I recognize that I shall have to improve my strength of will before I can expect to get anywhere in life - because I do find it very difficult to make up my mind upon issues which present themselves. It always seems as if new points for consideration keep flooding to my attention. Even when I may think that I have decided such an issue, I often wish to change my mind, or simply fail to keep the resolutions I have made - things like an intention to concentrate upon something over the next given hour, or to get up early on a particular morning. When the moment arrives, my mind latches on to diverse matters for consideration, to the loss of the original resolve. Or sometimes it's just a question of enjoying the sensation of idleness - which doesn't say much for my future prospects in life.

On the subject of my strength of character as an individual, I might fare better in any analysis. I think I do have potential, even if it is still immature. I feel hampered at present by my own uncertainty with regard to any course that I should take, which often hinges on an absence of self-assertion. But once I do get the majority of my problems sorted out, I am hoping that my character will rapidly fall into shape.

As to the subject of my intelligence, I am confident that I am indeed quite bright, but not right across the board. There remain pockets where my capacity for thinking is retarded. And I do not see the prospect of it getting any better. In the clarity of my vision, and in my imagination, I think I am well advanced. But I set this in contrast against me being slow-witted. I cannot produce the results of my intelligence in any manner of hurry. Fortunately I am confident in the ability of my mind as a whole to resolve the problems that I perceive, so that I shall finally reach the point of progress that I desire.

Oxford seems hell at times. There are lots of likeable people here, and they enjoy gathering together to talk. But their conversations seem irrelevant to what they really feel about life. What they actually want is to air their pet ideas and theories, of which they are inordinately proud. And they keep trotting them out in varied decoration, expecting those with whom they are conversing to respond in similar vein with a display of other ideas in contrast. But in the final analysis, it's all so meaningless, and it sickens me to be participating in such games. If I decline to play the game however, I feel as if I no longer have a place within their society. So I oblige myself to do as is expected of me. And for a while, the doors are all open to me. I am a part of their world, and I can scintillate along with the best of them. But that's not for long, and the feeling of being an outsider then returns. And once again I find that I am sinking back into a depression.

It distresses me that so much importance is attached (within these circles) upon the attainment of a polished conversational veneer. It's as if a person's worth depends upon his ability in developing those techniques - far more than how he may behave, or feel, when tackling life's problems. Within such an intellectualized environment, people have lost interest in the really important issues, in their concern over such trivia.

Maybe it's not just Oxbridge where this attitude prevails, but within the whole stratum of society to which I belong. And when I find myself with this thought in my head, I feel a strong urge to cut myself right away from them all - to go abroad and seek an entirely different group of friends from another race and class. But it would then be one of my own choosing.

It looks as if we are beginning to squabble. As far as I can make out, [O] had a fight with Christopher Arnander yesterday, Saturday. I haven't yet discovered what it was all about, or who won, but I think that Christopher may have earned the greater number of points. In any case it would seem that they are back on friendly terms again. Yet both Christopher and Francis are apt to lose patience very quickly with [O], and I can't really say that I blame them.

I myself have been on perhaps too distant terms with the whole lot of them. The awful part is that I just don't feel like mixing, which apparently gives them the impression that I am pompous. On one occasion when I was standing embarrassed to one side, Christopher actually told me not to be pompous - jokingly enough, but I could tell how it reflected an expressed opinion on which they were all agreed. It distresses me if this is a charge which might really stick. And I ask myself if my personality might be heading in that direction, since it's not the first occasion when I've heard that criticism of my behaviour. I fear that there must be an element of truth in it.

I have been afflicted with an attack of self-hatred over the weekend. There is much in Dad's opinion of me which is true. I do indeed display a self-centred conceit, that colours everything I say. Sometimes I do perceive the impression that I am giving to others, and I see how foolish I must appear. Day by day the fantasies which I am constructing around my personal imagery become more bizarre and extravagant. And within that structure, it's as if I am forever mounting up a spiral staircase, while hacking away the stairs that lie behind and below me. Very soon I'll have reached a point from which there can be no possible retreat, except for a suicidal leap from the battlements.

It may even be the case that I've reached this point already - because I do believe in myself, and I'm prepared to stake my life and sanity on this gamble. There is the same kind of certainty in my mind that I'll eventually be pronounced a genius, as I am that I'll reach (let us say) the age of twenty-five. But I wouldn't bet on my life being a happy one - or not with the recognition coming to me at an early age. In any case I now feel that I have journeyed beyond the point of perceiving that I still have the option to turn back. Or to switch analogies, I have placed my money and can only wait for the wheel to stop spinning.

I still feel satisfied that I have taken the right course of action, but the hesitancy in that decision implies some underlying weakness in my character. I lack the necessary confidence in all my decision-making. I am perpetually bringing additional points of view into consideration, with a consequence that I'm always finding reason to doubt the justification for my conduct.

This is something which I've got to overcome if I'm ever to develop a strong character. I suppose it's really a need for simplification. I should let myself be guided by more dogmatic principles, and leave it at that - without displaying any willingness to reconsider the process of thought which brought me to my decision. Dogma may in itself be criticisable, but I begin to see how it may have a useful role to play.

I have been developing a routine of taking long walks along the towpath beside the river, while reading a book at the same time - a matter of combining my studies with the pleasure of a walk. But on Tuesday I had an unpleasant experience - getting wolf-whistled by a bunch of workmen from a timberyard, just across the fence from the path. They were clearly trying to insinuate that I'm homosexual, and I'm still highly sensitive over these matters. Admittedly I'm apt to dress in what they might regard as bohemian attire, and my hair is quite long. I might give them the notion that I'm a poet taking his inspirational stroll along the river bank. But it was all so unnecessary (and aggressive) of them to break out into whistles at the sight of me - repeating their performance a second time when I was returning.

It filled me with consternation to realize that I didn't know how I should react. I couldn't very well pretend that I hadn't heard them, for my blushes were all too evident. In fact one of them commented: "There's no need to redden, dear." And I wasn't even sure which of the group might have uttered the remark, so it would have been difficult to single out any particular one of them for a fight - which in any case would have been difficult, since they were were on the other side of the fence.

After I had passed them, I felt livid with myself for not forcing the issue to a fight. There was ample pretext for a fight, and I could easily have turned back and singled out one of them to insult in such a way that he would either have lost face, or come and hit me - to which I'd have responded to the best of my ability. But my neglect to do this has been worrying me ever since.

My problem is that I take walks along that towpath quite frequently, and I'm quite liable to run across those workmen again. And I can't see myself letting them get away with it a second time. So it will be most unfortunate if I get myself beaten up, humiliatingly - possibly as a result of them all setting into me at the same time. The prospect of them chucking me in the river could indeed be an embarrassment. But the fact is that I am longing for them to try their luck. Whatever the outcome, a fight like that might go a long way to restoring my self-respect, which has been dwindling of late. I have got to prove to myself that I am still capable of resorting to a fight when I am insulted. So I am sincerely hoping that the opportunity will arise, and that I'll match up to what is required of me.

The part which I didn't like very much was the address of thanks to me from Burgess, the corpulent Head Boy. Sat up there on the dais with a fixed grin on my face, there was nothing I could do but listen, as he made insinuations of homosexuality about me which gave rise to laughter amongst his friends. Or am I being too sensitive on the issue? Well what he said precisely was that some of the school was well acquainted with me when I came backstage to talk with them, while they were all undressing and in a state of nudity. It was a joke at my expense which delighted his school friends, and it was all so bloody funny that I was expected to join in the laughter as well! Schoolboys seem to imagine that they have a language of their own where they can insult all others with impunity. But I would have loved the opportunity to slam a custard pie into his face.

While we were sitting drinking in my room, [O] came down to join us. Initially he was making a clumsy pass at Joy, who adopted the best tactic in simply ignoring him while continuing to converse with the rest of us. He somehow gets restless if he is outside the focus of attention. And it was probably because of this that he started guzzling what I had hoped to be my breakfast next morning. The attention that he acquired in this manner was only temporary, so he picked up one of my painting brushes, and started to add a few finishing touches of his own to one of the paintings I'd done in Italy. My response to this was more vigorous. Seizing the paint brush from his hand, I told him to fuck off - to which he replied: "But you can't be serious?" My looks may well have read otherwise. Anyway he desisted, and he was full of apologies next morning. But it doesn't bode well for our future relationship.

On Wednesday I found that someone had put some blobs of bright red paint on the Italian landscape which I've been retouching. So I naturally suspected that [O] was the culprit, since I've had this kind of trouble from him on several previous occasions - some of which I haven't troubled to record in this journal. In that I'd already warned him that he'd better watch out if he did it again, it would appear that he was calling my bluff and that I would now have to hit him. So I took off my watch and my coat, and went up to his room with this intent. But when I asked him if he had done it, he gave such an honest impression in denying it, that I feel inclined to believe him.

But it has happened again since, which leaves me most uncertain about who may be doing it. I mean someone like Nicky Greenwell, when calling in to visit any of us at Folly Bridge, is quite mischievous enough to savour the delight in stirring up friction between myself and [O]. I feel that I can eliminate Francis from my suspicions, on the grounds that he wouldn't behave like that. But I suppose it could be Christopher Arnander, who remains a bit of an unknown quantity as far as I'm concerned. I'm told that he got the best of [O] the other day, in a fracas which almost came to blows. I hardly know him myself, but it could be that he's seeking his own methods of emerging as the dominant figure at Folly Bridge. On the other hand would he be so puerile as to put blobs of red paint on one of my canvasses? I hardly think that, so the matter remains a mystery.

By now my judgement of permissible behaviour may have deteriorated to the point where I was giving people offence. I was kissing girls quite freely. Not that any offence was taken by them, but there was a pompous little man sitting next to one of them who did so. He stood up and asked the others: "Who is this objectionable person?" And because I'd been drinking, I immediately took offence myself at his remark. I took hold of his tie and said he could choose to come and settle the matter outside - or just shut up.

It looked for a moment as if there was going to be a fight. But Christopher Arnander gripped hold of my arm and led me away from the scene. I did not resist, as I knew that I was largely in the wrong. But when Christopher told me that the man was actually one of my hosts, (Anthony Martin), I realized that my misbehaviour was quite bad, and I shall be writing him a letter with some manner of apology which I still do not think that he fully deserves. But as far as this particular evening was concerned, I knew that I had best slip off back home.

The incident does perhaps spotlight how there is this animal aggression seething around inside me, always ready to emerge under the influence of drink - unless I am very careful about it. But it isn't just the aggressiveness of the moment which demands outlet. It is something bigger than that which has been building up inside me, and there are whole periods when I feel quite forcibly that I must let off steam - just to eliminate the mounting pressures within my system. And it links perhaps to this feeling that everything seems to be going wrong in my life, or failing to progress along the channels that I might envisage for it.

I get the notion in my head that all this mounting frustration would be removed if I could emerge successfully from one big fight - winning it in a decisive manner. I am somehow persuading myself that such a fight would be symbolic of the entire situation, so that the situation itself would improve with the winning of the fight. But even if this reasoning were true, there is always the chance that I might pick a fight with someone who is too strong for me, and who would disgrace me - which might then worsen the psychological situation within my mind. I've got to be so careful on how I allow myself to behave.

Perhaps the most satisfactory outcome would be for me to pick a fight with one of those workmen who whistle me when I go for walks along the towpath. I have been down there since, but they haven't been at work in the timberyard. It could well happen in the future however.

Even this prospect needs careful consideration, as to why it is that I feel I should pick on them, rather than upon one of my own kind. I've got to be careful that there isn't some manner of class issue involved. It's true that they are being deliberately offensive to me. They regard me as an effeminate queer, and fair game for their insults. And it could well be that they've got a thing against Oxford undergraduates as a whole - perhaps even against the leisured classes as a whole. But while I am telling myself with half my mind that it would do me the world of good if I can engineer a situation when I can punch the living daylight out of some member of their group, the other half reminds me how pointless it would all be.

I mean, does it really matter in my life if they should continue to regard me as a queer? Or even to sneer at me when I walk past them? It might be different if they were causing me to lose face in public. People would expect me to do something about it. But it's all quite private as the matter stands. Perhaps I'd be better advised to endure their insults, without taking the slightest notice of them. They have their own problems in life, just as I have mine. And a wise man might learn to keep the two sets well compartmented.

But it somehow goes against the grain of my upbringing to let them get away with it. I also find that I'm taunting myself with the issue of cowardice - because it would indeed be quite brave of me to pick a fight with one of them, in a situation where they might all gang up against me and throw me into the river. And I must admit to be unsure whether I am in fact courageous enough. I hope that I am. But I won't know for sure until I've had that fight.

I have now written that letter of apology to this man. I told him that I hadn't realized that he was my host, and would never have spoken to him as I did if I had known. And this leaves open of course my justification for speaking as I did, if it had so happened that he had been anyone other than my host!

I had a slight row with [O] while I was having dinner at the Grid, and it was embarrassing because there were so many girls sitting round us at the time. It seems that he had learnt from Hugh Lawson that there had been someone at Eton who had been reputed to be in love with me. He was fishing to discover more on the story of how [C] had been discovered peering down a telescope at me from his room in the neighbouring house. But he was posing such questions in the present company for the sheer devilment of embarrassing me. So I retaliated by asking him about all the little boys who came to visit him during the holidays. And he retaliated to this by asking why I had declined to let him borrow my spare bed tonight - thus making it evident that I might be hoping to have a visitor sleeping there. (Mere wishful thinking of course!) But it was far more dubious that he should be wanting to borrow it, in that he'd already told me that Antony Rouse might be coming to see him. Anyway I queried that point in public. And we went on sparring at one another in that vein. But as I see it, the fault was his for initiating such tactics of character assassination.

We were in fact feeling more bitter with each other than might have been showing on the surface, at the point when we separated to go on to the dance. But when I ran into him again at the Grid, on going back there this morning - along with a hangover I might add - I suddenly lost my temper with him and told him that he was a shit. [O] seemed quite taken aback and, this afternoon, he went so far as to apologize!

This morning Sunday I went to have breakfast with John Lucas. It is the first occasion that I have attended a party of this kind, where the invitation had stated with the greatest precision that I was to arrive at 9.7 a.m. There were five of us in all - undergraduates whom I assume that J.L. regards as being special pupils in some way. I must admit to feeling that I was perhaps the outsider within the group, and the conversation was somewhat deeper than that to which I am accustomed at such an early hour. But it flatters me that he should even endeavour to include me in their number, for it would seem that he must regard myself as having sufficient potential to warrant this place at his table.

His breakfasts are conducted in rather the same spirit as an 18th century Parisian salon, with all of us feeding on his utterances. It wasn't so much a question of conversing, as listening to his monologues which were sparked off by our individual questions or comments. He certainly knows how to hold the floor. Nor was there the slightest resentment that this should be so. For we had come there to feed from his wisdom - with Socrates (far more than Mme Recamier) being the role model which he appears to have in mind.

The term is now drawing to a close, and I am very glad. The truth of the matter is that I haven't enjoyed this term - mainly because of the sad state of my relationship with [Y]. I'm afraid that this has been a constant source of depression, and it is one that is liable to continue for quite some while - to an extent that I am no longer quite so keen on the idea of staying on at Oxford for an additional year, even if I do well enough in my Finals. I am beginning to feel fed up with it - largely because of the inner isolation that I now associate with the place. I simply can't stand it for much longer. Or I need an effective outlet. It is essential that I should start working creatively again, in some manner or form.

So this points towards a decision to return to Paris, as soon as I come down from Oxford. Once there, I can find myself some obscure lodgings, where I must set myself up (if possible) with a beautiful mistress. And there will be three things on the immediate programme. I shall be painting for most of the day. But I must also find the time to sketch out the final version of my attitude to life - possibly just for my own benefit, since it's difficult to envisage (at this point in time) that there might be others who'd wish to read it. And finally I must master the French language. I failed to come to grips with it sufficiently on that previous sojourn, so it's a task that I must reset myself. But with the experience of learning both Spanish and Italian, within far briefer periods of time, I think I might now have an improved technique for learning any foreign language.

On Tuesday I was sitting in the Grid at lunch, talking to Tim Rathbone. And I was telling him about the way Valentine had recently trapped me into subscribing £5 towards Jaques' leaving present - which (as I declared) I didn't find in the least funny. Rathbone declared that this confirmed something that he had always suspected - that I am deficient in the first rudiments of a sense of humour.

He said this in a joking tone, but at the same time he was meaning it. I may have brushed the remark aside, but I fear the truth is that he had stung me. The very fact of me feeling upset about it for the rest of the day may well be further evidence that he was right! My fault is that I dwell far too deeply upon the significance of every worrying incident. But I should remind myself that there is nearly always some such aspect, about which I might potentially start worrying, and I should therefore check myself before I start. Someone with a sense of humour does just that. Or he fixes his attention upon some limited aspect of the whole where the funniness is apparent, and manages to forget about the rest.

What irritates me most of all however, is that Rathbone was failing to appreciate how (in my own way) I was in fact laughing at myself in the tale. It was a story against myself, where the listener was virtually being invited to laugh at me. I am probably more aware of this ridiculous side to me than he could ever be. But the pompous ass had to make out he had noticed something, to which he was supposing that I remained blind. There's so much conceit in his attitude, that I'd love to kick his arse. But that, alas, would be such an unfunny ending to the story!

She is one of those awful people who, with considerable vivacity to her credit, regards this as being the same thing as humour - when it simply isn't. She has a tendency to be just as earnest as myself, concerning whatever it is that she is discussing; and her sense of dignity is far too easily ruffled for her to maintain a humorous equilibrium. But she knows (or has been told by Dad about) my own vulnerability on this subject, so keeps on talking about people having a sense of humour - as if she really feels that she is competent to instruct me in such matters. When I listen to her going on like that however, it just sounds silly to my ears - and faintly embarrassing.

Later on that evening, [O] called in on me. He said the party had ended with [F] and [G] dancing together, in company with himself. He was bursting with what he regarded as a spicey piece of inside information, from those who would really know. And he went on to inform me that the homosexual clique at Oxford are sure that I'm queer, but that I'm hiding it. I think the right term for this is being a closet queen. And [O] seems to have been told about various homosexual episodes which are known about my life, both at Ludgrove and at Eton. My guess is that certain people have spilled the beans concerning what I got up to with themselves, back in those distant days. Apparently others declare they can tell I am that way inclined, just by looking at me. And who should know better than such experts as they? I find it most disconcerting! And it irks me too. I must be most careful how I look at them in future. And I wonder if either of them will actually make a pass at me.

Antony Rouse was also there - which was almost the first occasion that we'd set eyes upon one another since we were at Eton. Or not quite the only occasion, since he'd been one of [O]'s guests, at that dinner party he gave during my first term at Oxford - having thrown in his scholarship at Trinity, reading English, on the grounds that he found it all too boring. But he had his National Service to perform after that - in the Royal Horse Guards - and he's only just finished it.

I find Antony disquieting in that, whenever we meet, we are both very much aware of that letter expressing his fervent admiration, which he sent me just before I left Eton. And I'm aware as much as he is that our regard for one another in those days bordered upon the homosexual. So when I run into him nowadays, I always feel nervous about the direction which the relationship might now take. A nervousness which reflects the basic uncertainty I feel with regard to my own sexual identity, as much as his. I have chosen not to be homosexual, and I expect he has too. But when I saw him at this reception looking in my direction, (I think wondering if he should come over to converse with me,) I felt nervously uncomfortable. I genuinely liked him at Eton, and I feel sure that we could be very good friends now, if I were to give it a fair try. But it's as if I'm not quite yet ready to sustain that relationship in normal terms. The time will come when I feel ready no doubt, but it's not just yet. I feel safer in my established identity that way.

What he roughly had to say was this. "You appear to have taken a lively interest in both of your subjects this term, and if you go on as you are doing, you should have nothing to worry about when the time comes for your Finals." I wish I could feel a greater confidence that he is right!. But as always here at Oxford, the real progress that I am making in my efforts to formulate a workable attitude to life is really more concerned with the work that I set myself outside the curriculum. And over the course of the vacation, I shall hope to complete the current thesis that I am writing, which is entitled `Morals and Politics'. The important thing is that my attitude is very gradually cohering into a whole - quite regardless of how I might be performing in my particular studies.

I find it alarming to note how everybody is teeming up against me in this effort to drive me down the road of convention. But I'm going to resist them because I'm determined to make a mark of my own, which lies outside what convention expects of me. I am not happy about this picture they have of me as entering life as the passenger within a silver carriage. They do not expect me to have any particular worth of my own. It is the value of the silver carriage which concerns them, and they expect me to look elegant in it and to ride in it with authority, I daresay. But as I see it, I've got to learn to contend with life upon my own feet, and to be recognized for my personal achievements before identifying myself too closely with all the rest that they expect of me. I've got to earn my passage before I climb up into that silver carriage. With such achievement behind me, I shall finally feel as if I deserve the ritual accolade.