2.02.02 – Saturday
Read Zelda Fitzgerald’s novel; one gets the sense of scene and character, but the plot does not hang together particularly well and the flourishes can be heavy-handed. Immensely clever, but lacking something, some artistry, some polish, some ineffable thing, which might have made it very good indeed. Poor kid.
Listening to Haydn string quartets as. Reminds me of the glass in a divided light, glinting with ice in the sun. Also lemon yellow streaks of light running down the wall, and salmon pink upholstered chairs in some distant and forgotten house.
A curious feeling, that of having ever so many things to discuss, ideas to muddle, and such like, but lacking the appropriate audience. A vaguely useless feeling, as though wading through yards of unruly tulle.
But I am becoming fantastical. However:
‘If you approve, headmaster, I will stay as I am here as long as any boy wants to read the classics. I think it would be very wicked indeed to do anything to fit a boy for the modern world.’
‘It’s a short-sighted view, Scott-King.’
‘There, headmaster, with all respect, I differ from you profoundly. I think it the most long-sighted view it is possible to take.’