January 31 + 

Showers of snow at intervals, the little flakes rocking about lazily or spiralling down, while the few that eventually reached the ground would in a moment or so be caught up in a sudden furious puff of wind, and sent driving along the road with the dust. + 

My usual little jaunt up the lane past the mossy farmhouse. Home to toasted teacakes and a pinewood fire, with my wife chattering prettily to the baby. After tea, enchanted by the reading of a new book⁠—Le Journal de Maurice de Guérin⁠—or rather the introduction to it by Sainte-Beuve. I devoured it! I have spent a devouring day; under a calm exterior I have burnt up the hours; all of me has been athrob; every little cell in my brain has danced to its own little tune. For today, Death has been an impossibility. I have felt that anyhow today I could not die⁠—I have laughed at the mere thought of it. If only this mood would last! If I could feel thus always, then I could fend off Death for an immortality of life. + 

But suddenly, as now, the real horror of my life and future comes on me in a flash. For a second I am terrified by the menace of the future, but fortunately only for a second. For I’ve learnt a trick which I fear to reveal; it is so valuable and necessary to me that if I talked of it or vulgarised it my secret might be stolen away. Not a word then! + 

Later. I have just heard on the gramophone, some Grieg, and it has charged my happiness with disrupting voltage of desire. Oh! if only I had health, I could make the welkin ring! I shall leave so little behind me, such a few paltry pages beside what I have it in me to do. It shatters me. + 