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Mary Butts Diary Entry Thursday, 7 July 1921
There is Mercury—I forget where and don’t know what it means anyhow, in my horoscope.
I get Mercurial images when I do an astral journey.
When I write—I have in the last few years discovered the oblique approach and the ambiguous statement to convey the sharpest truth. This also sounds like Mercury.
A.C. gave me a precise account of Cecil’s [Cecil Maitland] character in the Yi King. Nothing externalized. He then rubbed my destiny in to me by the same book. He said (His will is set vehemently in things he has not the resolution to attain.) To me he said ‘You must realize that human beings are animals to be trained!’
A.C. did not know but the great question of my relations with human beings is raised again.
This implies a relative implies a relative inferiority in Cecil to myself—which is quite disgraceful. This breeds resentment in him and impatience in me—When he says ‘I’m trying, be patient’ I agree, but do not know what standard of patience to apply. And I am not patient anyhow. All this has its equal compensations in the directions of my freedom but I am unhappy at the cloud gathering in his mind against me—I want the clear vehement, mutual love alight again. It is not there as it was. I want [illegible] about it.
A.C. shews me a desolate path—Yet it is the one I prefer, because it is my ultimate will.
The situation could be written up for weeks. I can only speak to the daimon—
Courage to face these facts is deliverance from them.
If I am what I am I must be it, and [a] lie to C.M. won’t help him. Remember the tree whose root is kindness, whose flower is self-sacrifice, and whose fruit catastrophe.
It all whips my temper, my sickness at poverty, my resentment at this eternal call to self-sacrifice. Money too is my panic-point. The Yi-King stressed a point of childish dependence in him.
Oh daimon encourage me to hold my tongue.
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