March 14 Thursday

Isabel working again but Laura not too good & self in bed all day. Kept temperature down with aconite. In the evening Laura also went to bed.
Read an old-fashioned novel (The Great Skene Mystery) 1 apparently written in 1900, very Dickensian; but preferable to the dreadful 1927 socialist-detective story by the Coles 2 which I couldn't read more than a few pages of.
Had a sudden desire for tea: which usually I don't drink.
Then there was another book published in 1917 Nov. by William Le Queux 3 called the Rascal Monk. It was all adjectives: incredible, verminous, unwashed, hypocritical, nameless, hypnotic. About Rasputin.
One nice phrase: 'she eyed him with askance' Slept well.

Editorial Notes

1By Bernard Cepes, a British writer of historical romances and detective fiction, primarily, although he also wrote a substantial number of ghost stories. eds.
2The husband-and-wife writing team of G.D.H. & M. Cole, Socialist luminaries, wrote several successful detective stories, and were viewed as being among the best writers of detective stories in the 1920's. eds.
3The first spy writer to spring to public fame was William Tufnell Le Queux (1864-1927), whose highly successful invasion novel The Great War in England in 1897 (1893), featuring an enemy spy, heralded a cascade of bestsellers over the next three decades, all of which employ a series of heroic male agents cut from sturdy patriotic cloth who save the nation from the plots of foreign spies. eds.

Hands Referenced

People Mentioned

  • Laura

    Riding, Laura
    (1901-91) American poet. Laura Riding (née Reichenthal; then Laura Gottschalk).

  • Isabella

    Isabel
    Live-in maid from Murcia. Her mother (Carmen) then came over with Josefa who also came to work later. WG