Diary of a Provincial Lady

by E.M. Delafield

(Query: Why do all schools have to run up New Buildings about once in every six months?)

Home yesterday and am struck, as so often before, by immense accumulation of domestic disasters that always await one after any absence.

(Query: Is thought on abstract questions ever a waste of time?)

Does not a misplaced optimism exist, common to all mankind, leading on to false conviction that social engagements, if dated sufficiently far ahead, will never really materialise?)

(Query: Cannot many of our moral lapses from Truth be frequently charged upon the tactless persistence of others?)

(Query: Is not a common hate one of the strongest links in human nature?

(Strange divagations of the human brain under the stress of extreme nervousness presents itself here as interesting topic for speculation.

Realise – not for the first time – that intelligent women can perhaps best perform their duty towards their own sex by devastating process of telling them the truth about themselves.

(Query here suggests itself: Is not silence frequently more efficacious than the utmost eloquence? Answer probably yes. Must try to remember this more often than I do.)

‘Dreadful, isn’t it?’ Cannot help feeling that she has summarised the whole situation quite admirably.

(Mem.: Candid and intelligent self-examination as to motive, etc., often leads to very distressing revelations.)

Is it utterly impossible to combine the amenities of civilisation with even the minimum of honesty required to satisfy the voice of conscience? Answer still in abeyance at present.)

(Query: Does motherhood lead to cynicism? This contrary to every convention of art, literature, or morality, but cannot altogether escape conviction that answer may be in the affirmative.)

(Should be sorry to think impulses of hospitality almost entirely dependent on convenience, but cannot altogether escape suspicion that this is so.)

so, as usual, sacrifice truth to demands of civilisation.)

(Mem.: Very marked difference between the sexes is male tendency to procrastinate doing practically everything in the world except sitting down to meals and going up to bed.

Have often noticed that absence of parental solicitude usually very beneficial to offspring.

(Far from overlooking it, have actually been kept awake by it at night.)