'Thursday 1st July This has been one of those demoralising days when a late rising leaves one unable to make any use of the shortened day. We should have gone to see Dad but left it too late. However, I have finished ?Orphan Island? and so added a rich recollection to my sum of experience. It is a great book. Really Great. The whole idea is inimitably that of the author of ?Told by an Idiot?. Rose Macauley?s chief charm is the delightful sustained humour of her prose. Every word is charmingly quiet and sweet, and yet how devastating the satire and the irony. What a pity. I have to admit to being so hopelessly ?orphan? since she finds so little in them but noise and sentiment.'