Mary Butts Diary Entry

Monday, 18 July 1921

One wakes up, and the early light and work give an intensity to one’s thinking that is neither a delusion, nor all the trouble, but from another order of life and thinking. I reproach myself that I write not about magic, but about relations with C.M. [Cecil Maitland], but that is as good a formula for the play of opposites as any other.

He came to me to day and asked if I should mind if he left and went back to the East?

What can I say? I know that I should. I know pretty well what is wrong with him. I know that it is very little good talking round these antitheses.

I told him to adopt it as a quite possible plan and go ahead and go do three months stiff work for its own sake, and LET IT GO. By the end of that time, it would have solved itself.

That sort of advice does not please. But it’s like an antiseptic—keeps the wound clean, and allows its exact nature to appear without accusation. The exact proportion of sub-[illegible] elements can then rise.

(This is the hottest day, they say of this or last year)

A.C. says that in certain planes that I described there is a leak from the astral (accounting for ‘the place you wouldn’t spend the night in if you were paid’) People can be leaks. Salterns.

Astral journey—same symbol—Saw just a peacock, then the birds again, eating fire out of a dish under a throne where a stone female figure was seated. Then a most lovely naked woman half-lying on a throne with peacock’s tails behind her and long hair, very lovely legs. It was exquisite. Venus I suppose. Interrupted. Damn.

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