text:
<|entry|><|pepys|>
6 June 1662.
At my office all alone all the morning, and the smith being with me about other things, did open a chest that hath stood ever since I came to the office, in my office, and there we found a modell of a fine ship, which I long to know whether it be the King’s or Mr. Turner’s. At noon to the Wardrobe by appointment to meet my father, who did come and was well treated by my Lady, who tells me she has some thoughts to send her two little boys to our house at Brampton, but I have got leave for them to go along with me and my wife to Hampton Court to-morrow or Sunday. Thence to my brother Tom’s, where we found a letter from Pall that my mother is dangerously ill in fear of death, which troubles my father and me much, but I hope it is otherwise, the letter being four days old since it was writ. Home and at my office, and with Mr. Hater set things in order till evening, and so home and to bed by daylight. This day at my father’s desire I lent my brother Tom L20, to be repaid out of the proceeds of Sturtlow when we can sell it. I sent the money all in new money by my boy from Alderman Backwell’s.
<|/entry|>

persona: pepys


text:
<|entry|>
[Prompt: Write about your day.]
9 February 1668.
(Lord’s day). Up, and at my chamber all the morning and the office doing business, and also reading a little of “L’escholle des filles,” which is a mighty lewd book, but yet not amiss for a sober man once to read over to inform himself in the villainy of the world. At noon home to dinner, where by appointment Mr. Pelting come and with him three friends, Wallington, that sings the good base, and one Rogers, and a gentleman, a young man, his name Tempest, who sings very well indeed, and understands anything in the world at first sight. After dinner we into our dining-room, and there to singing all the afternoon. (By the way, I must remember that Pegg Pen was brought to bed yesterday of a girl; and, among other things, if I have not already set it down, that hardly ever was remembered such a season for the smallpox as these last two months have been, people being seen all up and down the streets, newly come out after the smallpox.) But though they sang fine things, yet I must confess that I did take no pleasure in it, or very little, because I understood not the words, and with the rests that the words are set, there is no sense nor understanding in them though they be English, which makes me weary of singing in that manner, it being but a worse sort of instrumental musick. We sang until almost night, and drank mighty good store of wine, and then they parted, and I to my chamber, where I did read through “L’escholle des filles,” a lewd book, but what do no wrong once to read for information sake.... And after I had done it I burned it, that it might not be among my books to my shame, and so at night to supper and to bed.
<|/entry|>


text:
<|entry|>
4 November 1661.
At the office all the morning. At noon I went by appointment to the Sun in Fish Street to a dinner of young Mr. Bernard’s for myself, Mr. Phillips, Davenport, Weaver, &c., where we had a most excellent dinner, but a pie of such pleasant variety of good things, as in all my life I never tasted. Hither came to me Captain Lambert to take his leave of me, he being this day to set sail for the Straights. We drank his farewell and a health to all our friends, and were very merry, and drank wine enough. Hence to the Temple to Mr. Turner about drawing up my bill in Chancery against T. Trice, and so to Salisbury Court, where Mrs. Turner is come to town to-night, but very ill still of an ague, which I was sorry to see. So to the Wardrobe and talked with my Lady, and so home and to bed.
<|/entry|><|entry|>
19 November 1661.
At the office all the morning, and coming home found Mr. Hunt with my wife in the chamber alone, which God forgive me did trouble my head, but remembering that it was washing and that there was no place else with a fire for him to be in, it being also cold weather, I was at ease again. He dined with us, and after dinner took coach and carried him with us as far as my cozen Scott’s, where we set him down and parted, and my wife and I staid there at the christening of my cozens boy, where my cozen Samuel Pepys, of Ireland, and I were godfathers, and I did name the child Samuel. There was a company of pretty women there in the chamber, but we staid not, but went with the minister into another room and eat and drank, and at last, when most of the women were gone, Sam and I went into my cozen Scott, who was got off her bed, and so we staid and talked and were very merry, my she-cozen, Stradwick, being godmother. And then I left my wife to go home by coach, and I walked to the Temple about my law business, and there received a subpoena for T. Trice. I carried it myself to him at the usual house at Doctors Commons and did give it him, and so home and to bed. It cost me 20s, between the midwife and the two nurses to-day.
<|/entry|><|entry|>
24 November 1661.
(Lord’s day). Up early, and by appointment to St. Clement Danes to church, and there to meet Captain Cocke, who had often commended Mr. Alsopp, their minister, to me, who is indeed an able man, but as all things else did not come up to my expectations. His text was that all good and perfect gifts are from above. Thence Cocke and I to the Sun tavern behind the Exchange, and there met with others that are come from the same church, and staid and drank and talked with them a little, and so broke up, and I to the Wardrobe and there dined, and staid all the afternoon with my Lady alone talking, and thence to see Madame Turner, who, poor lady, continues very ill, and I begin to be afraid of her. Thence homewards, and meeting Mr. Yong, the upholster, he and I to the Mitre, and with Mr. Rawlinson sat and drank a quart of sack, and so I to Sir W. Batten’s and there staid and supped, and so home, where I found an invitation sent my wife and I to my uncle Wight’s on Tuesday next to the chine of beef which I presented them with yesterday. So to prayers and to bed.
<|/entry|>


text:
<|entry|>
27 December 1663.
Up and to church alone and so home to dinner with my wife very pleasant and pleased with one another’s company, and in our general enjoyment one of another, better we think than most other couples do. So after dinner to the French church, but came too late, and so back to our owne church, where I slept all the sermon the Scott preaching, and so home, and in the evening Sir J. Minnes and I met at Sir W. Pen’s about ordering some business of the Navy, and so I home to supper, discourse, prayers, and bed.
<|/entry|>


text:
<|entry|>
4 May 1663.
Up betimes and to setting my Brampton papers in order and looking over my wardrobe against summer, and laying things in order to send to my brother to alter. By and by took boat intending to have gone down to Woolwich, but seeing I could not get back time enough to dinner, I returned and home. Whither by and by the dancing-master’ came, whom standing by, seeing him instructing my wife, when he had done with her, he would needs have me try the steps of a coranto, and what with his desire and my wife’s importunity, I did begin, and then was obliged to give him entry-money 10s., and am become his scholler. The truth is, I think it a thing very useful for a gentleman, and sometimes I may have occasion of using it, and though it cost me what I am heartily sorry it should, besides that I must by my oath give half as much more to the poor, yet I am resolved to get it up some other way, and then it will not be above a month or two in a year. So though it be against my stomach yet I will try it a little while; if I see it comes to any great inconvenience or charge I will fling it off. After I had begun with the steps of half a coranto, which I think I shall learn well enough, he went away, and we to dinner, and by and by out by coach, and set my wife down at my Lord Crew’s, going to see my Lady Jem. Montagu, who is lately come to town, and I to St. James’s; where Mr. Coventry, Sir W. Pen and I staid a good while for the Duke’s coming in, but not coming, we walked to White Hall; and meeting the King, we followed him into the Park, where Mr. Coventry and he talked of building a new yacht, which the King is resolved to have built out of his privy purse, he having some contrivance of his own. The talk being done, we fell off to White Hall, leaving the King in the Park, and going back, met the Duke going towards St. James’s to meet us. So he turned back again, and to his closett at White Hall; and there, my Lord Sandwich present, we did our weekly errand, and so broke up; and I down into the garden with my Lord Sandwich (after we had sat an hour at the Tangier Committee); and after talking largely of his own businesses, we begun to talk how matters are at Court: and though he did not flatly tell me any such thing, yet I do suspect that all is not kind between the King and the Duke, and that the King’s fondness to the little Duke do occasion it; and it may be that there is some fear of his being made heir to the Crown. But this my Lord did not tell me, but is my guess only; and that my Lord Chancellor is without doubt falling past hopes. He being gone to Chelsey by coach I to his lodgings, where my wife staid for me, and she from thence to see Mrs. Pierce and called me at Whitehall stairs (where I went before by land to know whether there was any play at Court to-night) and there being none she and I to Mr. Creed to the Exchange, where she bought something, and from thence by water to White Fryars, and wife to see Mrs. Turner, and then came to me at my brother’s, where I did give him order about my summer clothes, and so home by coach, and after supper to bed to my wife, with whom I have not lain since I used to lie with my father till to-night.
<|/entry|><|entry|>
11 May 1663.
Up betimes, and by water to Woolwich on board the Royall James, to see in what dispatch she is to be carried about to Chatham. So to the yard a little, and thence on foot to Greenwich, where going I was set upon by a great dogg, who got hold of my garters, and might have done me hurt; but, Lord, to see in what a maze I was, that, having a sword about me, I never thought of it, or had the heart to make use of it, but might, for want of that courage, have been worried. Took water there and home, and both coming and going did con my lesson on my Ruler to measure timber, which I think I can well undertake now to do. At home there being Pembleton I danced, and I think shall come on to do something in a little time, and after dinner by coach with Sir W. Pen (setting down his daughter at Clerkenwell), to St. James’s, where we attended the Duke of York: and, among other things, Sir G. Carteret and I had a great dispute about the different value of the pieces of eight rated by Mr. Creed at 4s. and 5d., and by Pitts at 4s. and 9d., which was the greatest husbandry to the King? he persisting that the greatest sum was; which is as ridiculous a piece of ignorance as could be imagined. However, it is to be argued at the Board, and reported to the Duke next week; which I shall do with advantage, I hope. Thence to the Tangier Committee, where we should have concluded in sending Captain Cuttance and the rest to Tangier to deliberate upon the design of the Mole before they begin to work upon it, but there being not a committee (my Lord intending to be there but was taken up at my Lady Castlemayne’s) I parted and went homeward, after a little discourse with Mr. Pierce the surgeon, who tells me that my Lady Castlemaine hath now got lodgings near the King’s chamber at Court; and that the other day Dr. Clerke and he did dissect two bodies, a man and a woman; before the King, with which the King was highly pleased. By water and called upon Tom Trice by appointment with Dr. Williams, but the Dr. did not come, it seems by T. Trice’s desire, not thinking he should be at leisure. However, in general we talked of our business, and I do not find that he will come to any lower terms than L150, which I think I shall not give him but by law, and so we parted, and I called upon Mr. Crumlum, and did give him the 10s. remaining, not laid out of the L5 I promised him for the school, with which he will buy strings, and golden letters upon the books I did give them. I sat with him and his wife a great while talking, and she is pretty woman, never yet with child, and methinks looks as if her mouth watered now and then upon some of her boys. Then upon Tom Pepys, the Turner, desiring his father and his letter to Piggott signifying his consent to the selling of his land for the paying of us his money, and so home, and finding Pembleton there we did dance till it was late, and so to supper and to bed.
<|/entry|><|entry|>
18 May 1663.
Up and after taking leave of Sir W. Batten, who is gone this day towards Portsmouth (to little purpose, God knows) upon his survey, I home and spent the morning at dancing; at noon Creed dined with us and Mr. Deane Woolwich, and so after dinner came Mr. Howe, who however had enough for his dinner, and so, having done, by coach to Westminster, she to Mrs. Clerke and I to St. James’s, where the Duke being gone down by water to-day with the King I went thence to my Lord Sandwich’s lodgings, where Mr. Howe and I walked a while, and going towards Whitehall through the garden Dr. Clerk and Creed called me across the bowling green, and so I went thither and after a stay went up to Mrs. Clerke who was dressing herself to go abroad with my wife. But, Lord! in what a poor condition her best chamber is, and things about her, for all the outside and show that she makes, but I found her just such a one as Mrs. Pierce, contrary to my expectation, so much that I am sick and sorry to see it. Thence for an hour Creed and I walked to White Hall, and into the Park, seeing the Queen and Maids of Honour passing through the house going to the Park. But above all, Mrs. Stuart is a fine woman, and they say now a common mistress to the King,

as my Lady Castlemaine is; which is a great pity. Thence taking a coach to Mrs. Clerke’s, took her, and my wife, and Ashwell, and a Frenchman, a kinsman of hers, to the Park, where we saw many fine faces, and one exceeding handsome, in a white dress over her head, with many others very beautiful. Staying there till past eight at night, I carried Mrs. Clerke and her Frenchman, who sings well, home, and thence home ourselves, talking much of what we had observed to-day of the poor household stuff of Mrs. Clerke and mere show and flutter that she makes in the world; and pleasing myself in my own house and manner of living more than ever I did by seeing how much better and more substantially I live than others do. So to supper and bed.
<|/entry|>


text:
<|entry|>
[Prompt: Describe where you are.]
24 April 1664.
(Lord’s day). Up, and all the morning in my chamber setting some of my private papers in order, for I perceive that now publique business takes up so much of my time that I must get time a-Sundays or a-nights to look after my owne matters. Dined and spent all the afternoon talking with my wife, at night a little to the office, and so home to supper and to bed.
<|/entry|>


text:
<|entry|>
9 November 1664.
Called up, as I had appointed, by H. Russell, between two and three o’clock, and I and my boy Tom by water with a gally down to the Hope, it being a fine starry night. Got thither by eight o’clock, and there, as expected, found the Charles, her mainmast setting. Commissioner Pett aboard. I up and down to see the ship I was so well acquainted with, and a great worke it is, the setting so great a mast. Thence the Commissioner and I on board Sir G. Ascue, in the Henery, who lacks men mightily, which makes me think that there is more believed to be in a man that hath heretofore been employed than truly there is; for one would never have thought, a month ago, that he would have wanted 1000 men at his heels. Nor do I think he hath much of a seaman in him: for he told me, says he, “Heretofore, we used to find our ships clear and ready, everything to our hands in the Downes. Now I come, and must look to see things done like a slave, things that I never minded, nor cannot look after.” And by his discourse I find that he hath not minded anything in her at all. Thence not staying, the wind blowing hard, I made use of the Jemmy yacht and returned to the Tower in her, my boy being a very droll boy and good company. Home and eat something, and then shifted myself, and to White Hall, and there the King being in his Cabinet Council (I desiring to speak with Sir G. Carteret), I was called in, and demanded by the King himself many questions, to which I did give him full answers. There were at this Council my Lord Chancellor, Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Treasurer, the two Secretarys, and Sir G. Carteret. Not a little contented at this chance of being made known to these persons, and called often by my name by the King, I to Mr. Pierces to take leave of him, but he not within, but saw her and made very little stay, but straight home to my office, where I did business, and then to supper and to bed. The Duke of York is this day gone away to Portsmouth.
<|/entry|>


text:
<|entry|><|vangogh|>
13 July 1888.
Just a line in great haste to tell you that I have this minute received a note from Gauguin. He says that he has been too hard at work to write before, but is ready to come south at any moment, as soon as he can see the possibility of so doing. They are having an amusing time over there, painting, discussing, and contending with the virtuous Englishmen. He speaks in high praise of Bernard’s work, and B. is equally flattering about Gauguin’s. I am now painting here with as much enthusiasm as the man of Marseilles eats his bouillabaisse, and this will not surprise you seeing that my subject consists of sunflowers. I have three pictures in progress: (1) Large flowers in a green vase; (2) Three flowers, two in the bud and one in bloom, on a royal blue ground; (3) Twelve flowers and buds in a yellow vase (the latter being light against light), will I hope be the best of the three. I shall probably not leave it at that. Pending the time when I shall share my studio with G., I should like to decorate it with a scheme consisting only of large sunflowers. In a restaurant near your shop (in the Boulevard Montmartre), there is, as you know, a beautiful decoration of this sort. In my mind’s eye I can still see the great sunflower in the shop window before me. The whole scheme is to be a symphony of yellow and blue. I set to work every morning from daybreak onwards; for the flowers fade quickly and the whole thing must be done at one go. I have a host of ideas for new pictures. To-day I saw the same collier being unloaded by coal-heavers as that which I have already mentioned to you. At the same time I also saw vessels with cargoes of sand, of which I have sent you a drawing. That would be a splendid subject! But at present I am trying to discover a more simple technique which perhaps is not impressionistic. I should like to paint in such a way that everyone with eyes to see could not help but read a clear message from my pictures.
<|/entry|>

persona: vangogh


text:
<|entry|><|vangogh|>
[Prompt: Set down the truth of this day.]
18 February 1890.
Have you read “Madame Chrysanthème,” and made the acquaintance of Monsieur Kangourou, that pander, so overwhelmingly obliging, with the sugared spices, the fried ices, and the salted sweetstuffs?

I have seen a wooden figure of a woman, in a peasant garden here, which came from the prow of a Spanish ship. It stood in the midst of a group of cypresses, and the whole effect was very like Monticelli. Oh! what a lot of poetry there is in these farm-gardens, with their abundance of lovely red Provençal roses, these vineyards, these fig trees, and the perennially powerful sun, in spite of which the green of the vegetation remains so fresh! There are also the reservoirs with their clear water running over the orchards through diminutive channels which constitute a regular canal system on a small scale; and the old grey horse of “la Camargue” which sets the machine in motion. No cow is to be found in these farmyards. My neighbour and his wife (who are grocers) are extraordinarily like the Buteaux. But in these parts the peasant holdings, the inns, and even the lowest cafés, are less gloomy and less tragic looking than they are in the north; for the heat makes poverty less cruel and less lugubrious. I wish to Heavens you had seen this country! But our first concern must be to await developments in Gauguin’s quarter.
<|/entry|>


text:
<|entry|><|mansfield|>
9 December 1915.
Then the big one, rolling about in the shaking train, said what a fatal place this coast is for anyone who is even threatened with lung trouble. She reeled off the most hideous examples, especially one which froze me finally, of an American belle et forte avec un simple bronchite who came down here to be cured and in three weeks had had a severe haemorrhage and died. " Adieu mon mari, adieu mes beaux enfants."

This recital, in that dark moving train, told by that big woman swathed in black, had an effect on me that I wouldn't own and never mentioned. I knew the woman was a fool, hysterical, morbid, but I believed her; and her voice has gone on somewhere echoing in me ever since. . . .

Juliette has come in and opened the windows; the sea is so full of 'little laughs' and in the window space some tiny flies are busy with their darting, intricate dance.
<|/entry|>

persona: mansfield


text:
<|entry|><|mansfield|>
27 February 1919.
First he thought a cafe in some foreign town . . . in Spain . . . no, in Grenoble, perhaps . . . sitting listening to music and watching the people. We are just passing

through. . . . There is a lake and a river near. . . . But then, no. A farmhouse in Sussex — some good old furniture — knocking about in the garden — rolling the lawn, perhaps — yes, rolling the lawn. An infant

— two good servants. And then, when it grew dark — to go in, have some milk, then I go to my study and you to yours and work for about an hour and a half and then trundle off to bed. I would like to earn my living, but not by writing. I feel that my talent as a writer isn't a great one — I'll have to be careful of it. . . . Yes, that's what I'd like. No new places — no new things. I don't want them. Would you like that?
<|/entry|>


text:
<|entry|>
25 July 1921.
All this ! All that I write — all that I am — is on the border of the sea. It's a kind of playing. I want to put all my force behind it, but somehow, I cannot!

Ful gay was al the ground, and queynt, And poudred as men had it peynt With many a fresh and sondry flour That casten up ful good savour.

It's a chill, strange day. I can just get about. I decided this morning to write to S about the Swiss

Spahlinger treatment: whether it would be suitable for me, etc. And I shall wire you to-morrow, asking

you to go and see S. Say what you like. But let

him know that I am practically a hopeless invalid. I have tried to explain about money to him; why I haven't paid him, and I have promised to pay the first moment I can. . . .
<|/entry|>


text:
<|entry|><|mansfield|>
11 April 1920.
I never can remember what happens. It is so without outline. Yesterday falls into the general shade. But all the time one looks back and there are

wonders. There is always Miss H. stretching out her hands to the great defiant mosquito — crying with a kind of groan — "Oh, the darlings!" That remains for ever. And then one must never forget the dog which gets all the love of children. "Going nice ta-tas, my ducksie pet!"
<|/entry|>


text:
<|entry|><|mansfield|>
16 December 1914.
Katherine Mansfield

Edited by

J. Middleton Murry

Alfred A. Knopf New York • 1928

Copyright 1927 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

Manufactured in the United States of America

Published September, 1927

Second Printing October, 1927

Third Printing November, 1927

Fourth Printing November, 1927

Fifth Printing January, 1928

Sixth Printing July, 1928

Illustrations

1914 FRONTISPIECE

1908 viii

London, 1913 xvi

1913 14

1914 18

"Chummie," October 1915 34

Garsington, 1916 66

1917 72

Paris, April 1918 80

Mentone, April 1920 152

Mentone, 1921 178

Montana, 1921 196

"Grandma" 224

Introduction

Katherine Mansfield (Katherine Middleton Murry, née Kathleen Beauchamp) was born in Wellington, New Zealand, on October 14, 1888. She was the third daughter of a family of five. The Beauchamps had been in Australia and New Zealand for three generations. The greater part of her early childhood was spent in a small township called Karori, a few miles from Wellington, where the village school was the only school, and where she shared what education there was with the milk boy and the washerwoman's daughters (see The Doll's House). She has left it on record that she had her first story accepted at the age of nine — I remember her saying that it appeared in a magazine called The Lone Hand — and that, at the same age, she gained the first prize for English composition at the village school, the subject being "A Sea Voyage."
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
14 May 1914.
At the age of thirteen she was sent to be educated in England, at Queen's College, Harley Street, where she remained till eighteen. There she edited the college magazine. Like other young people of her generation, she found the beginning of intellectual freedom through an admiration of Oscar Wilde and the English "decadents," but, at this time, her main interests shifted over from literature to music. She became a devotee of the violoncello, and a fine executant.

She returned to New Zealand much against her will, and spent the next two years of her life in fairly constant rebellion against what she then considered the narrowness and provincialism of a remote colonial city. Inevitably, London appeared to her as the living centre of all artistic and intellectual life. A family of musicians in Wellington, whom she knew intimately, and who had been a kind of oasis for her in what seemed to her an intellectual desert, left New Zealand for London. At their departure she was in despair. She went on a rough camping expedition through the New Zealand bush. On her return she persuaded her parents to allow her to return to London on a small allowance.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
17 September 1914.
Shortly afterwards, she finally abandoned music for literature. She submitted manuscripts to editors in vain, and, in her effort to make ends meet, she had varied and exacting experiences in minor parts in travelling opera companies and the like, until the quality of her writing was recognised by the editor of The New Age. From 1909 to 1911 she was a fairly constant contributor to that paper. A series of stories she wrote for The New Age, based on her experiences while convalescent in Germany after an illness, was collected and published in 1911, under the title In a German Pension. This book was immediately recognised. It passed quickly into three editions, when its sale was disastrously interrupted by the sudden bankruptcy of
<|/entry|>


text:
<|entry|><|maclane|>
27 March 1917.
A deathly pathos
I love the sex-passion which is in this witching Body of me. I love to feel its portent grow and creep over me, like a climbing vine of tiny red roses, in the occasional dusks.

It is no shame or shadow or sordidness: but beauty and sweetness and light.

no token of sin: a token of virtue.

no thing to crush: rather to nurture, to garner.

no thing to forget: to remember, to think about.

no flat weak drawn-out prose: live potent clipped heated poetry.

not common and loosely human: rare and divine.

not fat daily soup: stinging wine of life.

not valueless because born of nothing and nowhere: valuable, priceless, a treasure under lock and key.

Sex-desire comes wandering in dusk-time and gulfs me as in a swift violent sweet-smelling whirlwind. It goes away sudden-variant as it came, out of a region of hot quick shadows.

And for that, for hours and days afterward, oranges and apples look brighter-colored to my eyes: hammocks swing easier as I sit in them: rugs feel softer to my feet: the black dresses lend themselves gentler to my form: pencils slide faciler on paper: my voice speaks less difficultly into telephones: meanings sound super-vibrant in Keats’s Odes: sugar--little pinches of granulated sugar--are shaper, sweeter-sweeter in my throat.

And God grows less remote. And my wooden coffin and deep wet yellow clay grave move a long way back from me.

--all from fleeting ungratified wish of sly sex-tissues--

Also in it, and in my life from it, I sense some deathly pathos.
<|/entry|>

persona: maclane


text:
<|entry|>
11 February 1917.
The merciless beauty
Sometimes the dusk is full of fire.

Some dusks I sit by my window looking out and hotly and coldly want a Lover: hotly with my Body and coldly with my Mind.

A dusk has just gone. I sat looking out at it.

A mist of dark cream tinged with heated violet came from nowhere and hung above the ground.

Suddenly came on me a sense of bewildering mysterious beauty.

In it was a feel of rippling warmth that crept into my bone-and-flesh from forehead to heel, from temples to soles, from crown to toe-tips.

It crept slow and suffocating like magic chloroform.

I leaned elbows on window-sill and chin on palms and sunk my gaze in the violet shades outside and straightway knew I wanted a Lover: not in delicate moonlit culmination like Juliet in her balcony: not denyingly like the timid young nun in her cloister assailed unaware by faint forbidden emotions.

I wanted a Lover like the jungle leopard leaping through the Springtime covert at nightfall to find her mate.

It is a subtle and an obvious feeling, made of a merciless beauty.

It is the tired urge of sex-tissues and nerve-cells: positive, furious, fiery as the bloodiest sun.

It is the same which the heated leopard feels in her sharp immaculate lust. It is quite the same--but it could not move me as I sat alone loverless to the knitting of an eyebrow, to a change of posture, a movement of elbows on the window-sill or of palms beneath my chin. Nor could it, though the potential Lover had stood outside my window.

For any woman of any charm the world is full of Lovers: each and all to be had by the flutter of her finger, the droop of her white eyelids, the trembling of her pink-bowed lips. The world is full of them--facile Lovers, craven, potent and pinchbeck. And it’s that kind I want hotly with my Body, coldly with my Mind in dusks of rippling warmth--rippling, rippling warmth--

I want the Lover as the leopard wants hers. But I’m not a leopard: instead, a woman-person of keen sentientness and wild wistful imagination. So I wouldn’t so much as crook a finger to call a Lover to me: a curious nervous inertia.

It’s only I want the Lover with frantic blind cosmic ardors inside me.

I analyze it in my magic Mind and find I would call no Lover. I analyze farther and find I’d reject all but an impossible one-in-ten-thousand. But remains the desire, hot as live embers, cold as hail.

Sex is an odd attribute. It has been to me like a blest impediment and a celestial incumbrance and a radiant curse.--

When I was seventeen I stood on a threshold and peered curiously into a dim-lit strange-scented Room.

It was unknown to me then. My mind alone bespoke it. As I stood at its doorway the air it wafted out touched my sense with only the lightest frayed-cobweb contact, unintelligible and unenlightening. I had lived an emptily alone girlhood. I was icily virginal.

At five-and-twenty I crossed the Room’s threshold. I breathed lightly the odd fragrance. I looked curiously around. I touched some amorous-looking grapes and some love-promising apples that lay about: I bit into one and burst a grape with my finger and thumb. I gathered a weak-petaled flower or two. I gauged the Room and its furnishments and was unthrilled by anything in it. Even bodily it left me unthrilled.

Those two memory-mists do not keep me in the now-dusk and in the strength and terror and fire of top-most youth from wanting a sudden Lover with all that’s in my Body.

Love has naught to do with it. Love is a flame-winged Bird. I know it. I know the values of my life and of me. I do not mistake tapers for torches, ducats for louis d’ors, vicarious nepenthe for dreamless death.

In dusk-moments my bone-and-flesh is all of me I’m sure of. It begins and ends in this earth. It answers the violent summonses of this earth and its dusks.

In the just-gone dusk I felt the prickling blood flow to my finger-ends. A flood-tide, blinding red, surged and seethed and bubbled and pounded at my heart.

‘I want a Lover--some Lover’--I murmured to the shadows beyond my window.

I grew breathless.

The spirit of my flesh rose like a wind-blown flame.

A loud cry rang in my nerve-wilderness.

That moment the variant analysis which always rides with me stopped dead.

There came instead sheer feeling--the merciless beauty.

--a man-person, maybe--the man of happy unanalytic brutality--to be suddenly there with me: to flash into my shadowy solitude like a lightning bolt and burst and break me.

--a quarter-hour of exquisite wildness--restlessness, made of Star-flame and Lily-petal and Cloud-burst on Mountain-summits and Sea-waves purple in a Stormy Dawn--an intolerable hunger and ecstasy--

But just gone and I sit writing it in the pale cast of thought.

But breathlessly I recall the breathlessness of it.
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