Strange feelings

Monday, March 1st., Winter Palace Hotel, Menton.

I wrote 700 words this morning, and 700 this afternoon, of my new novel which I think I shall call "The Vanguard". Dorothy worked on her scenario of my short story "Death, Fire and Life", and so was not ready to go out until 12.22.  We sat in the garden of the hotel for a bit, and began to lunch fairly early. After a snooze we went out at 3 and walked down to the level ground, about six minutes, and then Dorothy did not want to walk any more, and we took a victoria and went about town shopping. I think that pregnancy is starting to make her lazy, and warned her that she will get fat if not careful. She laughed.

I have been reading more of Yeats's "Celtic Twilight". It is an engaging little book. Simple but elegantly written. I particularly like the way Yeats tells the reader, without frills or comment, what he has himself been told about supernatural experiences. Their matter-of-fact delivery makes them more credible. Yeats describes a couple of weird experiences of his own but shrinks from saying that he believes in 'faeries'; intimates that he may have fallen under some sort of enchanting influence. But I think he does believe. A part I was reading today about the feeling one can get in isolated places, especially woods, rang a bell with me. I have sometimes felt that sense of heightened awareness, a sort of anticipation that something strange is going to happen, even on one occasion in Bradwell Woods when I was a boy. I can remember that just in the act of taking one step I felt as if I had crossed some sort of line, things were quieter, I became wary, and wanted to look round as if I was being watched. Not scared exactly, but conscious that there was more around me than I had been aware of previously. This must have been forty odd years ago, and yet I can resurrect the feeling now, and the hair on my neck rises.

We have had an invitation to visit the Wells's for one of their 'weekends' but won't be back in England in time. Our intention is to leave here next Sunday and travel by easy stages to Paris, then on to Calais and home.