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Friday, 9.30 p.m.

Such a lot of troubles! I didn't hear the rising bell this morning, then I broke my shoestring while I was hurrying to dress and dropped my collar button down my neck. 

I was late for breakfast and also for first-hour recitation. I forgot to take any blotting paper and my fountain pen leaked. 

In trigonometry the Professor and I had a disagreement touching a little matter of logarithms.

On looking it up, I find that she was right. 

We had mutton stew and pie-plant for lunch— hate 'em both; they taste like the asylum. 

The post brought me nothing but bills (though I must say that I never do get anything else; my family are not the kind that write). 

In English class this afternoon we had an unexpected written lesson. 

This was it:

I asked no other thing, No other was denied.

I offered Being for it; The mighty merchant smiled.

Brazil? He twirled a button

Without a glance my way: But, madam, is there nothing else

That we can show today?

That is a poem. I don't know who wrote it or what it means. 

It was simply printed out on the blackboard when we arrived and we were ordered to comment upon it. 

When I read the first verse I thought I had an idea— The Mighty Merchant was a divinity who distributes blessings in return for virtuous deeds— but when I got to the second verse and found him twirling a button, it seemed a blasphemous supposition, and I hastily changed my mind. 

The rest of the class was in the same predicament; and there we sat for three-quarters of an hour with blank paper and equally blank minds.