In good form

Friday, November 17th., Eltham, Torquay.

Presently staying with the Phillpotts's for a few days. I have a large bedroom with a prime view over Torbay. Always relaxing here but I am working as well. I feel in great form for work. In fact I feel pretty well in general at the moment. The new bachelor lifestyle suits me well. Yesterday I took Mrs. P. out shopping and we became a little flirtatious, being about the same age. Nothing serious of course but it does the spirit good to be able to make a sort of proto-sexual connection; I thought I had lost the knack of it! And of course there is Adelaide, the daughter, late 20s I should think. Quite pretty and I think she has a preference for older men. Interesting that this sort of thing is going around in my head nowadays.

Dorothy has a small part at the Kingsway Theatre, but she couldn't really have come here with me anyway. Some proprieties must be observed. For some reason we got onto talking about Ruskin last evening and Eden rehearsed the old story about his unconsummated marriage with Effie Gray. Allegedly he was completely unmanned at the sight of her naked body, or more specifically her pubic hair. I must say that I think it apocryphal. More likely in my view that he was a suppressed homosexual, married for reasons of convention an undeveloped young woman, and just couldn't do the necessary when it came to it. One wonders how these stories arise and are propagated. If I have time and opportunity I will try to find out some facts.

Dorothy was trying to advise me about treatment for my stammer the other evening. Nice of her to make the effort but, as I said to her, I think I have considered or indeed tried all possible therapies. Any treatment will do you a certain amount of good for a time, because the affection is extremely responsive to hetero-suggestion. But none that I have ever heard of will act when it is really needed. I used to discuss this matter with the late W.H.R. Rivers, one of the greatest specialists in nervous affections. He could never suggest anything better than to forget the trouble and leave it alone. As he stammered himself he would be likely to know all there was to be known. Also he was a very intimate friend of mine and a really great man. The affection is due to a defect of the brain, which gives contradictory orders simultaneously when disturbed in a certain way. I have even tried hypnotism. Why the subject is not more readily studied than it is by experts I have never understood for the affection is very widespread (among males - it is very rare among females). The nervous strain of it is of course continuous and severe - very severe. The said strain is too much for many sufferers and they retire to the completest privacy that they can arrange for. It is always a marvel to me that I, with my aciute general sensitiveness, have risen above this enormous handicap and am even, inspite of it, recognised as a great 'persuader' of people.