Wednesday 10 August 1921: 'I may well ask, what is truth? And I cant ask it in my natural tones, since my lips are wet with Edmund Gosse. How often have I said that I would never read anyone before beginning to write? The book came at breakfast, & I fell. He is one of the respectables [...] But how low in tone it all is -- purred out by the firesides of Dowagers. That is not quite true, seeing that he has some sturdiness, some independence, & some love of letters. The peculiar combination of suavity, gravity, malignity, & common sense always repels me.'