be to risk emotional shipwreck.
*
Charles, if no one else, seems much happier since his day out with Elaine. I asked him if he knew what havoc he had wrought. He grimaced and said there was nothing like a change of air for making one appreciate the smell of home. No one ever answers my questions . So I repeated this one and he said no, he didn’t feel in the least guilty, if that was what I meant. But it didn’t sound very convincing.
Charles: Margaret never said anything about me not meeting her that morning.
Me: Did you try the flower trick again?
Charles: Not bloody likely.
*
Charles’s college, which happens also to be Delta’s (how tactfully I put that), is rather beautiful at this time of year, small and cool and full of green shade. One stands in the front quad and pretends one can hear the sound of pages being turned in the rooms. One can’t. Delta seemed rather surprised to see me. He was still in his pyjamas. He blushed like a schoolboy caught in the act. (Perhaps he had been in the act, one never knows.) While he was dressing in the bedroom we talked through the half-open door. It was ajar, I think deliberately, so that I could occasionally catch glimpses of him in the mirror over the basin. Why I allowed myself to do this I am not sure. I think the ambivalence of my feelings for Phi is partly responsible for the lapse. I don’t feel quite attached to the earth when I am with Delta, or when I think of Phi. Suspended. De tached. Interested. And amused. I wonder how I shall hit the earth again. Hard, no doubt. Delta seemed to linger unnecessarily long over his dressing, I thought. But he never once looked in the mirror, not even to brush his hair. So I think he knew perfectly well that I could see him. And did not want to be disappointed in case I wasn’t looking. Really, the stratagems of … love?
Later, when he was dressed and shaved, we walked to the Rawlinson , but it was too late for coffee. I told him he should be ashamed at getting up so late, and what had he been doing the night before? He said he couldn’t sleep properly, it was too hot. I suggested cold baths, and he laughed. Wet towels, and he laughed again. All the time while he was laughing there was distinct venery in his eye. I think. I have done no work at all today. With Delta all or most of the morning, and asleep in the library this afternoon. Delta insisted on me having one more beer than I usually allow myself for lunch. In this state of suspension I have no power to resist minor temptations . Too busy resisting the major ones, I suppose. And of course an extra drink in midsummer is not really a temptation at all, it is a way of life. I think I need a holiday. Where? Not Brighton it seems, anyway. Delta is going off to Dorset, of all places, to spend a week-end with his aunt.
*
Perry Miller quotes John Winthrop: ‘For wee must Consider that wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill, the eies of all people are uppon us.’ If the founders of America were really concerned to reform Europe rather than create a new society in America, is it not now the duty of Europe to try and reform America? I loathe all Puritanism. The founders of America were a most unpleasant collection of bigots, no loss to the religious strife of England. But they did have a vision, they did have a sense of mission and purpose. Now that America has indeed become a City upon a Hill—a completely different city, of course, and a completely different hill—now that the eyes of the world are in a very real sense upon it, the sense of purpose and mission has been lost. Or rather it has been corrupted into unintelligent Communist-hunting. You have to be a bit of a bigot to have a sense of purpose, I suppose, but chasing bogeymen is rather undignified for modern America. Her danger is in her empiricism. She is too powerful for it to be safe for her to drift, as she does, from one crisis to another. She does not know what to do with her enormous wealth and power. A
*
Charles, if no one else, seems much happier since his day out with Elaine. I asked him if he knew what havoc he had wrought. He grimaced and said there was nothing like a change of air for making one appreciate the smell of home. No one ever answers my questions . So I repeated this one and he said no, he didn’t feel in the least guilty, if that was what I meant. But it didn’t sound very convincing.
Charles: Margaret never said anything about me not meeting her that morning.
Me: Did you try the flower trick again?
Charles: Not bloody likely.
*
Charles’s college, which happens also to be Delta’s (how tactfully I put that), is rather beautiful at this time of year, small and cool and full of green shade. One stands in the front quad and pretends one can hear the sound of pages being turned in the rooms. One can’t. Delta seemed rather surprised to see me. He was still in his pyjamas. He blushed like a schoolboy caught in the act. (Perhaps he had been in the act, one never knows.) While he was dressing in the bedroom we talked through the half-open door. It was ajar, I think deliberately, so that I could occasionally catch glimpses of him in the mirror over the basin. Why I allowed myself to do this I am not sure. I think the ambivalence of my feelings for Phi is partly responsible for the lapse. I don’t feel quite attached to the earth when I am with Delta, or when I think of Phi. Suspended. De tached. Interested. And amused. I wonder how I shall hit the earth again. Hard, no doubt. Delta seemed to linger unnecessarily long over his dressing, I thought. But he never once looked in the mirror, not even to brush his hair. So I think he knew perfectly well that I could see him. And did not want to be disappointed in case I wasn’t looking. Really, the stratagems of … love?
Later, when he was dressed and shaved, we walked to the Rawlinson , but it was too late for coffee. I told him he should be ashamed at getting up so late, and what had he been doing the night before? He said he couldn’t sleep properly, it was too hot. I suggested cold baths, and he laughed. Wet towels, and he laughed again. All the time while he was laughing there was distinct venery in his eye. I think. I have done no work at all today. With Delta all or most of the morning, and asleep in the library this afternoon. Delta insisted on me having one more beer than I usually allow myself for lunch. In this state of suspension I have no power to resist minor temptations . Too busy resisting the major ones, I suppose. And of course an extra drink in midsummer is not really a temptation at all, it is a way of life. I think I need a holiday. Where? Not Brighton it seems, anyway. Delta is going off to Dorset, of all places, to spend a week-end with his aunt.
*
Perry Miller quotes John Winthrop: ‘For wee must Consider that wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill, the eies of all people are uppon us.’ If the founders of America were really concerned to reform Europe rather than create a new society in America, is it not now the duty of Europe to try and reform America? I loathe all Puritanism. The founders of America were a most unpleasant collection of bigots, no loss to the religious strife of England. But they did have a vision, they did have a sense of mission and purpose. Now that America has indeed become a City upon a Hill—a completely different city, of course, and a completely different hill—now that the eyes of the world are in a very real sense upon it, the sense of purpose and mission has been lost. Or rather it has been corrupted into unintelligent Communist-hunting. You have to be a bit of a bigot to have a sense of purpose, I suppose, but chasing bogeymen is rather undignified for modern America. Her danger is in her empiricism. She is too powerful for it to be safe for her to drift, as she does, from one crisis to another. She does not know what to do with her enormous wealth and power. A
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