Monday 24th June 1940

Ten cigarettes a day is the limit of my ration now. Am going to smoke a pipe more and hope to eliminate cigarettes entirely, eventually.

France has signed Germanys stern peace terms which now need Italy's agreement before hostilities cease.

Found another striking paragraph in “Chaos is come again” as I sat reading during today's siesta. It reminds me too of that haunting little line in one of the Flax of Dream books, by Williamson, read long ago - “O this beautiful human life; so beautiful, so inexpressibly beautiful... tears come into my eyes when I think of it”
Now, today I find:-

“...We are always cheated... Directly we're certain that death is near, then the beauty of the world – all the marvellous, neglected beauty of the world – rises before us, overwhelms us, claims us. We turn to look our last on purgatory – and find we are gazing at paradise...”