On the first page of his diary from the mid 1950s, Tennessee Williams expressed unhappiness about how rehearsals for his new play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, were going. Feb. 22, 1955
A black day to begin a blue journal – "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" in rehearsal. The leading actress (Bel Geddes) inadequate, the play not coming to life enough. I'm tired and a bit drunk and I have a beastly cold – I am already making plans for a far away flight (perhaps as far as Ceylon) the night the play opens in New York!
On the last pages, he recorded a rare sense of grace. The complete diaries of Tennessee Williams are published in Margaret Bradham Thornton's excellent edition, Notebooks (Yale University Press, 2007).
Sunday [September 1958] – 2:00 a.m. A child of love – dined on the terrace with the cathedral spires lit up and a mass choir singing Catalonian folks songs on the Square below. Then love – came twice, both ways, and divinely responsive as if a benign Providence, or shall we be frank and say God, had suddenly taken cognizance and pity of my long misery this summer and given me this night as a token of forgiveness.
Quotation from a sacred book of Buddhism:
"If one conquer in battle a thousand times one thousand men, and if another conquer himself he is the greatest of conquerors."
Another: "The scent of flowers does not travel against the wind, neither that of sandalwood, but the scent of good deeds travels even against the wind."
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