Jean's great desire is to meet "someone white." Yesterday I saw a horseman approaching in European riding kit and a topi. "Look, Jean," I said, "I believe that is an Englishman" but when he came up to us and raised his topi with a flourish Jean said mournfully, "No, it's nobody white," and I had to pick her up hurriedly in case she should say something more to hurt the poor Eurasian.
When we come in from our walk it is tiffin-time. After that the children are put to bed, and I sit in the verandah and write and rest. Did I say rest? This is what goes on:
I go into the nursery, and Jean, very wide awake, demands a needle and thread, as she wants to sew a dress for Topsy. I tie a piece of thread into a large darning-needle and supply her with my handkerchief, which she proceeds to sew into a tight ball. I return to my writing.
"Olivia, if this bungalow fell into the tank would it splash out all the water?"
"Then what would the water do when it fell back from the splash and found the bungalow blocking up its tank?"
Unable to think of an answer, I tell him to be a good boy and not disturb people when they are writing. Ronald begs for a piece of paper and a pencil, and having got it, proceeds to write down everything beginning with G. I once told Peter to do that, and his list when I looked at it ran: "God--Gollywog--Gordon Highlanders."...
Immediately I resume my writing it begins again, "Olivia" in every tone, peremptory, beseeching, coaxing--but like the deaf adder I stop my ears and refuse to hear. I am using this opportunity to write my great work on the Mutiny, and it isn't nearly so easy to write a book as I thought. No matter how much I try, my sentences seem all to stand up on end. I can't acquire any ease or grace of style. I read somewhere lately that young writers use too many adjectives, that good writers depend more on verbs. It has made me rather nervous and I keep counting both, but a certain dubiety in my own mind as to which is which greatly complicates matters. My heroine, too, is a failure, I like her name--Belinda--but it is the only thing I like about her. What is the good of me laboriously writing down that she is beautiful and charming when I am convinced in my own mind she is nothing of the kind? However, I mean to persevere....