November 23
Great physical languor, especially in the morning. It is Calvary to get out of bed and shoulder the day’s burden.
“What’s been the matter?” they ask.
“Oh! senile decay—general histolysis of the tissues,” I say, fencing.
Tonight, I looked at myself accidentally in the glass and noticed at once the alarming extent of my dejection. Quite unconsciously I turned my head away and shook it, making the noise with my teeth and tongue which means, “Dear, dear.” M⸺ tells me these waves of ill-health are quite unaccountable unless I were “leading a dissolute life, which you do not appear to be doing.” Damn his eyes.
Reading Nietzsche. What splendid physic he is to Pomeranian puppies like myself! I am a hopeless coward. Thunderstorms always frighten me. The smallest cut alarms for fear of blood poisoning, and I always dab on antiseptics at once. But Nietzsche makes me feel a perfect mastiff.
The test for true love is whether you can endure the thought of cutting your sweetheart’s toenails—the onychectomic test. Or whether you find your Julia’s sweat as sweet as otto of roses. I told her this tonight. Probably she thinks I only “saw it in a book.”
On Sunday, went to the Albert Hall, and warmed myself at the Orchestra. It is a wonderful sight to watch an orchestra playing from the gallery. It spurts and flickers like a flame. Its incessant activity arrests the attention and holds it just as a fire does—even a deaf man would be fascinated. Heard Chopin’s Funeral March and other things. It would be a rich experience to be able to be in your coffin at rest and listen to Chopin’s Funeral March being played above you by a string orchestra with Sir Henry Wood conducting.
Sir Henry like a melanic Messiah was crucified as usual, the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 causing him the most awful agony. …