A dream

Saturday, January 3rd., Comarques, Thorpe-le-Soken.

Neuralgia has stopped me working for two days but I resumed this morning.

Woke with a dream clear in my head, which is unusual for me. I wasn't actively involved in the dream, just a sort of observer, but I could talk to others, though they only seemed to see me if I spoke to them. We were in a large house in a town, more like a hospital or school or some institution in fact. Men and women were living there and they never went outside. They were not prisoners exactly but just discouraged from exiting. They cooked for themselves, communally or singly, and stores were 'magically' replenished between times, so they had no need to go out. Anyway two or three of the men became discontented and decided to go into the town which was easily done as there were no guards, just by forcing an external door. I followed them into the town where they sort of wandered about, staying together, just looking round. There were some street entertainers, but not very interesting. After quite a short time one of them said: "Shall we go home?" and the others readily agreed. They went in as they had left and secured the door behind them, breathing a collective sigh of relief. That was all. I suppose the message to me is to be content with what I have, which is in fact a great deal.

The Spences came over to dinner on Thursday night from the Grand Hotel at Frinton. Spence is the dramatic critic of the Westminster Gazette. He said that, concerning the Maybrick affair which is nearly 30 years ago now, Mrs. Maybrick was understood to be guilty, and that she had confessed to wardresses immediately after sentence It was said that she had arsenic in the pocket of her peignoir and administered it by means of a handkerchief pressed to Maybrick's mouth when he complained of dry lips, or something of that kind. But Spence could not explain why Charles Russell remained always persuaded of her innocence. Apparently Mrs. Maybrick is still alive having had her sentence commuted, and subsequently reduced. Maybrick seems to have been a rather horrible individual.

A local man, schoolteacher, has been showing me his collection of stone age 'tools'. Just small pieces of flint in the main which you wouldn't notice unless you were looking out. But he showed me how they had been deliberately shaped for various purpose such as hammering, scraping and cutting. Some are very sharp and would certainly be effective. He also had a couple of arrow heads, very finely crafted, which must have taken a great deal of work. I had no idea about such things, and was much impressed. He seemed to think they might be more than 10,000 years old. Amazing to hold something that old in your hand and to think of the connection with the person who made it.