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264 Syriam. [[strikethrough]] September 20 [[/strikethrough]] Feb 6- to dinner. Conversation, politics, Formosa, opium, China & cats. Came home tired, sunburnt & completely relaxed after a heavenly day. February 7- Monday- AM- Lucy's portrait AM P.M.'s portrait- all day Quiet evening at home writing two letters to Emily - Reading 'Time' Liked two quotations- On Existentialism All good existentialists believe that when they die they will die altogether; but they argue that precisely because man has no God to look after him; no Heaven to look forward to and no way of escaping death, he is so much the greater, because his hope & courage light the absurd void to which he is condemned. 265 existentialism } Faulkner } [[strikethrough]] September 21 [[/strikethrough]] Monday Feb. 7 Mortal man, in fact, is forever alive. William Faulkner. - on the five best contemporary authors - "I said, Wolfe, Hemingway, Dos Passos, Caldwell and myself. I rated Wolfe first, myself second. I put Hemingway last. I said we were all failures. I rated the authors on the basis of their splendid failure to do the impossible. I believed that Wolfe tried to do the greatest of the impossible, that he tried to reduce all human experience to literature. And I thought that after Wolfe I had tried the most. I rated Hemingway last because he stayed within what he knew. He did it fine but he didn't try for the impossible.