Spendthrift of pity

Saturday, February 10th., Maldon, Essex.

Maldon

I am here with my father and my brother Sep. Father has had a very serious nervous breakdown and is staying with me at Fulham Park Gardens for a complete rest. He seems better at the moment but in my opinion (and his own) he will never be the same man again. Fortunately his business can go on in his absence. Frank has taken up the strain. Strange thing to be looking after one's parents rather than being looked after. Even the way we adfdress each other is changing. I am paying close attention to the details of the change as it occurs to me that they may be useful at some time in the future, professionally I mean.

I am very much focused on short stories of the Five Towns at present. There seems to be a rich vein of material which is unexplored by other authors, though some have touched on it. I think I am on to something. The Five Towns is a great place, full of plots. My father's reminiscences have livened me up considerably. I have also been working on a play, in collaboration with Arthur Hooley, called "The Chancellor". I can never tell if a play is going to do well or not; don't think anybody can until it is actually produced somewhere and even then it may not last.

This evening we stood on a bridge over the Blackwater at the bottom of the town. There was snow everywhere, a very keen frost, and a bright moon approaching the full. On either side of the river, the wharves and warehouses were silhouetted in deep tones. The tide was comig in and we could hear a faint continuous crackling, or mysterious rustling as the ice, constantly forming, was crunched and crumbled gently against the projecting piles of the wharves. We stood quite still in this silent town and listened to this strange soft sound. Then we threw tiny pebbles over the bridge and they slid along the surface of the river. The water froze in broad areas as it passed under the bridge.

We saw a very fat and aged woman walking home, very carefully. The road was extremely slippery and a fall would have been serious to one of her age and weight. To me she seemed rather a pathetic figure, balancing herself along ... And yet, if I have learned anything, it is not to be a spendthrift of pity. She would be all right.