December 23
To be cheerful this Xmas would require a coup de théâtre—some sort of psychological sleight of hand.
I get downstairs at 10 and spend the day reading and writing, without a soul to converse with. Everything comes to me secondhand—through the newspapers, the world of life through the halfpenny Daily News, and the world of books through the Times Literary Supplement. For the rest I listen to the kettle singing and make symphonies out of it, or I look into the fire to see the pictures there. …