_What dividends?_
Sunday, 9 January.
_Thank goodness that I have only space to thank goodness that I
have only space wherein ... ~ad infinitum~...._
Thursday, 13 January.
_Received from Stephen’s mother his letter to his mother...._
_Received from Lady D. Stephen’s letter to ~[her]~ and wrote
to her in appropriate terms, expressing doubts upon Stephen’s
dietary while crossing the South-American continent, where
there are neither fish nor eggs, save the eggs of condors and
hummingbirds...._
Friday, 14 January.
_... My bank-balance is overdrawn, but I make 19/6 at bridge._
_... Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Martin arrive. I do not know if this is
the ~Daily News’~ Irish correspondent whom the Black and Tans
wanted to murder._
Tuesday, 18 January.
_Begin Couperus’ ~Iskander: The novel of Alexander the Great~;
two enormous volumes, which I may hardly live to translate.
It is a great joy to see this artist building up his story
with firm and elegant perfection from the very first page,
with conviction and a fine self-confidence, no grouping, no
floundering, no hesitation...._
Saturday, 23 January.
_Need something happen every day at Ventnor? Danged if there
need!_
Monday, 24 January.
_... The new rich arrive, Rolls-Royce and all._
Tuesday, 25 January.
_Those new rich! So new, so rich, so drearily unostentatious!
Young new richard bald, pan-snayed, ill-dressed; young new
wife and sister-in-law dowdy; young new secretary without a
dinner-jacket to his backside; young new baby and young new
nurse all over the place; young new Rolls-Royce, careering over
the island, the only sign of wealth._
_If only there were a few diamonds, a few banded cigars, a few
h’s dropping on the floor with a dull thud, one could at least
laugh. But the drabness, the gloom of these particular new
rich: O my lungs and O my liver!..._
Thursday, 27 January.
_It is terrible, the number of people who come to this hotel;
and I regret the pleasant, non-“paying” days when we were six
visitors and three musicians, with a full staff of servants
to wait on us. There are now over thirty people at meals, one
uglier than the other. And as soon as one goes two others take
his place...._
Sunday, 30 January.
_... To bed at 5, with my “special dinner” at 7, John Francis
Taylor’s meal: “Give me some milk; and let the milk be hot.
And give me some bread; and let the bread be inside the milk.”_
Monday, 31 January.
The Insurance herein contained is not valid until your name has
been registered.
_I don’t care. Yer can ’ave the insurance._
_The new rich have some business visitors._
Tuesday, 1 February.
_... Departure of the new riches’ little thyndicate of friends._
_Arrival of the dividend on my Benson & Hedges’ 10% 2nd
pref., the only shares wherein I have ever invested that have
ever paid any dividend whatever. Lord, how I have moiled
and toiled to sink money in stumer companies! Shrewsburry &
Talbot Hansoms! Galician Oilfields! Rubber substitutes! Cork
substitutes! Tampico-Panuco Deferred! United Transport Co.! In
the three last I still have holdings: about £250 in all. And
the things that I have inherited: thousand of dollars’ worth of
Mexican (and Turkish and Hungarian and Russian) rubbish, which
would barely fetch a tenner, all told!..._
Thursday, 3 February.
_... The new arrivals include a long, lean man ... and his
wife. His hair is dyed to suggest 55; he is probably a
cadaverous 77. He comes down to dinner in a white tie and
tails. His digestion is of the weakest. He refuses soup, leaves
the fish, refuses a cutlet, leaves the goose and seems to
dine mainly on ~crême Beau Rivage~, which is a ~crême carmel~
decorated with a blob of whipped cream and angelica. His
conversation with his wife consists purely of whispered smiles._
Friday, 4 February.
_I received letters from Stephen to me and from Stephen to his
mother. I have still to receive a letter from Stephen to Lady
D...._
_On his return he will borrow from me Frank Harris’ second
series of ~Contemporary Portraits~, just arrived from New York._
_There is no bridge at the Home-Sweet-Homes. I go to the club,
play with P. the local solicitor; Dr. W., of Harrogate; Mr. S.,
of the same and win the sum of £——2½ d._