Poetry and prose

Thursday, March 12th., Les Sablons.

I have tried for two days to find the rhythms for two poems that I found ideas for - one elegiac and the other Aristophanic, and can't. I am starting to feel, but perhaps not yet quite accepting, that poetry is not my medium. There is a sort of disconnection between my original conception and what appears when I write. Of course there are not many writers who have equal facility at poetry and prose. Hardy springs to mind, and Kipling. I may be wasting my time. When I have shown poems to a select few friends they are kind of course, but hardly enthused. Time to focus on what I can do well!

Speaking of which, I have read through the first part of "Old Wives Tale", and am deeply persuaded of its excellence. Also I feel ready to make a start on the second part on Saturday. The ideas have come quite easily. I am looking forward to getting on.

Today I had a notion for a more or less regular column of literary notes - title 'Books and Persons' - for the New Age, and I wrote and sent off the first column at once. I began to work this morning in bed at 6 a.m.

Yesterday I cycled in showers and through mud to Fontainebleau to meet the architect at the new house. Found it damp, but the works more advanced than I had expected.

Been reading Lord Acton. I am driven to the conclusion that his essays are too learned in their allusiveness for the plain man. I should say that for a man who specialised in the history of the world during the last 2,500 years they would make quite first class reading. I am not that man.