preponderantly feminine. After a while I went up to the Hall and sat down—up came EZ to say hullo—she brought along some fellow Paulines, and unfortunately I could not keep a seat later. I will leave her now as she will fit into the general review. zic zfr
The introductory speeches were not very inspiring … Noel Baker giving a fairly good general talk. The Racial Problems talk was adequate apart from a complete silence on economic factors—rather a serious omission! zic zlu zra
Then a long break for lunch, followed by commission meetings. We started off tepid, and throughout our adult leader—a pleasant Pole—led rather too much; we got warmed up, but were definitely too woolly. We concentrated on anti-semitism—with a personal account from an extraordinarily beautiful Jewish girl and a German refugee. Informal chat—discussion after, then back by bus, having arranged to meet Elizabeth tomorrow before the lecture. zic zra zrg zmh zfr
Elizabeth is not pretty, but attractive, vivacious, and charming and sensible (ISC [i.e. a member of the inter-schools committee]). I feel I’ll like her, a lot; she impressed me greatly at the last conference and last term, in sexless, lonely, school, I used to weave fantasies around her memory. I have been deplorably reticent in my diary writing—very regrettably so; for who else is going to read these pages anyway? I think I will be capable of living a very full sexual life in its widest meaning, and I do feel very strongly the absence of feminine intimacy—I hope that my hopes towards such intimacy are not too rosy-tinted; Mother and Father’s lives comfort any doubts I may have in that direction. I feel that Elizabeth may to some extent fill that gap. Perhaps I shall find out. The dreams of youth are pleasant dreams — zfr zdw zfl zse zem zsy
That briefly is a large part of the emotional resumé of the past few months; during that time I wrote [to a] certain extent; some poetry—some I see as hopeless in a few days, some in a few weeks, others still seem poetry, and those I keep. zpo zwt
Politically I have advanced, but I do feel often how little I have done of real thinking on the subject; I often suddenly see where a failure to be objective has produced an idea which I have accepted for a long time and zpn
