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Thursday 2 January 2014

A question of belief?

Monday, January 2nd., Yacht Amaryllis, Monte Carlo.

Great sunshine. Too tired to work, I went onto the Terrace to think, and the first person I met was the Mrs. B. with whom I had arranged to dance this afternoon. Shortish, slim, pretty, bien habille. She had a dog. She said her husband went to early service while she took care of the dog, and she went later while he took care of the dog. This vaguely disturbed me. I rashly said in talk that I never went to church. Did I believe in a Supreme Being? Yes. Did I believe in the divinity of Christ? No. Did I believe in the Bible? Parts of it. How could I only believe in parts of the Bible? And so on, showing the most dreadful crudities of thought, accompanied of course by absolute certainty of being right. She was soon telling me that once one believed that the English were the Ten Lost Tribes, then the whole Bible became perfectly clear, and one could see that all its prophecies had been or were being fulfilled. Further that the second coming of our Lord was expected about 1935, and then the Jews had better look out for themselves, and there would be a thousand years of peace. Thirdly that all the great historic dates of the world had been engraved long in advance in a secret place beneath the Great Pyramid, and they were all correct. They could be seen by anyone who understood how to read them ... She tried to get me to church with her (room at Grand Hotel). However, I shall dance with her.

All this reminded me that a few years ago I had a spell of reading the Bible for interest. 1 Kings makes excellent reading. But the way David ordered executions before he died, and Solomon upon his accession, is rather startling. And the book of Esther is a good Eastern story, exceedingly ingenuous, all based on copulation. 
And of course I drew inspiration from the Bible for my play "Judith".
See, 'Indecent Exposure' - http://earnoldbennett.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/indecent-exposure.html

Additionally for January 2nd., see 'Social contrasts' -
http://earnoldbennett.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/an-entertaining-evening.html

On Friday night, our last night in London, we went to the Tivoli. There were no seats except in the pit, so we went in the pit. Little Tich was very good, and George Formby, the Lancashire comedian, was perhaps even better.

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