Saturday 12 February

Exactly what has happened in the Clive Mary affair I cannot say. Did he not sheepishly admit in the kitchen the 
other night that he was putting it off till March? & then, casually & jauntily tell me as if by chance, the other 
afternoon, here, that he was going after all. But wont Mary mind? What if she does?—that was practically his 
answer.

Vita's prose is too fluent. I've been reading it, & it makes my pen run. When I've read a classic, I am 
curbed &—not castrated: no, the opposite; I cant think of the word at the moment.

Had I been writing P[assenger] to T[eheran] I should have run off whole pools of this coloured water; 
& then (I think) found my own method of attack. It is my distinction as a writer I think to get this clear & my 
expression exact. Were I writing travels I should wait till some angle emerged: & go for that. The method of 
writing smooth narrative cant be right; things dont happen in one's mind like that. But she is very skilful & 
golden voiced.

This makes me think that I have to read To the L. tomorrow & Monday, straight through in print; 
straight through, owing to my curious methods, for the first time. I want to read largely & freely once: then to 
niggle over details.

But I am forgetting, after 3 days, the most important event in my life since marriage—so Clive described 
it: Bobo shingled me. Mr Cizec has bingled me. I am short haired for life. Having no longer, I think, any claims 
to beauty, the convenience of this alone makes it desirable. Every morning I go to take up brush & twist that old 
coil round my finger & fix it with hairpins & then with a start of joy, no I needn't. In front there is no change; 
behind I'm like the rump of a partridge. This robs dining out of half its terrors; in token of which, I'm 'dining out' 
(the distinction is clear: Roger & Clive & Bloomsbury aint dining out) with Ethel [Sands] & with the [Hubert] 
Hendersons.

For the rest—its been a gay tropical kind of autumn, with so much Vita & Knole & staying away: we 
have launched ourselves a little more freely perhaps from work & the Press. But now with Nessa away, Clive 
away, Duncan away, Vita away, the strenuous time sets in: I'm reading & writing at a great pace; mean to 'do' 
Morgan; have a fling at my book on fiction; & make all the money we want for Greece & a motor car. I may 
note that the first symptoms of Lighthouse are unfavourable. Roger, it is clear did not like Time Passes. Harpers 
& the Forum have refused serial rights; Brace writes, I think, a good deal less enthusiastically than of Mrs D. But 
these opinions refer to the rough copy, unrevised. And anyhow I feel callous: L.'s opinion keeps me steady; I'm 
neither one thing nor the other.

Yesterday Wells asked us to publish a pamphlet for him. This is a great rise in the world for us; & comes 
on top of rather a flat talk with Angus. L. says he doesn't "manage". Angus refuses to budge an inch. He can't see 
the point of it. As he says, too, whats he to do if he leaves? He doesn't want to leave. Though sometimes 'fed up' 
he likes it better than most work. But I'm persuaded we need, the press needs, a fanatic at the moment; not this
quiet easygoing gentlemanliness. I am annoyed at doing cards, & envelopes; & L. does twice the work I do.