Uplifted

Tuesday, December 4th., Cadogan Square, London.

Bad night. Somehow or other I have strained my back and it seems to be having some sort of sympathetic effect in my legs when I lie down. Must have pinched a nerve or something. So when I returned to bed at about three this morning I could not get comfortable enough to get back to sleep. Tossed and turned for an hour or so and then gave it up, and got up, and stayed up. Sat in my study (standing up periodically to stretch) browsing. I read my story "The Matador of the Five Towns". It is good, but not as good as "Simon Fugue" which is, I think, the best I have written. "Matador" hasn't quite got the balance or cohesiveness, though it is full of good things; perhaps I put too much in it? Interesting that I used the epithet 'matador' because I have been reading some of Hemingway's stories recently, and Jos Myatt is just the sort of taciturn, declining, complex sort of character that Hemingway might have put in a bull ring.

To liven myself up after my nap I walked by roundabout ways to the Garrick Club. En route I met and was stopped by four people, including one who didn't know me but thought he would like to be sure that I was I, and an old lady whom I had met once at Monte Carlo about seven years ago, just for a few minutes. Met Geoffrey Russell at the Club and he suggested I should go with him to Bach's B Minor Mass at St. Margaret's. I did. I ate oysters with him at the Reform hastily first. Church full. The whole thing marvellous. 

It seems that the Mass was not performed for many years after it was written and delivered, and Bach delivered it mainly as proof to his sovereign that he was fitted for post of capellmeister! Good performance. The effect was terrific; also uplifting, despite dowdiness of every woman in the congregation