Recently read: Colette's Chéri; lots more ghost stories. Now I've checked out an anthology of five of Ronald Firbank's novels (Valmouth, The Flower beneath the Foot, Prancing Nigger, Concerning the Eccentricities of Cardinal Pirelli, The Artificial Princess), with an introduction by Osbert Sitwell [camp calling unto camp], two of which (Valmouth and Prancing Nigger) I remember having read before. As I understand from the Wikipedia article on our favourite author, he wasn't kidding when he tried to get himself drafted in World War I--he was, like oh so many other idiots of his class and contemporaneity, an idiotically sincere patriot, who was trying, with no ironic intent, to "do his bit." Faugh. Bertrand Russell was apparently one of the few with brains enough to be a pacifist--and he wasn't smart enough to stay out of jail.