An exact diary of the Strike would be interesting. For instance, it is
now a 1/4 to 2: there is a brown fog; nobody is building; it is drizzling.
The first thing in the morning we stand at the window & watch the
traffic in Southampton Row. This is incessant. Everyone is bicycling;
motor cars are huddled up with extra people. There are no buses. No
placards. no newspapers. The men are at work in the road; water, gas &
electricity are allowed; but at 11 the light was turned off. I sat in the
press in the brown fog, while L. wrote an article for the Herald. A very
revolutionary looking young man on a cycle arrived with the British
Gazette. L. is to answer an article in this. All was military stern a little
secret. Then Clive dropped in, the door being left open. He is offering
himself to the Government. Maynard excited, wants the H[ogarth].
P[ress]. to bring out a skeleton number of the Nation. It is all tedious &
depressing, rather like waiting in a train outside a station. Rumours are
passed round—that the gas wd. be cut off at 1—false of course. One
does not know what to do. And nature has laid it on thick today—fog,
rain, cold. A voice, rather commonplace & official, yet the only common
voice left, wishes us good morning at 10. This is the voice of Britain,
to wh. we can make no reply. The voice is very trivial, & only tells us
hat the Prince of Wales is coming back (from Biarritz), that the London
streets present an unprecedented spectacle.