Monday 16 May

The book. Now on its feet so far as praise is concerned. It has been out 10 days—Thursday a week 
ago. Nessa enthusiastic—a sublime, almost upsetting spectacle. She says it is an amazing portrait of mother; a 
supreme portrait painter; has lived in it; found the rising of the dead almost painful. Then Ottoline, then Vita, 
then Charlie [Sanger], then Lord Olivier, then Tommie, then Clive: poor Clive—he came in, ostensibly to praise 
this 'amazing book—far the best you've ever written' but found Eddie who imposed himself resolutely, sharply; 
& so sat on, but how wandering & unhappy. I have scarcely seen him in this mood ever before—like a person 
awaked from a sweet dream. But what is it? A disillusionment? A shock? He sees Mary. Has he lost faith? Has 
the dancing mist of rhapsody failed him—he who was based so solidly on such beef & beer or champagne rather. 
Suppose one woke & found oneself a fraud? It was part of my madness—that horror. But then as Clive said, you 
go mad but you bound up again—the inference being that he was to stay mad.

                                                Sold 1802 of The L.: if it makes 3,000 I shall be as they
This it did on July 13th             say more than content. Mervyn [Arnold-Forster] dead—did I
                                         record; & I haunted for a time by the sight of his prim pinched face, with
the nice blue eyes, so suddenly stilled: so unseasonably. The eye plays a large part in these affairs.