Didn't get out unitl 11.30 and we had lunch at noon in order to go to the International Ski-jumping competition, two miles off. We took the Huxleys. Frost, overcast. We drove there in a small sleigh, but had to walk at the end up hill about half a mile to get to our tribune, upon which we got excellent seats. The tribunes are built on poles down the 45 degree snow slopes of the jump. It looks terrifying.
The Scandinavians were the best and the Italians the worst, but there were exceptions. Apparently the jump dates from 1923 and was named after the hotel owner and financial supporter of its construction. In 1926 the jump was enlarged and jumps over 50 metres are now possible. We saw some today. The first jump gives you a great thrill but you soon get used to it, when you perceive that the chances of a serious accident are trifling. Mind you, you wouldn't get me doing it for any money. The swiftest of them you can hear hurtling through the air. I tried to watch the faces of the competitors as they flew past us and above me. On the whole they seemed fairly calm and set. Might just be rigid with terror!
I read an article in the Times Literary Supplement on "Re-reading Walter Pater", and found in it no reason why I should re-read Walter Pater. Huxley agrees with me.
For some reason I was struck whilst we were out there in the cold and snow by a new thought about sensory perception; in fact it came to me first when we were in the sleigh and I was looking about. All we really see are shapes and colours more or less in a blur until our eyes focus on something and we then identify it to ourselves. But we have seen it in an immediate sense before we 'know' what it is. So our bodies as it were are on a general look-out but our minds only get involved when something causes our eyes to focus. It's not a conscious process. Really our minds are more or less constructing the world out of a mass of sensory perceptions. I was talking to the Huxleys and Dorothy about this in a general way, though I don't think I conveyed my meaning very well. In fact I'm not too sure what my meaning is. And I made the suggestion that what the abstract painters are trying to do is to get back to the fundamentals of perception, shapes and colours. Aldous seemed interested but the women found it all a bit airy-fairy. In my experience women prefer tangible concepts.
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