Ides of March

4 Rue de Calais, Paris
March 15th., 1905


If my calculations are correct it is one thousand, nine hundred and forty nine years ago today that Julius Caesar was assassinated in the Roman Senate. Would the world have been a different place now had the assassination failed? Surely the answer must be "Yes". How different cannot be known, but different certainly. Which shows that the history of mankind turns unpredictably on the outcome of events. But is it just grand events like the death of Caesar? At first glance we might think so, but who is to say that what appear to be quite small events in the lives of people not in the public eye might have great consequences? Take the case of Caesar. He was captured by pirates on his way to Rhodes in 75 BC, when still relatively unknown. Suppose they had killed him? I wonder if I could summon up the imagination to write a sort of alternative history - probably not; it is a task better suited to the pen of my friend H G Wells. I may suggest it to him.

Today I finished the second part of "Sacred and profane Love". The book so far is over 6,000 words longer than I had anticipated, and I think the second part is rather better on the whole than I expected it would be when I started it.

I have read Oscar Wilde's "Intentions", and found it really very good. better than "De Profundis". I read also in "The Importance of Being Ernest", and found that admirably witty.

The French are a 'stuffy' nation; but they do hang their bedding out of the windows in the morning to air. This is more than can be said of the English. Though it does occur to me that if the matrons of the Five Towns hung their bedding out to air it would become so begrimed as to be impossible to restore to the beds.