THURSDAY 15/6/22

As is now his custom, he probably spends the morning writing: section #11, his usual c4000 words - ie, from the start of chapter vii "The Battle of Tongues" and the meeting with "Jaz" on the coal-jetty (MS pp 229-249) […One of these afternoons when Somers was walking down on the sands, looking at the different shells, their sea-colours of pink and brown and rainbow and brilliant violet and shrimp-red, and when the boats were loading coal on the moderately quiet sea, he noticed the little engine standing steaming on the jetty, just overhead where he was going to pass under…] to the supposed third meeting with Cooley in Sydney (reprising and embellishing the discussion with Rosenthal the previous Thursday). Interestingly - and perhaps ominously - he is now beginning to write about fairly recent happenings, having largely run out of (or caught up with) earlier events.

FRIDAY 16/6/22

However, he still has some earlier material he can either use, or reprise. So today he writes section #12 (again about 4000 words), taking the plot on from the meeting with "Jaz" at the coal-jetty, to the start of chapter viii, "Volcanic Evidence" (MS pp 249-279). He writes once more about his visit to Scott's flat (cf. the Welsh rarebit incident) two weeks earlier. He also overwrites some of the MS, perhaps indicating problems he is beginning to have advancing the plot. The weather the previous day was stormy, and it is then perhaps that he bathes naked - he has no cozies - in the surf, and returns to "Wyewurk" for sex with Frieda […"That was chic"…].

SATURDAY 17/6/12

Today he writes section #13, c3990 words (MS pp 270-289), from the "wooden heart" incident (where Somers sends a red wooden heart with the motto "The world belongs to the manly brave" to Cooley, showing his suitability for secret-army work), to another meeting with "Jaz" at "Coo-ee". There is a strong likelihood that Lawrence did send such a memento to Rosenthal, as the name on the heart is probably "Rosenthal", after the Black Forest village where it was made, and acquired by Lawrence in 1912. By now, Scott and Rosenthal, for their part, would have realised that Lawrence was not going to write for their journal […"I won't promise at this minute," said Richard, rising to escape. "I want to go now. I will tell you within a week. You might send me details of your scheme for the paper. Will you? And I'll think about it hard."…] and so they have no further interest in, or use for, him. Lawrence, however, has a considerable and ongoing interest in Scott and Rosenthal - for he is relying on them to provide him with his plot - so he has to do his best to keep in touch with them. (Hence, no doubt, the dispatch of the red wooden heart.)

SUNDAY 18/6/22

Not a writing day. Lawrence is now running out of things to write about, for he has used up almost everything that has happened to him in Sydney and Thirroul (the diary ingredients), some of them twice over. He may have spent Sunday and session #14 revising and rewriting (we cannot readily deduce when he revises the MS). He may even have turned back to his Verga translations (he has been translating the works of the Italian writer Giovanni Verga since he left Sicily earlier in the year - and will continue to do so after he finishes Kangaroo). Yet what he needs is more material from Scott and Rosenthal, to advance the political plot of the novel, which has now come to a stop, plot-wise (as he confesses both in the text […He had come to the end of his own tether…] and his letters - see below).