Sometimes I sit and wonder whom I should leave my money to. Perhaps I had better start giving it away now. I have sent a cheque to the Buddhist Society and another to the Arbelow Peace Foundation, and will shortly amaze young Erasmus Blick, who is getting married, by my generosity. His Hamlet is still running, I still haven’t seen it. I imagine I shall leave all the oriental stuff to the British Museum, in fact they can have the books now. And I shall leave James’s poems to Toby. Why this anxiety to tidy up? Do I imagine I am going to die soon? Not really—yet it is as if that fall into the sea did damage me after all, not with body damage but with some sort of soul damage. Perhaps James died of soul damage? I am perfectly healthy and do not feel that I am becoming an ‘elderly party’, but I notice that people are beginning to treat me as if I were one, and this must be a reflection of my own sense of myself. They give me presents, potted plants and tins of jellied chicken, and ask me if I am all right. Am I all right? Rosemary has given me some pottery soup bowls.
Last night someone on a BBC quiz did not know who I was.