Beaten to the post

Monday, December 12th., Cadogan Sqaure, London.

Mrs. P. Campbell came for tea yesterday at 5.30 and made a terrific outpouring. She said: "If you want to keep me quiet give me a cigar." So I gave her one. Later she went out into the Square and smoked it. Her energy seems quite unimpaired. She now wants to produce and play in "Flora". I discussed a few things with her and left the rest to Pinkers. 

Two or three years ago when Carter et al discovered Tutankhamun I said to one or two people that it didn't seem quite right to me to disturb him after all these years. I thought of writing an article on the subject but forgot and now the Bishop of Chelmsford has beaten me to it. It appears that Tut's mummy has now been unwrapped and scientifically examined. The Bishop writes, in the Times, "I wonder how many of us, brought up in the Victorian era, would like to think that in the year say 5923 the tomb of Queen Victoria would be invaded by a party of foreigners who rifled it of its contents, took the body of the great queen from the mausoleum in which it had been placed, and exhibited it to all and sundry who might wish to see it. ... I protest strongly against the removal of the body of the king from the place where it has rested for thousands of years. Such a removal borders on indecency." He has a point! I wish I had made it first!

I have finished my re-reading of Hardy's "The Woodlanders". Of course it is overblown at times, and some of the conjunctions that progress the plot don't stand up to scrutiny, but a magnificent book nevertheless. The whole atmosphere of the woodlands is marvellously created and sustained; it is the core of the book, almost a character. And in Marty South, Hardy has devised one of the noblest creations in fiction.