The Journal of a Disappointed Man

July 2. I've had such a successful evening--you've no idea! The pen simply flew along, automatically easy, page after page in perfect sequence. My style trilled and bickered and rolled and ululated in an infinite variety; you will find in it all the subtlest modulations, inflections and suavities. My afflatus came down from Heaven in a bar of light like the Shekinah--straight from God, very God of very God. I worked in a golden halo of light and electric sparks came off my pen nib as I scratched the paper. July 3. The Clever Young Man Argued with R---- this morning. He is a type specimen of the clever young man. We both are. Our flowers of speech are often forced hot-house plants, paradoxes and cynicisms fly as thick as driving rain and Shaw is our great exemplar. I could write out an exhaustive analysis of the clever young man, and being one myself can speak from "inspired sources" as the newspapers say. A common habit is to underline and memorise short, sharp, witty remarks he sees in books and then on future occasions dish them up for his own self-glorification. If the author be famous he begins, "As ---- says, etc." If unknown the quotation is quietly purloined. He is always very self-conscious and at the same time very self-possessed and very conceited. You tell me with tonic candour that I am insufferably conceited. In return, I smile, making a sardonic avowal of my good opinion of myself, my theory being that as conceit is, as a rule, implicit and, as a rule, blushingly denied, you will mistake my impudent confession for bluff and conclude there is really something far more substantial and honest beneath my apparent conceit. If, on the other hand, I am conceited, why I have admitted it--I agree with you--but tho' there is no virtue in the confession being quite detached and unashamed--still you haven't caught me by the tail. It is very difficult to circumvent a clever young man. He is as agile as a monkey.