I am now working only at the Variations, as Mám says it is good sometimes to concentrate on one study alone. But it is always the same story. I can play alright for the first few days but after that the piece becomes hackneyed. I stutter, and de summa re actum est [all is lost]. Nothing irritates and annoys me so much as when I begin to fumble at a passage I could play yesterday, and that is the chief reason that I think I can never become an organist and consequently a musician. – After dinner went with Mám for a walk through Sir John Keane’s estate. The mansion was a beautiful one, but was burnt down by the Republicans in the troubles. It was a disgraceful crime, because Sir John Keane was a man of liberal principles, more Irish than English, and he had the largest library and collection of old paintings in the south of Ireland. A nice woman, who was full of her sufferings from a nerve complaint, and to whom Mám gave great advice, took us to a beautiful spot high up on the hill. Went for tennis again.
