The Journal of a Disappointed Man

Masefield's "Gallipoli" It amused me to discover the evident relish with which the author of In the Daffodil Fields emphasises the blood and the flowers in the attack on Achi Baba. It's all blood and beautiful flowers mixed up together to Masefield's great excitement. "A swear word in a city slum A simple swear word is to some-- To Masefield something more." MAX BEERBOHM. Still, to call Gallipoli "bloody Hell" is, after all, only a pedantically exact description. You understand, tho', a very remarkable book--a work of genius. 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 second-hand--thro' the newspapers, the world of life thro' the halfpenny Daily News, and the world of books thro' 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.... December 24. Everyone I suppose engaged in this irony of Xmas. What a solemn lunatic the world is. Walked awhile in a beautiful lane close by, washed hard and clean and deeply channelled by the recent rain. On the hill-top, I could look right across the valley to the uplands, where on the sky line a few Firs stood in stately sequestration from common English Oaks, like a group of ambassadors in full dress. In the distance a hen clucked, I saw a few Peewits wheeling and watched the smoke rising from our cottage perpendicularly into the motionless air. There was a clement quiet and a clement warmth, and in my heart a burst of real happiness that made me rich even beside less unfortunate beings and beyond what I had ever expected to be again.