I recall.
It is Wednesday, &, as one abandoned
of hope I am curled up on my bed
-room sofa, reading Jane Harrison’s
Prolegomena of Ethics ⟨Greek Religion⟩. A bee-hit – & the
gods are tossed over as nine-pins,
while I wrestle into my Albrect Dürer
gown.
The talk is chiefly of Don Giovanni –
but in truth we meet to wail.
With Painter it is a season of
absolute barrenness – he is lying low.
I tell him I shall say to Bernhard
“There is not a sign of him” left, “Not
a sign” he murmurs, “When Bern-
-hard is by – I am in eclipse.”
I amuse him from a heart, dropping
like a stalactite-cave.
O Child of Helène, Cornelie[?], Pia[?], Decclata –
What place is there for you in this
world?
I tell him Shife[?] he is come to say
good-bye before starting for Italy. –
No, he is only come to say it is the only day
this week he can come. the minutia –
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[K.B.]
The microbes of clothingness are eating him up.
I cannot write of him . . I should not
mind unhappiness or hardship for him
– I cannot watch him fall into disuetude.
I have sent him mignonette & forget-me-nots
& “Image & Superscription”, & I have written
comfortable words …
But this kettle of fish, with the live
eels leaping about in their agony,
is too much for me.
One or two friends, his peers, a little
fame, consciousness of “a welling up”
–– & the threat of poverty withdrawn – wd.
so change him – my Publisher, who
must roam the earth a Poet!
[E.C.]
Yes, there is strangeness about Fay –
he seems blank as an unsown
plough-field; & yet there is bustle
about him of endless en-
-gagements & fritter … But
the mystery! He is not in
the World – in Society – Philanthropy,
Business … With what
Keres has he then engagements?
He says he has been reading
interesting books, & when we
question he binds his brow with
his hands & recalls nothing,
with a willowy, ghost-like
laugh.
He really warns Michaels against
writing a play on Don Juan
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[E.C.]
when she shall have heard
the story from him – “It would
not suit her – it is strictly
copyright”. Then as if
playing a last card he
tells all the mad rigmarole
of the libretto – chuckling
over its formal bits of
Eighteenth Century “business”
& humour – sliding
lissome eyes down the
discreet innuendo, or
unabashed follies of
the plot, & ending on a
note of veritable awe
at the grip of the Stone
Hand.
He sees a play – I do
not – Opera & Satire seem
to me to exhaust the
story. I suggest “Does he
mean a Moral Play in
a few scenes, like Maeterlinck’s
Beatrice; in wh: the first
unrepented sin of a man
becomes his eventual
doom & death warrant?” No –
he would make a play
of manners, like Measure
for Measure.
Michael tells him the story of little
Florrie[?], who questioned her father
one Sat. night “Dada, have[?] you
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[E.C.]
got the chocolate for me?” & when
forgetfulness was confessed
by Dada, sent remarked “Then
you’d better go for it at once,
before you forget again” – adding
when he reached the door
“I have noticed you don’t[?]
think so much of your
Baby lately” Of course he
flew for the chocolate, with
such perfect womanhood
ordering & pleading from
the tiny bed. Fay was
enchanted.
Then wicked Michael told of Dara L.’s
remark, after she had praised
Shannon’s beauty, his sweet
mouth (“He hasn’t got one at
all” interpolates Fay) & turned
to Fay’s own portrait “He is
exactly like a Mr Wright, who
taught me drawing 30 years ago;
& very like a clergyman I
used to know”.
At the end Michael, pointing to
her velvet stomarcher, asks
“Do you know what this demands?”
“No – ”
“A Cochon d’Or” ___ & he flies.
“Mind you remember Mr to
tell Shannon of the drawing-
master of 30 years ago.” So Michael
harasses the flight. “Let me see – Wright
that’s the name!” “Yes – 30 years ago!”
- - - & he is gone.
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[E.C.]
Saturday – March 19th
After sultry days of inner
sand & East-wind outside
a ripple of life – Herod
is alive – there is fire in
the heart & ⟨a⟩ long the roads
& bridges of the brain.
All the scenes, all the
situations are ductile
again – one can win[?]
them from their source,
& follow their interaction.
Then tonight comes a letter
from Fay – greatly thanking
Michael for flowers & Sonnet
“Mr Wright that is Mr All-
Right thanks you greatly – &
likes it (the sonnet) very much
as a poem – in fact as much
as a likeness”
“Only the Ear is bright”
might lead to immediate recognition
on[?] the part of the public (He
always seems to see his
Sonnets printed!)
“Mr Wright’s friend (Ireland’s only
hope) is also appreciative though
he read out the title of the piece
as “Image & Superstition”
Then comes the usual plaint “I
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[E.C.]
am writing in a dazed condition,
having spent the morning in
letters of evasion & excuse” –
to what Keres?
“Small, tiresome events have been so
thick of late that I think my
star just now is “with the
Russians’.”
Tommy has had a two-column Review
in the Times Suppliment – very
welcoming, not ungenially
laden with blame, as most
reviews are now.’ We have
sent it to Rome, marking
the judgement “He lives too much
with painters”.
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[E.C.]
March 23rd Wednesday.
It is a now afternoon, & we are
expecting Bernhard168 this
evening. The Rooms are
full of lilies, & keenly
red roses, & growing
purple crocuses & the
ice-crevice -white azalias.
Outside the East & North
discourse of futility &
disillusion, while the
river wells up into
wavelets that press turbulently.
Before me is the wonder
at mortality & Eros in
their possible fusion.
I feel such a congeries
of dust, that I cannot
conceive of myself as
in relation with the
immortal God of fire
& life. I am faded with
springtide & with the tide
of time. I feel as dust.
And he too – the beloved –
is a little thing of dust &
of the years that pass;
& yet there is a god between
us, & all our atoms of
dust, our moments of time,
do not discourage the Immortal.
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[E.C.]
On Sunday little Dodge, who came to
hear Tommy’s Gazelles169 read,
told us that B.170 was not expected.
On Monday Michael going to
Miss Toplady’s171 heard B. was
not expected, & broke into
torrent of wrath . . . Then in
stepped Logan172 & announced
“Well, they are here, as large
as life” – “Is B. come too” –
“Yes – I can’t think what for.
He is only coming for two days.”
My beloved hoped to tell
me the birthday of my Love
had come – but just before
her arrival a telegram came
from Mary. “Wednesday,
with so much pleasure”.
Yesterday Michael went to the
palace to enlighten Fay’s173
Eclipse, bearing a box of
lustrous purples crocuses – I
never saw such quarry;
they looked like shining
young stags in a heap.
Who else would sickle
crocuses thus in their sleek
abundance . . . And Fay had
gone, his fellow did not know
where – thought to Richmond.
He had not turned up to lunch.
It made us most down-hearted
& anxious last night, & lay
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[E.C.]
heavy on going to sleep. However
as we have heard nothing
& Shannon174 thought he had
come here we conclude all
is well. Dear Fay – for him
to disappear even for a few
hours is like a mistake
of the sun or stars.
Mary175 & B. are to go to tea
at the Palace tomorrow.
I must go & dress – the
rooms await Eros; the
congeries of dust is still
unadorned for the
visitation.
When we come down dressed,
the river was⟨is⟩ silver, grown
into a strength, silver on
the march & on ‘war-footing’.
I never have seen such an
attractive flood.
It is obscured all too soon –
the lilies swept on long stems
the frizzled radiance of their
flowering over⟨in front of⟩ the flood.
It was marvellous.
A voice at the door! “No – it is
not Bernhard. – Some-one bearing
a parcel” – The door opens . . .
but the voice was his! He comes
alone. Mary has had a delayed
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[E.C.]
attack of sea-sickness. We are very
sorry – her jollity would have
transfused blood into the
meeting. From the first I feel
he is God-forsaken – a little
desecrated shrine. There is no
God to meet. My heavy
premonition is tragically justified.
At dinner he burst out into
silly blasphemies, Michael bravely
stems, while Lillias176boils behind
me. Nothing makes me more
angry than this profane attacking
⟨of religion⟩in general talk at table – it
ought to be impossible – bad
form. Of course one forgets nightly
there are servants in the room
when the thousand things of
converse flash & more: but there
is one thing that should never
be treated with contempt in
their presences, because they are
bound to be silent – & that is
religion. It is noble manners to
humanity to remember this.
All Bernhard says is of that the f[?]
kind that comes near to
braying. “That cut-purse, that
unspeakable Cad – the chosen
of God – your psalmist David” – is
a mild specimen. By the way
he speaks of Herod as another
David – another Chosen of God –
When we try to turn the subject
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[E.C.]
of the Bible & introduce Josephus.
Bernhard is an American –
convinced, but not (as Michael
wittily puts it) infectious.
He has with a certain wisdom,
that has overdeveloped into
infatuation, tried to get the
best out of the men he has
met – the gigantic pork-
-butchers & cold-storers & c
– till they have become
“The eponymous heroes” of
America – indeed, they have
become America. It is silly
as it would be to call
our indispensable Cook
Paragon.
He never wearied of their financial
marshalling of their facts –
he could have listened for
months & years. There was
friendship too among them –
Achilles & Patroclus could have
been seen in the pork-butcheries.
There is no rippling of conversation
– only a dull current – &
Bernhard looks dusky, like
a golden lad who, like a
chimney-sweeper, has is come
to dust. Where is the light
of him?
He is only ‘life-enhancing’ on the
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[E.C.]
subject of Ricketts’ 177 Art. He realises
that Ricketts, like all real
artists, has themes in the forces
that condition his art – that
he is illuminated to treat
in the great manner the
pressure & recoil of human
bodies, with the ⟨a⟩ resulting
rhythm – the Samaritan, the
Centaur, the Entombment
are all variations on
the great laws of repose
pressure & resistance.
And being therefore elemental
in theme, they are important
as a drawings by Leonardo
are important.
Bernhard seems to be desirous
of attaching Fay; I cannot
help suspecting, in this swell
of appreciation the meshes of
a drag-net. He is the man
who counts as a spiritual
force on this side the channel.
B. seems a gorged little thing –
no charming words about
the roses, the lilies, the dainty
cates that almost cost us
ruin on a month of the year.
No heart-felt word on health
or happiness! Yet nothing
inimical – only a friendlessness
of soul. At dinner he
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[E.C.]
says he does not come to eat,
but to talk – “I would go anywhere
to talk” & I feel how futile to
say so. There can be no
talk after; & there is not. “I
am giving you an American
evening” he sighs out, as
if dissatisfied. Just for a
short space, when left alone,
I tell him of my pleasure
in his chapter & notes, on
Leonardo, & my appreciation
of the more restive & athletic
style of the Michael Angelo. And
I tell him of touches I
have given to his most
enticing & personal sentences.
We are warmer a moment –
a gulf-stream just fringes our
apartness – no more. Even
then he says with dusky
petulance “You know, Field,
I am a great person in
America”.
I cry when he is gone.
If it is tragic for a God to
take on human limits – it
is abjectly painful for a
man to keep his poor limits
& not take on some deity.
He goes through the door a
small, trim man; & therefore
full of disappointment to
himself & to others. He is dust –
he is trivial. I have seen him once too often.
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[K.B.]
March 24th.
He has lost all power of mood. All
atmosphere is withdrawn. One would
suffocate if one entered into his soul as a
dog suffocates in a Lethal Chamber. His eyes
are worse than blind – They are there, not
perceiving. He has drunk of the sweetness
of adulation, of the bitterness of spite;
for inspiration he believes the pork-butchers
are making the world go.
God has to bear all this from us; but this
Easter we will try to offer Him Souls, as
fresh & welcomed as a bit ofwormful[?]
turf to a pris lark!
Palm Sunday
March 27th.
We have provided our palm-seedling[?]
aforehand. We have put them
away, for they stink.
But I feel soft & open toward the
world where these feasts are
kept – I read hymns – hymns
that bring before me the brows
– the seas of the dead – I read
Herrick’s 178 “Sweet Spirit Comfort me”179
there is fog outside, & even the birds
forget to cry out.
Day of sweet blessedness & triumph –
I bless it still with its ⟨tossed⟩thyrsi[?] & lifted[?]
hearts.
Yesterday I visited Mary lying in
dazzling white silk, & face as dazzling,
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[K.B.]
After 24 hours [ delayed ]180 sea-sickness.
Ricketts was going to call on her,
yesterday afternoon.
Janet and I assist at Yeats’181 play
“The King’s Threshold.” To my
surprise the lovely, clear verse comes
flowing up to me in the back rows
of the dress-circle.
Only Yeats, I think, could have
made that scene of the poet lying
starving on the steps, not ridiculous
the cumulative force of the speech⟨poet⟩ is
very strong. The lover’s kiss will
be more fervent & more golden for
his resistance, in ages to come –
but there should not be a petty[?]
triumph at the end.
He should starve & die in his
Misery – the king perhaps visit
him a little shudderingly ⟨after death⟩, & with
orders for a great funeral.
There is sufficient force in “182 the Defence
of Poetry183 for one to be sure of the issue –
Helen Fry184, magnificent, was there
moving about – on another plane.
Bernhard185 was there – a dusk &
dusty fly. Old Archer crossed
me, a genial[?] of other years.
I return & read to my Beloved
with something of the sustained
cadence I have heard, the whole
play.
The other two plays are unclassed.
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[K.B.]
Monday, March 28th.
 He knows I wanted him
“to run down the Lamb,” & to discuss
the Irish plays. Mary is like the earth
or the sea, – very comely, a little crude.
Bernhard was very polite at the palace186;
but he is christened “Wopsie-Topsie”,
& one feels that the apparition of 94187
has been caught.
Yeats’s play is clean, & very Greek –
the poet of course should have died
& the people of the court should have
shown a great coldness to the king
after his death ⟨(Yeats’ chief actor)⟩3Fay’s acting impressed
Painter.188 Tommy189 has been rebuked in
a letter for dealing as he has with so
great a gentleman as Don Juan.
The mood of trouble has passed from
Painter, & the frolic of a breeze is
round him, as a halo.
Wednesday in Holy Week
From a letter to Amy7190
“And now ha’done, for I want
some fun. I am feeling very
happy in my spirit, & the hail
and the thunder can’t hurt me. This
Paragon191 looks so sweet. It is
decked with pots of azalea, & the
growing, living flowers bring
the Blessed near. Then my Painter
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[K.B.]
was[?] very wonderful on Monday, & this
morning I have the picture of him
ringed – matter of triumph to any
woman to have ringed that perfect
hand – more to have been poet to those
grave, Southern eyes. Henry192 says
with truth his eyes in their gravity
are as sunless olive-groves.
And now no more. I cannot
write at all these great Feast
times – but do “oo” write, & give my
love & blessing to John[?], & let us hear
of the parlours & Alice”
[E.C.]
Painter’s visit is delicious – It
has greatly enlivened him
to dish ‘the Lamb’ with
much mint sauce. I cannot
help admiring the touch of
crisp ridicule in his pose toward
his rival. The way in
wh: he says he was getting
on beautifully with Mrs Mary
when ‘Wopsy’193 came in from
the play is a masterpiece
of sleight-of-wit.
He gives a sportive & adulterous
airiness of suggestion that
is mirth-provoking. Yet
his real gravity of judgment,
for when he judges he is
serious as Minos194, is shown
in his phrase, ‘Mary has
diminished Bernhard – This is
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[E.C.]
greatly observed, because Mary
impresses him as so large &
buoyant in herself. But a
grea⟨large⟩ sea-shore of wind
& salt & sun does not always
cultivate our fineness or
the reaches of our sympathies.
Logan he is interested in — he is
like the Liftman, who died
because Michael did not
recognise he was a sonneteer.
B. came to the Palace in a ‘topper’ –
this was offensive: he put it
down on a satinwood table,
under flowers specially arranged
to irritate him, – this was
more offensive. He was questioned
on America, so as to give the
replies he didn’t want to; then
was taken round, & made the
artists richer by assuring them
a drawing they held in question
was a real Andrea del Sarto195.
Fay196 finds him elaborate, & in
mind, rather “sleepy”. He diag-
nosed him as shrewd rather
than intelligent – slow in his
judgment. But, of course, we
all know the real Bernhard
is far away, not in America,
but in a long cloud-land
journey.
 He is
obliged to agree with me that every
curve is false – yet he is charmed
all the same he is amused –
it is fun. And – he loves to see
Michael on it, supporting her arm, “
like a Bouchier lady, the
skirt training, the fantastic
curves round her. He feels
her choice in the vogue of a
couch; & its hump & flamboyancy
attract him magnetically.
We sit in the grot round
our ‘Ninon’. How merry
we are! Decidedly ‘lamb
& mint sauce’ make the
Painter’s heart gay
Fay remarked that Yeats’ second
line in ‘On The King’s Threshold’197 about
the two kinds of music
‘one that is like a man & one
that is like a woman’
made him quite uncomfortable.
There are aesthetic mistakes
that strike one as improper
– & one glances at the ladies.
Bernhard, coming back from
Yeats’ play, after some demur
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[E.C.]
& hedging, admitted he felt he had
been present at the birth of
a new something new.
Fay noted the Greek directness of
Yeats . . I attribute it to his
having drawn, like the Greek
Dramatists his subject from
Epical sources – where narrative
is direct.
We show Fay La Jeunesse de
Balzac198 – the frank portrait of
his bursting youth. Balzac Fay
almost hates – except his Contes
Drolatiques.199 In these he finds
a quintessence stronger in its
imaginative force than Cervantes200
or Rabelais201compassed[?].
It is a new creation in a sphere
where there is so little novelty.
Fay agrees that the actor Fay,
who directs the Irish Theatre is
one of the best alive, in spite
of amateur-training.
Fay shrinks from writing to Yeats
lest he should call – His presence
is disquieting – there is something
paralytic about it. And it is
so tiresome to hear him talk about
“po-etry” & wave his hands
round it
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[K.B.]
Good Friday –
A dazzling day – almost it
glitters as on the classic-Good
Friday morning when I paused from
my hoop[?] – & felt in the air endless burr[?],
the sky & ecstasy. It is a pure spring
day, & even the first little catastrophe
in thibet[?] cannot damp it.
Talk of swallows – When the first
little flotilla of boats lies on the surface
of the Thames then[?] to our waterside
There is spring.
We have spent the day very simply.
We read of Christ’s parting with his mother,
& the "It is finished", &, after breakfast,
Henry asked for my two Good Friday
Sonnets. We have been busy with a
scene of Mariamne – the⟨her⟩ last.
And I have written 4 lines of the
second Sonnet on Painter’s202 picture.
But what is the Beloved to behold
More than another? – He is pure
As substances that grain on grain endure,
As ambergris eternal in its gold.
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[K.B.]
Easter Day.
We give each other, not eggs, – fine
cigarettes & liquid ambergris.
– We wake in the dream-bed room
there are green-bay leaves on Father's
altar, & we turn to look at the portraits
of the parents.
We speak much of the ideal qualities
in Father, how Henry’s genius is from
him – And I drop into recollection of
the dismay my family experienced –
– & the congregation of the Church of
the Savior, & all who knew &
reverenced her that Emma Bradley203
should marry one so unworthy
of her. Well, he was worthy of in heart,
& infinitely finer in endowment.
He had brain; Henry's brain, & a
consciousness of unused power.

Alas, no: with us the eloquence, the
tongue – as the Euphrates in its abundance –
he could not speak; he could fashion.
Mother – the very bloom & flower of
religion – seemed no fitting bride for the
old-fashioned countryman with his
traditional faith & manners. Once
[????] – in a glow over some ⟨evidence⟩trait of
acumen in Edith – said "But with a
A Mother like Emma, the Bradleys VP[?]."
“But Emma married[?]no[?]fool[?]" was
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[E.C.]
The portrait of Fay204 is a wonderful
thing. It is Pan – the eyes
know the true[?] secrets of the universe
so intimately, they caress &
fondle them – are lazy with
them, ⟨are⟩ amused.
And the lips close as if at
rest from a shout, or a
syrinx[?] – some of the startling
sounds that make us
aware of secrets or create
them in our blood. There
is a touch that is grim
in the soft undulance –
something disconcerting
& of the power of austerity
in the midst of suppleness.
That month is closed, because
the god is under a cavern in
the efficiency of his contemplation.
He dents his cheek with one
finger & gathers up his jaw
in a hand that supports the
world as easily as Atlas’
neck.
One feels the ears must crenulate
into leaves – so much the
hearing will be extraordinary,
as in the alleys of a forest –
and even the month prepares
one for the goat's beard – the
malice of it is a little heady, there
is the touch of roughness, that
is solitary, in its civil, star-
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[E.C.]
charmed quiet.
One could beat him with squills
so heartily, if opposed to one –
& then run a g away as if
a phantom made you ⟨one⟩ cold.
Yet he is too balanced to be
Tragic – he sits in his cave
& thinks, not of catastrophes
but of consolations, till his
eyes grown gentle & have
entertainment in them.
Pan – with complexion like
the air in sensitiveness
of life – Pan who can be
boisterous & ⟨can be⟩ evocative as
an upland pipe – always
mysterious, on watch, not
to be resisted. Pan whom a
poet has ringed.
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[K.B.]
Easter-Day continued
– the deserved retort.
We speak of emotion – of our own
fitness for each other. Without me
Henry says, you would have been no
poet.” "Yes," – Longfellow.” Henry says
emotion grows could through contact
with the air: emotion must be from
the bubbling cauldrons within
He says how he & Fay have cleaned
my genius – that Fay has cleaned it,
as with emery powder.
I am able to spring out of bed, &
read “Christ the Lord is risen to-day”
from the old hymn-book. Henry
repeats "Christ ist erstanden"
& I read "Christ on passover is
sacrificed for us, therefore let us
reap the feast.
Now I commit Henry to Heaven's
care in the perilous hour of her
communion with the dead.
I should not like to meet her
that way, nor do I believe the
attempt would prosper; side by
side – the chink[?] of two oboli – & one
boat – that is my prayer for us.
– the first taste of the real life together
– the wonder in each other’s eyes –
my Easter prayer.
We have bay – bay triumphant over
each altar – Victory!
Notebook 18, Page Image 121; Vol. XVIII, Add MS 46793, fol. 60r; Ayah Hamed Falatah, Pearl Chaozon Bauer (Holly Laird); Add_ms_46793_121.jpg
[K.B.]
–and on Easter-even I rowed [?] across to fetch
black poplar from the other side.
– black poplar for the mother.
She has received it & I am blessed.
The growing crocus is in the boxes,
– ⟨in⟩& the ⟨grot the⟩ little couch[?] of rest.
– the crocus & the poppy are both flowers
I could have migrated into, & the
impatient poppy most of all.
There is nothing inhuman in this Easter
Day of spring-gale & sunshine.
We hear[?] the rooks in their nookiness[?]
as they caw, life is so excellent; we
give thanks for life; & for redeemed
life – life made holy in its very blood –
we give thanks.
-
“What is thy Beloved more than another Beloved”
But what is thy Belovèd to behold
More than another? – He is pure
As substances that grain on grain endure,
As ambergris eternal in its gold.
More wonderful & in aloofness bold.
His looking forth, more sensuously sure
than Pan's when from great caverns that immure
He looks abroad with all his flocks to fold.
More than another he is beautiful,
Nor is there any balm that gathereth
His sweetness up, or flower that you can pull:
From his own ecstasy he incenses
Even as a camel feeding on myrrh-trees. Finished205
Blows from his nostrils aromatic wreath Easter-Even
Notebook 18, Page Image 122; Vol. XVIII, Add MS 46793, fol. 60v; Samah Damanhoori, Pearl Chaozon Bauer (Holly Laird); Add_ms_46793_122.jpg
[K.B.]
April 7th.
There was a Spanish heat-
wave yesterday. For a few hours
Loved & I walked to & fro in the sunshine.
To-day extreme scowl & flutter of wind:
Henrie curled up by the fire.
I have sent a chocolate Easter Fish
for little Dolly (the blind woman's
child of the Norfolk family.)
Mrs. [????] writes her thanks for
Dolly's nice fish. ''I wish you could
have seen her. O my pensent[?]. She
claspt her little hands danse
jumpt about when that came
& my word we were as pleased
as the child. I had to take her
to Grandfather. He laugh till the
water ran down his face.''
Infinite jest of the chocolate fish! We
have brought tears of mirth to an
old man's eyes – & our own run
down with laughter!
A child at the zoo said '' Tiger, look at
me''. At last she threw into the den her
own infinitely precious Easter egg.
The tiger pushed out a paw – no egg, but
a shriek that waved its way even
to the monkey-house.
Frances Power Cobbe206 died on Tuesday
April 5 th. A very brave, a very gallant
woman. But for the sake of the most
Notebook 18, Page Image 123; Vol. XVIII, Add MS 46793, fol. 61r; Samah Damanhoori, Pearl Chaozon Bauer (Holly Laird); Add_ms_46793_123.jpg
[K.B.]
precious things of the spirit, for the sake of the
Saveur of the vines, and the fragrant substances
of earth. One must make protest against
her. First of all – born as every Woman
is to be man's helpmate – She hated man ⟨(as man)⟩, &
boasted that she had not been desired of him,
or desiring. She did not produce flower
or fruit after her kind.
May she energise in Mars somewhere!
– perhaps – there among the canals she will
do less harm!
Extract from letter to Amy.
– ''You have never made the tears
roll down Grandfather's face! Our
reward has been a black bird's nest,
with four blue, spotted eggs. Our re-
-turn eggs; & clear sweet throated Dickie
feeling suddenly choky in his singing –
for his beautifully-built cottage, & those
four mysterious little music-books
all gone.”
April 9th
The languor, the melancholy of the spring
– My mind is an almanach full of the
probabilities of low tides. I calculate every
morning the possible extent of my
tenure – How long this machine will be
to me – Life as it might be, seems so
attractive in age, & the drinking of the air
so sweet! It is the season of the Spring
that searches & gripes!
In the autumn I feel contemporaneous –
like a nice, ripe plum. In the Spring – like a
goose-berry flower, dropping ⟨turning⟩ off.
Notebook 18, Page Image 124; Vol. XVIII, Add MS 46793, fol. 61v; Samah Damanhoori, Pearl Chaozon Bauer (Holly Laird); Add_ms_46793_124.jpg
[E.C.]
April 8
Such primroses from Janet Dodge!
I have written:
A fresh & immediate note of thanks
for the primroses, dear Janet.
Among the difficult Arts of
Beautiful Living the Art
of gathering & presenting primroses
is scarcely ever learnt. Janet
is perfect in it. One usually
receives primroses with a sense
of nervous prostration, such
as a picture-gallery produces;
& with an inarticulate hatred
for the giver. But I lift out of
an orderly box little separate
nosegays, their tender stems,
that always make me think
of the feet of Arab girls that
have the heels & nails flushed
with henna, all ready to be
dipped in water. I bring out
the great ivory Leeds bowl,
I set the primroses' feet to
shine under its deep bath; &
there are the primroses in their
orient yellow, giving out their
languid perfume. – sweet girls,
but not to me of the West.
I bless Janet & so will Michael
when she returns from town.
Notebook 18, Page Image 125; Vol. XVIII, Add MS 46793, fol. 62r; Samah Damanhoori, Pearl Chaozon Bauer (Holly Laird); Add_ms_46793_125.jpg
[K.B.]
April 13 th
April is with us – the river sucks like
a young babe.
White rooted violets are come to us –
violets that look their scent. We hear
of the Manor Garden a sheet of violets
daffodils.
I frolic with the small leaves.
I write to Louie[?] who wanted us
to visit her Rugcite[?] Cottage on Saturday.
''Why do Widows always spoil one's
happiness?'' as the widow's Son
remarked, licking the oil from his
lips, when restored to life by Elijah.''
On the Priory Park from Gray's[?] letter.
''this morning Babs & I paced slowly &
reverently as if in church over the
Priory ridge – the old monks paced there
of old-feeling the same silence – the same
music too – the heavenly choir of larks
vying with each other in their sweet
sopranos – a lowing cow in the distance
chanting the amens in bass, a
chanticleer further off, still with a contralto
solo – trying to put out the larks. At our feet
little, wild strawberries in blossom, &
small wood violets. I have taught
Babs not to pick wild flowers & c.”
Monday, April 18th
Henry has been ill since Friday with a
strange, & most disquieting numbness
Notebook 18, Page Image 126; Vol. XVIII, Add MS 46793, fol. 62v; Samah Damanhoori, Pearl Chaozon Bauer (Holly Laird); Add_ms_46793_126.jpg
[K.B.]
in her lower limbs. On Saturday, the Doctor.
“The thing is superficial, but mysterious, &
it creeps. It is like a growing tide.
Panic seizes me, not in the superficies;
Henry trembles.
On Sunday Henry is in bed all day. The
widow & Tommy – These adverse souls –
encounter at supper. What is that “lilac
boss[?]” the widow asks of the ring?
''And what is the loose emerald for?'' to
look bright and to run about'' – retorts Tommy
tartly . .