Sunday 29 December 1940: 'I detest the hardness of old age --I feel it. I rasp. I'm tart. 'The foot less prompt to meet the morning dew, The heart less bounding at emotion new, And hope, once crush'd, less quick to spring again. 'I actually opened Matthew Arnold & copied these lines [from "Thyrsis"]. While doing so, the idea came to me that why I dislike, & like, so many things idiosyncratically now, is because of my growing detachment from the hierarchy, the patriarchy [...] I am I; & must follow that furrow, not copy another. That is the only justification for my writing & living.'