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diff --git a/39585-0.txt b/39585-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9c4eab0 --- /dev/null +++ b/39585-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12613 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Journal of a Disappointed Man, by Wilhelm Nero Pilate Barbellion + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: The Journal of a Disappointed Man + +Author: Wilhelm Nero Pilate Barbellion + +Release Date: April 30, 2012 [eBook #39585] +[Most recently updated: April 28, 2022] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: Marc D’Hooghe + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JOURNAL OF A DISAPPOINTED MAN *** + + + + +THE JOURNAL OF A DISAPPOINTED MAN + +BY + +W.N.P. BARBELLION + + + +WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY H.G. WELLS + + + +NEW YORK + +GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + +1919 + + +"I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, +nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet +riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time +and chance happeneth to them all. + +"For man also knoweth not his time; as the fishes that are taken in an +evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons +of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them." + + + + +INTRODUCTION + +By H.G. WELLS + +Your egoist, like the solitary beasts, lives only for himself; your +altruist declares that he lives only for others; for either there may be +success or failure but for neither can there be tragedy. For even if the +altruist meets nothing but ingratitude, what has he to complain of? His +premises abolish his grounds of complaint. But both egoist and altruist +are philosophical abstractions. The human being by nature and necessity +is neither egoist nor altruist; he trims a difficult course between the +two; for the most part we are, within the limits of our powers of +expression, _egotists_, and our desire is to think and if possible talk +and write about this marvellous experiment of ourselves, with all the +world--or as much as we can conveniently assemble--for audience. There +is variety in our styles. Some drape the central figure; some let it +rather appear than call attention to it; some affect a needless +frankness: "_I_ am an egotist, mind you, and I pretend nothing else"; +some by adopting a pose with accessories do at least develop so great +and passionate an interest in the accessories as to generalise and +escape more or less completely from self. An egotism like an eggshell is +a thing from which to escape; the art of life is that escape. The +fundamental art of life is to recover the sense of that great +self-forgetful continuous life from which we have individually budded +off. Many people have done this through religion, which begins with a +tremendous clamour to some saviour god or other to recognise us and ends +in our recognition of him; or through science, when your egotist begins +with: "Behold me! I, I your humble servant, am a scientific man, devoted +to the clear statement of truth," and ends with so passionate a +statement of truth that self is forgotten altogether. + +In this diary of an intensely egotistical young naturalist, tragically +caught by the creeping approach of death, we have one of the most moving +records of the youthful aspects of our universal struggle. We begin with +one of those bright schoolboys that most of us like to fancy we once +were, that many of us have come to love as sons or nephews or younger +brothers, and this youngster is attracted by natural science, by the +employments of the naturalist and by the thought of being himself some +day a naturalist. From the very beginning we find in this diary the +three qualities, from the narrowest to broadest. "Observe me," he says +to himself, "I am observing nature." There is the self-conscious, +self-centred boy. But he also says "I am observing nature!" And at +moments comes the clear light. He forgets himself in the twilight cave +with the bats or watching the starlings in the evening sky, he becomes +just you and I and the mind of mankind gathering knowledge. And the +diary, as the keen edge of untimely fate cuts down into the sensitive +tissue, shows us presently, after outcries and sorrow and darkness of +spirit, the habits of the observer rising to the occasion. Not for him, +he realises, are the long life, the honours of science, the Croonian +lecture, the listening Royal Society, one's memory embalmed in specific +or generic names, the sure place in the temple of fame, that once filled +his boyish dreams. But here is something close at hand to go on +observing manfully to the end, in which self may be forgotten, and that +is his own tormented self, with desire still great and power and hope +receding. "I will go on with this diary," I read between the lines. "You +shall have at least one specimen, carefully displayed and labelled. Here +is a recorded unhappiness. When you talk about life and the rewards of +life and the justice of life and its penalties, what you say must square +with this." + +Such is what we have here. It will be going beyond the necessities of +this preface to expatiate upon a certain thread of unpremeditated and +exquisite beauty that runs through the story this diary tells. To all +sensitive readers it will be plain enough, and those who cannot see it +plain do not deserve to have it underlined for them, that, still +unseeing, they may pretend to see. Nor need we dilate upon the +development of the quality of this diary from the rather fussy egotism +of the earlier half. But it may be well to add a few explanatory facts +that the opening chapters rather take for granted. Barbellion began life +at a material as well as a physical disadvantage; neither of his parents +were sturdy people, his mother died at last of constitutional heart +weakness, and his father belonged to that most unfortunate class, the +poor educated, who live lives of worry in straitened circumstances. +Barbellion's father was a newspaper reporter in a west country town, his +income rarely exceeded a couple of hundred pounds a year; the +educational facilities of the place were poor, and young Barbellion had +to get such learning as he could as a day boy at a small private school, +his father supplementing this meagre training and presently taking him +on as an apprentice reporter. How the passion for natural science arose +does not appear in this diary; we already find the naturalist formed in +the first schoolboy entries. An uncle, a chemist, seems to have +encouraged the tendency, and to have given him textbooks and other help. +Somehow at any rate he acquired a considerable amount of knowledge; by +the time he was eighteen he was already publishing quite excellent +observations of his own in such periodicals as the _Zoologist_, and by +the time he was twenty he could secure an appointment as assistant +naturalist to the director of a well-known marine biological station. It +was a success, as the reader will learn, gained only to be renounced. +His father was ill and he had to stand by his family; our economical +country cannot afford to make biologists out of men who can earn a +living as hack reporters. Poverty and science are sisters wherever the +flag of Britain waves; for how could the rich live if we wasted money on +that sort of thing? But the dream was not altogether abandoned, and in +1911 Barbellion got a post, one of the dozen or so of rare and coveted +opportunities to toil in a scientific atmosphere that our Empire +affords; he secured an assistantship at the Natural History Museum, +South Kensington, to which a living wage was attached, a fair equivalent +to a reporter's earnings. The rest of the story needs no helping out. +Let me only add that since 1911 Barbellion, in spite of his steadily +diminishing strength, has published articles in both British and +American periodicals, that entirely justify the statement that in him +biological science loses one of the most promising of its recent +recruits. His scientific work is not only full and exact but it has +those literary qualities, the grace, the power of handling, the breadth +of reference, which have always distinguished the best English +biological work, and which mark off at once the true scientific man from +the mere collector and recorder of items. With this much introduction +Barbellion may be left to tell the tragedy of his hopes and of the dark, +unforeseen, unforeseeable, and inexplicable fate that has overtaken +him. + + + + +PART I--THE JOURNAL BEGINS WHEN ITS AUTHOR IS A LITTLE OVER 13 YEARS +OLD. + +_[The Following are Selected Entries.]_ + + + + +1903 + + +_January_ 3. + +Am writing an essay on the life-history of insects and have abandoned +the idea of writing on "How Cats Spend their Time." + +_January_ 17. + +Went with L---- out catapult shooting. While walking down the main road +saw a Goldfinch, but very indistinctly--it might not have been one. Had +some wonderful shots at a tree creeper in the hedge about a foot away +from me. While near a stream, L---- spotted what he thought to be some +Wild Duck and brought one down, hitting it right in the head. He is a +splendid shot. We discovered on examining it that it was _not_ Wild Duck +at all but an ordinary tame Wild Duck--a hen. We ran away, and to-night +L---- tells me he saw the Farmer enter the poulterer's shop with the +bird in his hand. + +_January_ 19. + +Went to A---- Wood with S---- and L----. Saw a Barn Owl (_Strix +flammea_) flying in broad daylight. At A---- Woods, be it known, there +is a steep cliff where we were all out climbing to inspect and find all +the likely places for birds to build in, next spring. S---- and I got along +all right, but L----, being a bit too careless, let go his hold on a +tree and fell headlong down. He turned over and over and seemed to us to +pitch on the back of his neck. However, he got up as cheerfully as ever, +saying, "I don't like that--a bit of a nasty knock." + +_February_ 8. + +Joe became the mother of one kitten to-day. It was born at 1.20. It is +a tiny little thing. One would almost call it deformed. It is gray. + +_March_ 18. + +Our Goldfinch roosts at 5.30. Joe's kitten is a very small one. "Magpie" +is its name. + +_March_ 28. + +Went our usual ramble. But we were unfortunate from the very beginning. +First, when we reached the "Nightjar Field," we found there were two men +at the bottom of it cutting the hedge, so we decided not to venture on, +as Gimbo and Bounce were with us, and it would look like poaching. Later +on, we came to a splendid wood, but had to withdraw hastily from it, an +old farmer giving us a severe chase. There were innumerable rabbits in +the wood, so, of course, the dogs barked hard. I gave them a sound +beating when we got back out of danger, The old farmer is known as "Bale +the Bell-hanger." + +_April_ 2. + +I was glad yesterday to see the egg season so well in. I shall have to +get blow-pipes and egg drills. Spring has really arrived and even the +grasshoppers are beginning to stridulate, yet Burke describes these +little creatures as being "loud and troublesome" and the chirp +unpleasant. Like Samuel Johnson, he must have preferred brick walls to +green hedges. Many people go for a walk and yet are unable to admire +Nature simply because their power of observation is untrained. Of course +some are not suited to the study at all and do not trouble themselves +about it. In that case they should not talk of what they do not +understand.... I might have noticed that I have used the term "Study of +Nature." But it cannot be called a _study_. It _is_ a pastime of sheer +delight, with naught but beautiful dreams and lovely thoughts, where we +are urged forward by the fact that we are in God's world which He made +for us to be our comfort in time of trouble.... Language cannot express +the joy and happy forgetfulness during a ramble in the country. I do +not mean that all the ins and outs and exact knowledge of a naturalist +are necessary to produce such delight, but merely the common +objects--Sun, Thrush, Grasshopper, Primrose, and Dew. + +_April_ 21. + +S---- and I have made a little hut in the woods out of a large natural +hole in the ground by a big tree. We have pulled down branches all +around it and stuck in upright sticks as a paling. We are training ivy +to grow over the sticks. We smoke "Pioneer" cigarettes here and hide the +packets in a hole under the roots of the tree. It's like a sort of +cupboard. + +_August_ 6. + +In the evening, S---- and I cycled to S----, and when it was dark we +went down on the rocks and lit a fire which crackled and burnt in the +dusk of the evening.... Intend to do a bit to Beetles these hols. Rev. +J. Wood in the _B.O.P_. has incited me to take them up, and it is really +time, for at present I am as ignorant as I can hang together of the +Coleoptera. + +_December_ 24. + +Went out with L---- to try to see the squirrels again. We could not find +one and were just wondering if we should draw blank when L---- noticed +one clinging to the bark of a tree with a nut in its mouth. We gave it a +good chase, but it escaped into the thickest part of the fir tree, still +carrying the nut, and we gave up firing at it. Later on, L---- got +foolishly mischievous--owing, I suppose, to our lack of sport--and +unhinged a gate which he carried two yards into a copse, and threw it on +the ground. Just then, he saw the Squirrel again and jumped over the +hedge into the copse, chasing it from tree to tree with his catty. +Having lost it, he climbed a fir tree into a Squirrel's drey at the top +and sat there on the tree top, and I, below, was just going to lift the +gate back when I looked up and saw a farmer watching me, menacing and +silent. I promptly dropped the gate and fled. L---- from his Squirrel's +drey, not knowing what had happened, called out to me about the +nest--that there was nothing in it. The man looked up and asked him who +he was and who I was. L---- would not say and would not come down. The +farmer said he would come up. L---- answered that if he did he would +"gob" [_i.e_. spit] on him. Eventually L---- climbed down and asked the +farmer for a glass of cider. The latter gave him his boot and L---- ran +away. + + + + +1904 + + +_January_ 23. + +Went to the meet of the Stag hounds. Saw a hind in the stream at +L----with not a horse, hound, or man in sight. It looked quite +unconcerned and did not seem to have been hunted. I tried to head it, +but a confounded sheep-dog got there before me and drove it off in the +wrong direction. I _was_ mad, because if I had succeeded in heading it +and had there been a kill, I should have got a slot. Got home at 6.30, +after running and walking fifteen miles--tired out. + +_April_ 5. + +Just read _Stalky & Co_. Of Stalky, Beetle, and McTurk, I like Beetle +best. + +_April_ 14. + +Won the School Gymnasium championship (under fifteen). + +_August_ 25. + +Had quite an adventure to-day. D---- and I cycled to the Lighthouse at +----. On the way, in crossing the sands near the Hospital Ship we espied +a lame Curlew which could hardly fly. I gave chase, but it managed to +scramble over a gut full of water about two yards wide. D---- took off +his boots and stockings and carried me over on his back, and we both +raced across the sands to where the Curlew lay in an exhausted state. I +picked him up and carried him off under my arm, like the boy with the +Goose that laid the golden eggs. All the time, the bird screamed loudly, +opening its enormously long bill and struggling to escape. Arrived at +the gut again, we found that the incoming tide had made the gut wider +and deeper so that we were cut off from the mainland, and found it +necessary to wade across at once before it got deeper. As I had to carry +a pair of field-glasses as well as my boots and stockings, I handed over +the struggling bird to D----. While wading across, I suddenly sank to my +waist in a sandpit. This frightened me, and I was glad to reach the +other side in safety. But on arrival I found D----, but no Curlew. In +wading across the current, he grew flurried and let it go. The tide +swept it upstream, and the poor bird, I fear, perished by drowning.... +Knocked up my friend P----, who is skipper of the ship _N_---- and asked +him if he had a fire so that I could dry myself. He replied that they +had no fire but that his "missus" would look out a pair of pants for me. +Before falling in with this plan unconditionally, I thought it best to +inspect the garment. However, it was quite clean--a pair of blue serge +seaman's trousers, very baggy in the seat and far too long. But I turned +up the bottoms and hid the baggy part underneath my overcoat. So, I got +back home! + +_September_ 8. + +Wet all day. Toothache. + +_September_ 9. + +Toothache. + +_September_ 10. + +Toothache. + +_September_ 11. + +Toothache. + +_Xmas Day._ + +Mother and Dad wanted to give me one of G.A. Henty's, but, fearing lest +I did not want it, they did not put my name in it, so that if I wished I +could change it. Intend doing this. Am reading the _Origin of Species_. +It requires careful study, but I understand it so far and shall go on. + +_December_ 26. + +I have caught nothing in my traps yet. A little while ago I set a +springe and two horse-hair nooses in the reed bed for water rails. I +have bought a book on practical trapping. + + + + +1905 + + +_January_ 15. + +I am thinking that on the whole I am a most discontented mortal. I get +fits of what I call "What's the good of anything" mania. I keep asking +myself incessantly till the question wears me out: "What's the good of +going into the country _naturalising_? what's the good of studying so +hard? where is it going to end? will it lead anywhere?" + +_February_ 17. + +When I can get hold of any one interested in Natural History I talk away +in the most garrulous manner and afterwards feel ashamed of myself for +doing it. + +_May_ 15. + +_The Captain_, in answer to my letter, advises me to join one of the +ordinary professions and then follow up Nat. History as a recreation, or +else join Science Classes at S. Kensington, or else by influence get a +post in the Natural History Museum. But I shall see. + +_June_ 9. + +During dinner hour, between morning and afternoon school, went out on +the S---- B---- River Bank, and found another Sedge Warbler's nest. This +is the fifth I have found this year. People who live opposite on the +T---- V---- hear them sing at night and think they are Nightingales! + +_June_ 27. + +On reviewing the past egg-season, I find in all I have discovered 232 +nests belonging to forty-four species. I only hope I shall be as +successful with the beetle-season. + +_August_ 15. + +A hot, sultry afternoon, during most of which I was stretched out on the +grass beside an upturned stone where a battle royal was fought between +Yellow and Black Ants. The victory went to the hardy little Yellows.... +By the way, I held a Newt by the tail to-day and it emitted a squeak! So +that the Newt has a voice after all. + +_August_ 26. + +In bed with a feverish cold. I am afraid I have very few Nat. His. +observations to make. It is hard to observe anything at all when lying +in bed in a dull bedroom with one small window. Gulls and Starlings +pass, steam engines whistle, horses' feet clatter down the street, and +sometimes the voice of a passer-by reaches me, and often the loud laugh +that speaks the vacant mind. I can also hear my own cough echoing +through my head, and, by the evening, the few pages of Lubbock's _Ants, +Bees, and Wasps_ which I struggled to get through during the day rattle +through my brain till I am disgusted to find I have them by heart. The +clock strikes midnight and I wait for the morning. Oh! what a weary +world. + +_October_ 13. + +Down with another cold. Feeling pretty useless. It's a wonder I don't +develop melancholia. + +_November_ 6. + +By 7 a.m. H---- and I were down on the mudflats of the River with +field-glasses, watching Waders. Ringed Plover in great numbers. + + + + +1906 + +_January_ 13. + +I have always had one ambition to be a great naturalist. That is, I +suppose, a child's fancy, and I can see my folly in hoping for such +great things. Still, there is no reason why I should not become a +_learned_ naturalist if I study hard. I hope that whatever I do I shall +do in the hope of increasing knowledge of truth and not for my own fame. +This entry may suggest that I am horribly conceited. But really I am as +humble as possible. I know I have advanced beyond many others, and I +know I shall advance further, but why be conceited?... What a short life +we have, and what heaps of glorious work to be done! Supper bell--so I +am off.... This reads like Isaac Walton's funny mixtures of the sublime +with the ridiculous. He discusses abstract happiness and the best salmon +sauce all in one breath. + +_February_ 26. + +Although it is a grand achievement to have added but one jot or tittle +to the sum of human knowledge it is grander still to have added a +thought. It is best for a man to try to be both poet and naturalist--not +to be too much of a naturalist and so overlook the beauty of things, or +too much of a poet and so fail to understand them or even perceive those +hidden beauties only revealed by close observation. + +_March_ 17. + +Woke up this morning covered with spots, chest inflamed, and bad cough. +H---- carted me down from the Attic to the Lower Bedroom, and when the +Dr. came he confirmed the general opinion that I had measles. It is +simply disgusting, I have somewhere near 10,000 spots on me. + +_April_ 27. + +Went to A---- Woods, where, strange to say, I again saw Mary. But she +had a tribe of friends with her, so did not speak, but watched her from +a distance through my field-glasses. + +_May_ 8. + +On interviewing my old friend Dr. H----, found I had chickenpox. This +instead of being a Diary of a Naturalist's observations[1] will be one +of infectious diseases. + +_May_ 28. + +[Letter from Editor of _Countryside_ to my brother saying that if the +_Countryside_ grew he might be able to offer me a billet. "Meanwhile he +will be able to get along with his pen ... he will soon make a living +and in time too a name."] This is a bit of all right. I shall always be +on the look-out for a job on a N.H. Journal. + +_December_ 7. + +Went to F---- Duckponds. Flocks of Wigeon and Teal on the water. Taking +advantage of a dip in the land managed to stalk them splendidly, and for +quite a long time I lay among the long grass watching them through my +field-glasses. But during the day Wild Duck are not particularly lively +or interesting birds. They just rest serenely on the water like floating +corks on a sheet of glass. Occasionally one will paddle around lazily. +But for the most part they show a great ennui and seem so sleepy and +tired that one would almost think to be able to approach and feed them +out of the hand. But I moved one hand carelessly and the whole flock was +up in a minute and whizzing across the river. Afterwards, at dusk, on +returning to the ponds, they had come back; but now that the sun was +down, those dozy, flapdoodle creatures of the afternoon were transformed +into quacking, quarrelsome, blustering birds that squabbled and chivvied +each other, every moment seizing the chance of a luxurious dip, flinging +the ice-cold water off their backs with a shake of the tail that seemed +to indicate the keenest-edged delight. + +It was now quite dark. A Snipe rose at my feet and disappeared into the +darkness. Coots and Moorhens clekked, and a Little Grebe grew bold and +began to dive and fish quite close to me, methodically working its way +upstream and so quartering out its feeding area. + +A happy half-hour! Alas! I enjoy these moments the more as they recede. +Not often do I realise the living present. That is always difficult. It +is the mere shades--the ghosts of the dead days--that are dearest to me. + +Spent my last day at school. De Quincey says (or was it Johnson?) that +whenever we do anything for the last time, provided we have done it +regularly for years before, we are a little melancholy, even though it +has been distasteful to us.... True. + +_December_ 14. + +Signed my Death Warrant, _i.e._, my articles apprenticing me to +journalism for five years. By Jove! I shall work frantically during the +next five years so as to be ready at the end of them to take up a +Natural History appointment. + + +[1] Up to 1911, the Journal is mainly devoted to records of observations +in general Natural History and latterly in Zoology alone. + + + + +1907 + + +_March_ 1. + +As long as he has good health, a man need never despair. Without good +health, I _might_ keep a long while in the race, yet as the goal of my +ambition grew more and more unattainable I should surely remember the +words of Keats and give up: "There is no fiercer Hell than the failure +of a great ambition." + +_March_ 14. + +Have been reading through the Chemistry Course in the Harmsworth +_Self-Educator_ and learning all the latest facts and ideas about +radium. I would rather have a clear comprehension of the atom as a solar +system than a private income of £100 a year. If only I had eyes to go on +reading without a stop! + +_May_ 1. + +Met an old gentleman in E----, a naturalist with a great contempt for +the Book of Genesis. He wanted to know how the Kangaroo leapt from +Australia to Palestine and how Noah fed the animals in the Ark. He +rejects the Old T. theogony and advised me to read "Darwin and J.G. +Wood!" Silly old man! + +_May_ 22. + +To Challacombe and then walked across Exmoor. This is the first time I +have been on Exmoor. My first experience of the Moors came bursting in +on me with a flood of ideas, impressions, and delights. I cannot write +out the history of to-day. It would take too long and my mind is a +palpitating tangle. I have so many things to record that I cannot record +one of them. Perhaps the best thing to do would be to draw up an +inventory of things seen and heard and trust to my memory to fill in the +details when in the future I revert to this date. Too much joy, like too +much pain, simply makes me prostrate. It wounds the organism. It is too +much. I shall try to forget it all as quickly as possible so as to be +able to return to egg-collecting and bird-watching the sooner as a calm +and dispassionate observer. Yet these dear old hills. How I love them. I +cannot leave them without one friendly word. I wish I were a shepherd! + +At the "Ring of Bells" had a long yarn with the landlord, who, as he +told us the story of his life, was constantly interrupted but never +disconcerted by the exuberant loyalty and devotion of his wife--a stout, +florid, creamy woman, who capped every story with: "Ees quite honest, +sir; no 'arm at all in old Joshua." + +_June_ 5. + +A half-an-hour of to-day I spent in a punt under a copper beech out of +the pouring rain listening to Lady ----'s gamekeeper at A---- talk about +beasts and local politics--just after a visit of inspection to the +Heronry in the firs on the island in the middle of the Lake. It was +delightful to hear him describing a Heron killing an Eel with "a dap on +the niddick," helping out the figure with a pat on the nape of his thick +bull neck. + +_July_ 22. + +Am reading Huxley's _Crayfish_. H---- brought me in that magnificent +aculeate _Chrysis ignita_. + +_August_ 15. + +Met _her_ in the market with M----. I just lifted my hat and passed on. +She has the most marvellous brown eyes I have ever seen. She is +perfectly self-possessed. A bad sign this. + +_August_ 18. + +When I feel ill, cinema pictures of the circumstances of my death flit +across my mind's eye. I cannot prevent them. I consider the nature of +the disease and all I said before I died--something heroic, of course! + +_August_ 31. + +She is a ripping girl. Her eyes are magnificent. I have never seen any +one better looking. + +_October_ 1. + +In the afternoon dissected a Frog, following Milnes Marshall's Book. Am +studying Chemistry and attending classes at the Evening School and +reading Physiology (Foster's). Am also teaching myself German. I wish I +had a microscope. + +_October_ 3. + +What heaps of things to be done! How short the time to do them in! An +appetite for knowledge is apt to rush one off one's feet, like any other +appetite if not curbed. I often stand in the centre of the Library here +and think despairingly how impossible it is ever to become possessed of +all the wealth of facts and ideas contained in the books surrounding me +on every hand. I pull out one volume from its place and feel as if I +were no more than giving one dig with a pick in an enormous quarry. The +Porter spends his days in the Library keeping strict vigil over this +catacomb of books, passing along between the shelves and yet never +paying heed to the almost audible susurrus of desire--the desire every +book has to be taken down and read, to live, to come into being in +somebody's mind. He even hands the volumes over the counter, seeks them +out in their proper places or returns them there without once realising +that a Book is a Person and not a Thing. It makes me shudder to think of +Lamb's _Essays_ being carted about as if they were fardels. + +_October_ 16. + +Dissected an Eel. Cassell's _Natural History_ says the Air-bladder is +divided. This is not so in the one I opened. Found what I believe to be +the lymphatic heart in the tail beneath the vent. + + + + +1908 + + +_March_ 10. + +Am working frantically so as to keep up my own work with the daily +business of reporting. Shorthand, type-writing, German, Chemistry +classes, Electricity lectures, Zoology (including dissections) and field +work. Am reading Mosenthal's _Muscle and Nerve_. + +_April_ 7. + +Sectioned a leech. H---- has lent me a hand microtome and I have +borrowed an old razor. My table in the Attic is now fitted up quite like +a Laboratory. I get up every morning at 6 a.m. to dissect. Have worked +at the Anatomy of _Dytiscus, Lumbricus_, another Leech, and _Petromyzon +fluviatilis_ all collected by myself. The "branchial basket" of +_Petromyzon_ interested me vastly. But it's a brute to dissect.[1] + +_May_ 1. + +Cycled to the Lighthouse at the mouth of the Estuary. Underneath some +telegraph wires, picked up a Landrail in excellent condition. The colour +of the wings is a beautiful warm chestnut. While sweeping the sandhills +with my field-glasses in search of Ring Plover, which nest there in the +shingle beaches, I espied a Shelduck (_Tadorna_) squatting on a piece of +level ground. On walking up cautiously, found it was dead--a Drake in +splendid plumage and quite fresh and uninjured. Put him in my poacher's +pocket, alongside of the Landrail. My coat looked rather bulgy, for a +Shelduck is nearly as big as a Goose. Heard a Grasshopper Warbler--a +rare bird in North ----. Later, after much patient watching, saw the +bird in a bramble bush, creeping about like a mouse. + +On the sea-shore picked up a number of Sea Mice (_Aphrodite_) and +bottled them in my jar of 70 per cent., as they will come in useful for +dissection. Also found the cranium of a _Scyllium_, which I will +describe later on. + +Near the Lighthouse watched some fishermen bring in a large Salmon in a +seine net worked from the shore. It was most exciting. Cycled down three +miles of hard sand with the wind behind me to the village where I had +tea and--as if nothing could stay to-day's good luck--met Margaret ----. +I showed her one by one all my treasures--Rail, Duck, Skull, Sea Mice, +etc., and felt like Thomas Edward, beloved of Samuel Smiles. To her I +must have appeared a very ridiculous person. + +"How do you know it's the skull of a dog-fish?" she asked, incredulous. + +"How do I know anything?" I said, a little piqued. + +On arriving home found T---- awaiting me with the news that he had +discovered a Woodpecker's nest. When will the luck cease? I have never +had such a flawless ten hours in _le grand air_. These summer days eat +into my being. The sea has been roaring into my ears and the sun blazing +down so that even the backs of my hands are sunburnt. And then: those +coal-black eyes. Ah! me, she _is_ pretty. + +_May_ 2. + +Dissected the Sheldrake. Very entertained to discover the extraordinary +asymmetry of the syrinx.... + +_May_ 3. + +Dissected Corncrake, examining carefully the pessulus, bronchidesmus +(incomplete), _tympani-form and semi-lunar_ membranes of a very +interesting syrinx.... + +_May_ 6. + +Dissected one of the Sea Mice. It has a remarkable series of hepatic +ducts running into the alimentary canal as in Nudibranchs.... + +_May_ 9. + +_Spring in the Woods_ + +Among the Oak Saplings we seemed enveloped in a cloud of green. The tall +green grasses threw up a green light against the young green of the +Oaks, and the sun managed to trickle through only here and there. Bevies +of swinging bluebells grew in patches among the grass. Overhead in the +oaks I heard secret leaf whispers--those little noiseless noises. Birds +and trees and flowers were secretive and mysterious like expectant +motherhood. All the live things plotted together, having the same big +business in hand. Out in the sunlit meadows, there was a different +influence abroad. Here everything was gay, lively, irresponsible. The +brook prattled like an inconsequential schoolgirl. The Marsh Marigolds +in flamboyant yellow sunbonnets played ring-a-ring-a-roses. + +An Oak Sapling should make an elderly man avuncular. There are so many +tremendous possibilities about a well-behaved young oak that it is +tempting to put a hand upon its shoulder and give some seasoned, +timberly advice. + +_June_ 1. + +_A Small Red Viper_ + +Went to L---- Sessions. After the Court rose, I transcribed my notes +quickly and walked out to the famous Valley of Rocks which Southey +described as the ribs of the old Earth poking through. At the bottom of +one of the hills saw a snake, a Red Viper. Put my boot on him quickly so +that he couldn't get away and then recognised him as a specimen of what +I consider to be the fourth species of British Serpent--_Vipera rubra_. +The difficulty was to know how to secure him. This species is more +ferocious than the ordinary _V. bera_, and I did not like the idea of +putting my hand down to seize him by the neck. I stood for some time +with my foot so firmly pressed down on its back that my leg ached and I +began to wonder if I had been bitten. I held on and presently hailed a +baker's cart coming along the road. The man got out and ran across the +grass to where I stood. I showed him what I had beneath my boot and he +produced a piece of string which I fastened around the snake's tail and +so gently hauled the little brute up. It already appeared moribund, but +I squashed its head on the grass with my heel to make certain. After +parting with the baker, to whom all thanks be given, I remember that +Adders are tenacious of life and so I continue to carry him at string's +length and occasionally wallop him against a stone. As he was lifeless I +wrapped him in paper and put him in my pocket--though to make assurance +doubly sure I left the string on and let its end hang out over my +pocket. So home by a two hours' railway journey with the adder in the +pocket of my overcoat and the overcoat on the rack over my head. Settled +down to the reading of a book on Spinoza's _Ethics_. At home it proved +to be quite alive, and, on being pulled out by the string, coiled up on +the drawing-room floor and hissed in a fury, to my infinite surprise. +Finished him off with the poker and so spoilt the skin. + +_July_ 18. + +Have had toothache for a week. Too much of a coward to have it out. +Started for P---- early in the morning to report Mr. Duke, K.C. After a +week's pain, felt a little dicky. All the way in the train kept +hardening myself to the task in front of me by recollecting the example +of Zola, who killed pain with work. So all day to-day I have endeavoured +to act as if I had no pain--the worst of all pains--toothache. By the +time I got home I was rather done up, but the pain was actually less. +This gave me a furious joy, and, after days of morose silence, to-night +at supper I made them all laugh by bursting out violently with, "I don't +know whether you know it but I've had a horrible day to-day." I +explained at length and received the healing ointment of much sympathy. +Went to bed happy with tooth still aching. I fear it was scarcely +playing the strict Zolaesque game to divulge the story of my +sufferings.... No, I am not a martyr or a saint. Just an ordinary devil +who's having a rough time. + +_August_ 17. + +_Prawning_ + +Had a glorious time on the rocks at low tide prawning. Caught some +Five-Bearded Rocklings and a large _Cottus bubalis_. The sun did not +simply shine to-day--it came rushing down from the sky in a cataract and +flooded the sands with light. Sitting on a rock, with prawning net over +my knees I looked along three miles of flat hard and yellow sands. The +sun poured down on them so heavily that it seemed to raise a luminous +golden yellow dust for about three feet high. + +On the rocks was a pretty flapper in a pink sunbonnet--also prawning in +company of S----, the artist, who has sent her picture to the Royal +Academy. They saw I was a naturalist, so my services were secured to +pronounce my judgment on a "fish" she had caught. It was a Squid, "an +odd little beast," in truth, as she said. "The same class of animal," I +volunteered, "as the Cuttlefish and Octopus." + +"Does it sting?" + +"Oh, no!" + +"Well, it ought to with a face like that." She laughed merrily, and the +bearded but youthful artist laughed too. + +"I don't know anything about these things," he said hopelessly. + +"Nor I," said the naturalist modestly. "I study fish." + +This was puzzling. "Fish?" What was a Squid then? + +... The artist would stop now and then and raise his glasses at a +passing ship, and Maud's face occasionally disappeared in the pink +sunbonnet as she stooped over a pool to examine a seaweed or crab. + +She's a dear--and she gave me the Squid. What a merry little cuss! + +_September_ 1. + +Went with Uncle to see a Wesleyan minister whose fame as a microscopist, +according to Uncle, made it worth my while to visit him. As I expected, +he was just a silly old man, a diatomaniac fond of pretty-pretty slides +and not a scientific man at all. He lectures Bands of Hope on the +Butterfly's Life History and hates his next-door neighbour, who is also +a microscopist and incidentally a scientific man, because he interests +himself in "parasites and those beastly things." + +I remarked that his friend next door had shown me an Amphioxus. + +"Oh! I expect that's some beastly bacteria thing," he said petulantly. +"I can't understand Wilkinson. He's a pervert." + +I told him what _Amphioxus_ was and laughed up my sleeve. He likes to +think of Zoology as a series of pretty pictures illustrating beautiful +moral truths. The old fellow's saving grace was enthusiasm.... Having +focused an object for us, he would stand by, breathless, while we +squinted down his gas-tube, and gave vent to tremendous expletives of +surprise such as "Heavens," or "Jupiter." His eyes would twinkle with +delight and straightway another miracle is selected for us to view. +"They are all miracles," he said. + +"Those are the valves"--washing his hands with invisible soap--"no one +has yet been able to solve the problem of the Diatom's valves. No one +knows what they are--no, nor ever will know--why?--why can't we see +behind the valves?--because God is behind the valves--that is why!" +Amen. + +_October_ 1. + +Telegraphed 1,000 words of Lord ----'s speech at T----. + +Spent the night at a comfortable country inn and read Moore's lyrics. +"Row gently here, my Gondolier," ran through my head continuously. The +Inn is an old one with a long narrow passage that leads straight from +front door to back with wainscoted smoke room and parlours on each side. +China dogs, bran on the floor, and the picture of Derby Day with horses +galloping incredibly, the drone of an old crony in the bar, and a +pleasant barmy smell. Slept in a remarkable bedroom full of massive +furniture, draped with cloth and covered with trinkets. The bed had a +tremendous hood over it like a catafalque, and lying in it made me think +I was an effigy. Read Moore till the small hours and then found I had +left my handbag downstairs. Lit a candle and went on a voyage of +discovery. Made a considerable noise, but roused no one. Entered +drawing-room, kitchen, pantries, parlour, bar--everywhere looking for my +bag and dropping candle grease everywhere! Slept in my day shirt. Tired +out and slept like a top. + +_November_ 3. + +_Aristotle's Lantern_ + +Dissected the Sea Urchin (_Echinus esculentus_). Very excited over my +first view of Aristotle's Lantern. These complicated pieces of animal +mechanism never smell of musty age--after æons of evolution. When I open +a Sea Urchin and see the Lantern, or dissect a Lamprey and cast eyes on +the branchial basket, such structures strike me as being as finished and +exquisite as if they had just a moment before been tossed me fresh from +the hands of the Creator. They are fresh, young, they smell _new_. + +_December_ 3. + +Hard at work dissecting a Dogfish. Ruridecanal Conference in the +afternoon. I enjoy this double life I lead. It amazes me to be laying +bare the brain of a dogfish in the morning and in the afternoon to be +taking down in shorthand what the Bishop says on Mission Work. + +_December_ 4. + +Went to the Veterinary Surgeon and begged of him the skull of a horse. +Carried the trophy home under my arm--bare to the public view. "Why, +Lor', 'tis an ole 'orse's jib," M---- said when I got back. + + +[1] There are numerous drawings of dissections scattered through the +Journal about this period. + + + + +1909 + + +_March_ 7. + +My programme of work is: (1) Continue German. (2) Sectioning embryo of +(_a_) Fowl, (_b_) Newt. (3) Paper on Arterial System of Newts. (4) +Psychology of Newts. (5) General Zoological Reading. + +_May_ 2. + +To C---- Hill. Too much taken with the beauty of the Woods to be able to +do any nesting. Here are some of the things I saw: the bark on several +of the trees in the mazzard orchards rubbed into a beautifully smooth, +polished surface by the Red Devon Cows when scratching where it itched; +I put my hand on the smooth almost cherry-red patch of bark and felt +delighted and grateful that cows had fleas: the young shoots of the +whortle-berry plants on the hill were red tipped with the gold of an +almost horizontal sun. I caught a little lizard which slipped across my +path.... Afar off down in the valley I had come through, in a convenient +break in a holly bush, I could just see a Cow sitting on her matronly +haunches in a field. She flicked her ears and two starlings settled on +her back. A Rabbit swept out of a sweet-brier bush, and a Magpie flew +out of the hedge on my right. + +In another direction I could see a field full of luscious, tall, green +grass. Every stalk was so full of sap that had I cut one I am sure it +would have bled great green drops. In the field some lambs were +sleeping; one woke up and looked at me with the back of its head to the +low sun, which shone through its two small ears and gave them a +transparent pink appearance. + +No sooner am I rebaptized in the sun than I have to be turning home +again. No sooner do "the sudden lilies push between the loosening fibres +of the heart" than I am whisked back into the old groove--the daily +round. If only I had more time!--more time in which to think, to love, +to observe, to frame my disposition, to direct as far as in me lies the +development and unfolding of my character, if only I could direct all my +energies to the great and difficult profession of life, of being man +instead of trifling with one profession that bores me and dabbling in +another. + +_June_ 5. + +_On Lundy Island_ + +Frankie is blowing Seagulls' eggs in the scullery. His father, after a +day's work at the farm, is at his supper very hungry, yet immensely +interested, and calls out occasionally,-- + +"'Ow you're getting on, Foreman?" + +"All right, Capt.," says Frankie affectionately, and the unpleasant +asthmatic, wheezy noise of the egg-blowing goes on.... There are three +dogs asleep under the kitchen table; all three belong to different +owners and neither one to A----. + +_June_ 6. + +Our egg-collecting with the Lighthouse Keepers. They walk about the +cliffs as surefooted as cats, and feed their dogs on birds' eggs +collected in a little bag at the end of a long pole. One dog ate three +right off in as many minutes, putting his teeth through and cracking the +shell, then lapping up the contents. Crab for tea. + +_June_ 7. + +After a glorious day at the N. end of the Island with the Puffins, was +forced to-night to take another walk, as the smell of Albert's tobacco, +together with that of his stockinged feet and his boots removed, was +asphyxiating. + +_June_ 9. + +The governess is an awfully pretty girl. We have been talking together +to-day and she asked me if I were a naturalist. I said "Yes." She said, +"Well, I found a funny little beetle yesterday and Mr. S---- said I +ought to have given it to you." Later, I felt she was looking at me, so +I looked at her, across the beach. Yes! it was true. When our eyes met +she gave me one of the most provokingly pretty smiles, then turned and +went up the cliff path and so out of my life--to my everlasting regret. + +Return to-night in a cattle steamer. + +_June_ 18. + +Dr.----, M.A., F.R.S., D.C.L., LL.D., called in the office to-day, and +seeing Dad typing, said, "Are you Mr. Barbellion?" Dad replied in the +affirmative, whereupon the Doctor handed him his card, and Dad said he +thought it was his son he wanted to see. He is an old gentleman aged +eighty or thereabouts, with elastic-sided boots, an umbrella, and a +guardian nephew--a youngster of about sixty. But I paid him due +reverence as a celebrated zoologist and at his invitation [and to my +infinite pride] accompanied him on an excursion to the coast, where he +wanted to see _Philoscia Couchii_, which I readily turned up for him. + +I chanced to remark that I thought torsion in gastropods one of the most +fascinating and difficult problems in Zoology. Why should a snail be +twisted round? + +"Humph," said he, "why do we stand upright?" I was not such a fool as to +argue with him, so pretended his reply was a knock-out. But it enabled +me to size him up intellectually. + +In the evening dined with him at his hotel.... He knows Wallace and +Haeckel personally, and I sat at his feet with my tongue out listening +to personal reminiscences of these great men. However, he seemed never +to have heard of Gaskell's Theory on the Origin of Vertebrates. + +_June_ 27. + +Walked to V----. As usual, Nature with clockwork regularity had all her +taps turned on--larks singing, cherries ripening, and bees humming. It +all bored me a little. Why doesn't she vary it a little? + +_August_ 8. + +A cold note from Dr. ---- saying that he cannot undertake the +responsibility of advising me to give up journalism for zoology. + +A hellish cold in the head. Also a swingeing inflammation of the eyes. +Just heard them singing in the Chapel over the way: "God shall wipe away +all tears from their eyes." Hope so, I'm sure. + +_August_ 9. + +A transformation. After a long series of drab experiences in Sheffield, +etc., the last being the climax of yesterday, an anti-cyclone arrived +this morning and I sailed like an Eagle into cloudless, windless +weather! _The Academy_ has published my article, my cold is suddenly +better, and going down by the sea this afternoon met Mary ----! + +_August_ 20. + +Had an amusing letter from my maiden-aunt F----, who does not like "the +agnostic atmosphere" in my _Academy_ article. Poor dear! She is sorry if +I really feel like that, and, if I do, what a pity to put it into print. +Then a Bible reference to the Epistle to the Romans. + +_Xmas Day_. + +Feeling ill--like a sloppy Tadpole. My will is paralysed. I visit the +Doctor regularly to be stethoscoped, ramble about the streets, idly scan +magazines in the Library and occasionally rink--with palpitation of the +heart as a consequence. In view of the shortness, bitterness, and +uncertainty of life, all scientific labour for me seems futile. + + + + +1910 + + +_January_ 10. + +Better, but still very dicky: a pallid animal: a weevil in a nut. I have +a weak heart, an enervated nervous system; I suffer from lack of funds +with which to carry on my studies; I hate +newspaper-reporting--particularly some skinny-witted speaker like ----; +and last, but not least, there are women; all these worries fight over +my body like jackals over carrion. Yet Zoology is all I want. Why won't +Life leave me alone? + +_January_ 15. + +Reading Hardy's novels. He is altogether delightful in the subtlety with +which he lets you perceive the first tiny love presentiments between his +heroes and heroines--the casual touch of the hands, the peep of a foot +or ankle underneath the skirt--all these in Hardy signify the cloud no +bigger than a man's hand. They are the susurrus of the breeze before the +storm, and you await what is to follow with palpitating heart. + +_February_ 3. + +For days past have been living in a state of mental ebullition. All +kinds of pictures of Love, Life, and Death have been passing through my +mind. Now I am too indolent and nerveless to set them down. Physically I +am such a wreck that to carry out the least intention, such as putting +on my boots, I have to flog my will like an Arab with a slave "in a sand +of Ayaman." Three months ago when I got up before breakfast to dissect +rabbits, dogfish, frogs, newts, etc., this would have seemed impossible. + +_February_ 6. + +Still visit Dr. ----'s surgery each week. I have two dull spots at the +bottom of each lung. What a fine expressive word is _gloom_. Let me +write it: GLOOM.... + +One evening coming home in the train from L---- County Sessions I +noticed a horrible, wheezy sound whenever I breathed deep. I was scared +out of my life, and at once thought of consumption. Went to the Doctor's +next day, and he sounded me and reassured me. I was afraid to tell him +of the little wheezy sound at the apex of each lung, and I believed he +overlooked it. So next day, very harassed, I went back to him again and +told him. He _hadn't_ noticed it and looked glum. Have to keep out of +doors as much as possible. + +The intense internal life I lead, worrying about my health, reading +(eternally reading), reflecting, observing, feeling, loving and +hating--with no outlet for superfluous steam, cramped and confined on +every side, without any friends or influence of any sort, without even +any acquaintances excepting my colleagues in journalism (whom I +contemn)--all this will turn me into the most self-conscious, conceited, +mawkish, gauche creature in existence. + +_March_ 6. + +The facts are undeniable: Life is pain. No sophistry can win me over to +any other view. And yet years ago I set out so hopefully and +healthfully--what are birds' eggs to me _now_? My ambition is enormous +but vague. I am too distributed in my abilities ever to achieve +distinction. + +_March_ 22. + +Had a letter from the Keeper of Zoology at the British Museum, advising +me of three vacancies in his Dept., and asking me if I would like to +try, etc.... So that Dr. ----'s visit to me bore some fruit.[1] Spent +the morning day-dreaming.... Perhaps this is the flood tide at last! I +shall work like a drayhorse to pull through if I am nominated.... I +await developments in a frightfully turbulent state of mind. I have a +frantic desire to control the factors which are going to affect my +future so permanently. And this ferocious desire, of course, collides +with a crash all day long with the fact that however much I desire there +will still remain the unalterable logic of events. + +_April_ 7. + +... How delicious all this seemed! To be alive--thinking, seeing, +enjoying, walking, eating--all quite apart from the amount of money in +your purse or the prospects of a career. I revelled in the sensuous +enjoyment of my animal existence. + +_June_ 2. + +Up to now my life has been one of great internal strife and +struggle--the struggle with a great ambition and a weak will--unequal to +the task of coping with it. I have planned on too big a scale, perhaps. +I have put too great a strain on my talents, I have whipped a flagging +will, I have been for ever cogitating, worrying, devising means of +escape. Meanwhile, the moments have gone by unheeded and unenjoyed. + +_June_ 10. + +Legginess is bad enough in a woman, but bandy legginess is impossible. + +Solitude is good for the soul. After an hour of it, I feel as lofty and +imperial as Marcus Aurelius. + +The best girl in the best dress immediately looks disreputable if her +stockings be downgyved. + +Some old people on reaching a certain age go on living out of habit--a +bad habit too. + +How much I can learn of a stranger by his laugh. + +Bees, Poppies, and Swallows!--and all they mean to him who really knows +them! Or a White Gull on a piece of floating timber, or a troop of shiny +Rooks close on the heels of a ploughman on a sunny autumn day. + +_June_ 30. + +My egoism appals me. Likewise the extreme intensification of the +consciousness of myself. Whenever I walk down the High Street on a +market day, my self-consciousness magnifies my proportions to the size +of a Gulliver--so that it is grievous to reflect that in spite of that +the townsfolk see me only as an insignificant bourgeois youth who +reports meetings in shorthand. + +_July_ 17. + +We sang to-night in Church, "But when I know Thee as Thou art, I'll +praise Thee as I ought." Exactly! Till then, farewell. We are a great +little people, we humans. If there be no next world, still the Spirit of +Man will have lived and uttered its protest. + +_July_ 22. + +_Our Simian Ancestry_ + +How I hate the man who talks about the "brute creation," with an ugly +emphasis on _brute_. Only Christians are capable of it. As for me, I am +proud of my close kinship with other animals. I take a jealous pride in +my Simian ancestry. I like to think that I was once a magnificent hairy +fellow living in the trees and that my frame has come down through +geological time _via_ sea jelly and worms and Amphioxus, Fish, +Dinosaurs, and Apes. Who would exchange these for the pallid couple in +the Garden of Eden? + +_August_ 9. + +I do not ever like going to bed. For me each day ends in a little +sorrow. I hate the time when it comes to put my books away, to knock out +my pipe and say "Good-night," exchanging the vivid pleasures of the day +for the darkness of sleep and oblivion. + +_August_ 23. + +Spent the afternoon and evening till ten in the woods with Mary ----. +Had tea in the Haunted House, and after sat in the Green Arbor until +dark, when I kissed her. "Achilles was not the worse warrior for his +probation in petticoats." + +_September_ 1. + +I hope to goodness she doesn't think I want to marry her. In the Park in +the dark, kissing her. I was testing and experimenting with a new +experience. + +_September_ 4. + +Last evening, after much mellifluous cajolery, induced her to _kiss me_. +My private opinion about this whole affair is that all the time I have +been at least twenty degrees below real love heat. In any case I am +constitutionally and emotionally unfaithful. I said things which I did +not believe just because it was dark and she was charming. + +_September_ 5. + +Read Thomas à Kempis in the train. It made me so angry I nearly flung it +out of the window. "Meddle not with things that be too deep for thee," +he says, "but read such things as yield compunction to the heart rather +than elevation to the head." Forsooth! Can't you see me? + +_September_ 15. + +A puzzling afternoon: weather perfect, the earth green and humming like +a top, yet a web of dream overlaid the great hill, and at certain +moments, which recurred in a kind of pulsation, accompanied by +subjective feelings of vague strife and effort, I easily succeeded in +letting all I saw--the field and the blackberry bush, the whole valley +and the apple orchards--change into something unreal, flimsy, gauzelike, +immaterial, and totally unexperienced. Suddenly when the impression was +most vivid, the whole of this mysterious tapestry would vanish away and +I was back where 2 and 2 make 4. Oh! Earth! how jealously you guard your +secrets! + +_October_ 4. + +Sat at the Civil Service Commission in Burlington House for the exam, +for the vacancy in the B.M. No luck at all with the papers. The whole of +my nine months' assiduous preparation helped me in only two questions. +In fine, I have not succeeded, I shall not obtain the appointment, and +in a few weeks I shall be back in the wilds of + +N---- again under the old regime, reporting platitudes from greasy +guardians of the poor, and receiving condolences from people not +altogether displeased at some one else's misfortune. + +_October_ 14. + +Returned home from London. Felt horribly defeated in crossing the +threshold. It was so obviously _returning_ after an unsuccessful flight. + +_October_ 22. + +Dissected a _Squilla_ for which I paid 2s. 6d. to the Plymouth Marine +Laboratory. + +_October_ 23. + +_Ambition_ + +Am attempting to feel after some practical philosophy of +living--something that will enable me to accept disappointment with +equanimity and Town Council meetings with a broad and tolerant smile. At +present, ambition consumes me. I was ambitious before I was breeched. I +can remember wondering as a child if I were a young Macaulay or Ruskin +and secretly deciding that I was. My infant mind even was bitter with +those who insisted on regarding me as a normal child and not as a +prodigy. Since then I have struggled with this canker for many a day, +and as success fails to arrive it becomes more gnawing. + +_October_ 24. + +In the morning a Town Council and in the afternoon a Rural Council. With +this abominable trash in my notebook waiting to be written up and turned +into "copy," and with the dream pictures of a quiet studious life in +Cromwell Road not yet faded from my mind, where can I turn for +consolation? That I have done my best? That's only a mother's saying to +her child. + +Perhaps after all it is a narrow life--this diving and delving among +charming little secrets, plying diligently scalpel and microscope and +then weaving the facts obtained into theoretic finespun. It is all +vastly entertaining to the naturalist but it leaves the world unmoved. I +sometimes envy the zealot with a definite mission in life. Life without +one seems void. The monotonous pursuit of our daily vocations--the +soldier, sailor, candlestick-maker--so they go on, never living but only +working, never thinking but only hypnotising themselves by the routine +and punctuality of their lives into just so many mechanical toys +warranted to go for so long and then stop when Death takes them.... It +amazes me that men must spend their precious days of existence for the +most part in slaving for food and clothing and the bare necessaries of +existence. + +To sum up my despondency, what's the good of such a life? Where does it +lead? Where am I going? Why should I work? What means this procession of +nights and days wherein we are all seen moving along intent and stern as +if we had some purpose or a goal?... Of course to the man who believes +in the next world and a personal God, it is quite another matter. The +Christian is the Egoist _par excellence_. He does not mind annihilation +by arduous labour in this world if in the next he shall have won eternal +life.... He is reckless of to-day, extravagant in the expenditure of his +life. This intolerable fellow will be cheerful in a dungeon. For he +flatters himself that God Almighty up in Heaven is all the time watching +through the keyhole and marking him down for eternal life. + +_October_ 26. + +The nose-snuffling, cynical man who studies La Rochefoucauld, and prides +himself on a knowledge of human motives, is pleased to point out that +every action and every motive is selfish, from the philanthropist who +advertises himself by his charities to the fanatic who lays down his +life for a cause. Even secret charities, for they give pleasure to the +doer. So your cynic thinks he has thus, with one stroke of his +psychological scalpel, laid human nature bare in all its depravities. +All he has done really is to reclassify motives--instead of grouping +them as selfish and unselfish (which is more convenient) he lumps them +together as selfish, a method by which even he is forced to recognise +different grades of selfishness. For example, the selfishness of a +wife-beater is lower than the selfishness of a man who gives up his life +for another. + +_October_ 28. + +The result arrived. As I thought, I have failed, being fourth with only +three vacancies. + +_November_ 7. + +It is useless to bewail the course of fortune. It cannot be much credit +to possess--though we may covet--those precious things, to possess which +depends on circumstances outside our control. + +_November_ 9. + +Dined at the Devonshire Club in St. James's Street, W., with Dr. +H----and Mr. ----, the latter showing the grave symptomatic phenomena of +a monocle and spats. A dinner of eight courses. Only made one mistake +--put my salad on my dish instead of on the side dish. Horribly nervous +and reticent. I was apparently expected to give an account of myself and +my abilities--and with that end in view, they gave me a few pokes in my +cranial ribs. But I am a peculiar animal, and, before unbosoming myself, +I would require a happier _mise-en-scène_ than a West End Club, and a +more tactful method of approach than ogling by two professors, who +seemed to think I was a simple penny-in-the-slot machine. I froze from +sheer nervousness and nothing resulted. + +_November_ 11. + +Returned home and found a letter awaiting me from Dr. A---- offering me +£60 a year for a temporary job as assistant at the Plymouth Marine +Laboratory. + +Left London horribly depressed. They evidently intend to shuffle me off. + +Read Geo. Gissing's novel, _Born in Exile_. Godwin Peak, with his +intense pride of individuality, self-torturing capacities, and +sentimental languishment, reminds me of myself. + +_November_ 20. + +A purulent cold in the nose. My heart is weak. Palpitation after the +least exertion. But I shall soon be swinging my cudgels in the battle of +life, so it won't do to be hypochondriacal.... Let all the powers of the +world and the Devil attack me, yet I will win in the end--though the +conquest may very well be one which no one but myself will view. + +Have accepted the Plymouth appointment. + +_November_ 30. + +Struggling in the depths again within the past few days with heart +attacks. Am slowly getting better of them and trying to forget as soon +as may be visions of sudden death, coffins, and obituary notices. + +_December_ 2. + +_Death_ + +At first, when we are very young, Death arouses our curiosity, as it did +Cain in the beginning.[2] It is a strange and very rare phenomenon which +we cannot comprehend, and every time we hear of some one's death, we try +to recall that person's appearance in life and are disappointed if we +can't. The endeavour is to discover what it is, this Death, to compare +two things, the idea of the person alive and the idea of him dead. At +last some one we know well dies--and that is the first shock.... I shall +never forget when our Matron died at the D---- School.... As the years +roll on, we get used to the man with the scythe and an acquaintance's +death is only a bit of gossip. + +Suppose the Hellfire of the orthodox really existed! We have no +assurance that it does not! It seems incredible, but many incredible +things are true. We do not _know_ that God is not as cruel as a Spanish +inquisitor. Suppose, then, He is! If, after Death, we wicked ones were +shovelled into a furnace of fire--we should have to burn. There would be +no redress. It would simply be the Divine Order of things. It is +outrageous that we should be so helpless and so dependent on any +one--even God. + +_December_ 9. + +Sometimes I think I am going mad. I live for days in the mystery and +tears of things so that the commonest object, the most familiar +face--even my own--become ghostly, unreal, enigmatic. I get into an +attitude of almost total scepticism, nescience, solipsism even, in a +world of dumb, sphinx-like things that cannot explain themselves. The +discovery of how I am situated--a sentient being on a globe in space +overshadows me. I wish I were just nothing. + +_Later_: While at a public meeting, the office-boy approached me and +immediately whispered without hesitation,-- + +"Just had a telephone message to say that your father is at the +T----Railway Station, lying senseless. He has evidently had an +apoplectic fit." + +(How those brutal words, "lying senseless," banged and bullied and +knocked me down. Mother was waiting for me at the door in a dreadful +state and expecting the worst.) + +Met the train with the Doctor, and took him home in the cab--still +alive, thank God, but helpless. He was brave enough to smile and shake +me by the hand--with his left, though he was speechless and the right +side of his body helpless. A porter discovered him at the railway +terminus lying on the floor of a second-class carriage. + +_December_ 10. + +He is a trifle better. It is fifteen years since he had the first +paralytic stroke. + +Am taking over all his work and have written at once resigning the +Plymouth appointment. + +_December_ 23. + +It really did require an effort to go upstairs to-day to his bedroom and +say cheerfully I was not going to P. after all, and that the matter was +of no consequence to me. I laughed gaily and Dad was relieved. A +thundering good joke. What annoys me is that other folk--the brainless, +heartless mob, as Schopenhauer remarks, still continue to regard me as +one of themselves.... I had nearly escaped into a seaside laboratory, +and now suddenly to be flung back into the dirt and sweat of the +newspaper world seems very hard, and it _is_ very hard. + +_December_ 26. + +_Windy Ash_ + +With the dog for a walk around Windy Ash. It was a beautiful winter's +morning--a low sun giving out a pale light but no warmth--a luminant, +not a fire--the hedgerows bare and well trimmed, an Elm lopped close +showing white stumps which glistened liquidly in the sun, a Curlew +whistling overhead, a deeply cut lane washed hard and clean by the +winter rains, a gunshot from a distant cover, a creeping Wren, silent +and tame, in a bramble bush, and over the five-barred gate the granite +roller with vacant shafts. I leaned on the gate and saw the great whisps +of cloud in the sky like comets' tails. Everything cold, crystalline. + + +[1] He had spoken about me to the Museum authorities, and it was his +influence which got me the nomination to sit for the examination. + +[2] In Byron's poem. + +1911 + + +_January_ 2. + +As a young man--a _very_ young man--my purpose was to plough up all +obstacles, brook no delays, and without let or hindrance win through to +an almost immediate success! But witness 1910! "My career" so far has +been like the White Knight's, who fell off behind when the horse +started, in front when it stopped, and sideways occasionally to vary the +monotony. + +_January_ 30. + +Feeling ill and suffering from attacks of faintness. My ill health has +produced a change in my attitude towards work. As soon as I begin to +feel the least bit down, I am bound to stop at once as the idea of +bending over a desk or a dissecting dish, of reading or studying, +nauseates me when I think that perhaps to-morrow or next day or next +week, next month, next year I may be dead. What a waste of life it seems +to work! Zoology is repugnant and philosophy superfluous beside the +bliss of sheer living--out in the cold polar air or indoors in a chair +before a roaring fire with hands clasped, watching the bustling, +soothing activity of the flames. + +Then, as soon as I am well again, I forget all this, grow discontented +with doing nothing and work like a Tiger. + +_February_ 11. + +Walked in the country. Coming home, terrified by a really violent attack +of palpitation. Almost every one I met I thought would be the +unfortunate person who would have to pick me up. As each one in the +street approached me, I weighed him in the balance and considered if he +had presence of mind and how he would render first aid. After my friend, +P.C. ----, had passed, I felt sorry that the tragedy had not already +happened, for he knows me and where I live. At length, after sundry +leanings over the river wall, arrived at the Library, which I entered, +and sat down, when the full force of the palpitation was immediately +felt. My face burned with the hot blood, my hand holding the paper shook +with the angry pulse, and my heart went bang! bang! bang! and I could +feel its beat in the carotids of the neck and up along the Torcular +herophili and big vessels in the occipital region of the head. Drew in +each breath very gently for fear of aggravating the fiend. Got home +(don't know how) and had some sal volatile. Am better now but very +demoralised. + +_February_ 13. + +Feel like a piece of drawn threadwork, or an undeveloped negative, or a +jelly fish on stilts, or a sloppy tadpole, or a weevil in a nut, or a +spitchcocked eel. In other words and in short--ill. + +_February_ 16. + +After some days with the vision of sudden death constantly before me, +have come to the conclusion that it's a long way to go to die. Am coming +back anyhow. Yet these are a few terrible pages in my history. + +_March_ 4. + +... The Doctor's orders "Cease Work" have brought on in an aggravated +form my infatuation for zoological research. I lie in bed and +manufacture rolling periods in praise of it, I get dithyrambic over the +zoologists themselves--Huxley, Wallace, Brooks, Lankester. I chortle to +reflect that in zoology there are no stock exchange ambitions, there is +no mention of slum life, Tariff Reform is not included. In the repose of +the spacious laboratory by the seaside or in the halls of some great +Museum, life with its vulgar struggles, its hustle and obscenity, +scarcely penetrates. Behind those doors, life flows slowly, deeply. I am +ascetic and long for the monastic seclusion of a student's life. + +_March_ 5. + +_From One Maiden Lady to Another_. (_Authentic_) + +"My dear Sister,--You have been expecting to hear from me I know, I have +had inflammation to my eyes twice in 3 weeks so I thought I had better +let the Doctor see and he says it is catarrh of the eyes and windpipe. I +am inhaling and taking lozenges and medicine. You will be sorry to learn +Leonora Mims has been taken to a Sanatorium with Diptheria, we heard +yesterday, she is better, poor Mrs. Mims herself quite an invalid, she +has to walk with a stick, I believe you know she has had to have her +breast cut off, they keep a servant as she can't do anything, old Mrs. +Point is 87 I think it is so they too have a lot of trouble, Fred Mims +has just got married.... + +"Poor old Mrs. Seemsoe is just the same, she doesn't know anybody but +she talks, the nurse put a grape in her mouth but she didn't know what +to do with it, I think it is very sad. She was taken about a fortnight +before Easter. Will you tell me dear if this is right receipt for +clothes 1/2 oz. carbolic in 1/2 pint of rose water. Harry Gammon's 2 +little children have measles, poor Maisie has gone with her Aunt Susan, +poor old Joe Gammon they say had very little to leave, we don't know +where Robert gets his money from. I dare say you saw that Tom Sagg has +married another of Ned Smith's daughters and we hear these Smith girls +are rare housekeepers and this girl that has married Tom Sagg has made +all her own linen. Mrs. Wilkins, the butcher's wife is going to have a +little one after 15 years, our Vicar has been laid up with an abscess, +he told us about his brother the other day, he says as brothers they +love each other very much. We have 3 very sad cases of men ill in the +village. We had 4 but one man died of cancer. + +"Yr loving Sister Amy." + +Voilà! + +_March_ 7. + +If I die I should like to be buried in the cherry orchards at V----. + +How the beastly mob loves a tragedy! The sudden death of the Bank +Manager is simply thrilling the town, and the newspapers sell like hot +cakes. Scarcely before the body is cold the coincidence of his death on +the anniversary of his birth is discussed in every household; every one +tells everybody else where they saw him last "he looked all right then." +The policeman and the housemaid, the Mayor and the Town Clerk, the +cabman and the billposter, stand and discuss the deceased gentleman's +last words or what the widow's left with. "Ah! well, it is very sad," +they remark to one another with no emotion and continue on their way. + +_March_ 10. + +On coming downstairs in the evening played Ludo with H----. At one stage +I laughed so much in conjunction with that harlequin H---- that I got +cramp in the abdominal muscles and the tears trickled down my face. + +_March_ 13. + +H---- and I play Ludo incessantly. We've developed the gambling fever, +and our pent-up excitement every now and then explodes in fiendish +cackles, and Mother looks up over her spectacles and says, "William, +William, they'll hear in the street presently." + +_A Character_ + +For this world's unfortunates, his is the ripe sympathy of a +well-developed nature, standing in strong contrast with the rest of his +personality, which is wholly self-centred, a little ungenerous, and what +strong men of impeccable character call "weak." If you are ill he is +delightful, if you are robust or successful he can be very +objectionable. To an influenza victim he goes out of his way to carry a +book, but if you tell him with gusto you have passed your exam, he says, +"Oh, but there's not much behind it, is there?" "Oh! no," I answer, +comforting him, "it is really a misfortune to be a success." And so only +the bankrupts, dipsos (as he calls them), ne'er-do-weels, and sudden +deaths ever touch his heart or tap his sympathy. He is a short, queery, +dressy little fellow, always spruce and clean. His joy consists in a +glass of beer, a full stomach, a good cigar, or a pretty girl to flirt +with. He frequents drinking saloons and billiard rooms, goes to dances +and likes to be thought a lady's man. "Urn," he will say, with the air +of a connoisseur, "a little too broad in the beam," as some attractive +damsel walks down the street. Any day about twelve you can see both of +us, "the long and the short of it" (he is only half my height and I call +him .5), walking together in the Park, and engaged in the most heated +discussion over some entirely trivial matter, such as whether he would +marry a woman with sore eyes, etc., etc. More than once we have caught +cabmen idle on the cab-rank or policemen on point duty jerking their +thumbs backward at us and expressing some facetious remarks which we +longed to overhear. I usually walk in the gutter to bring my height down +a bit. + +A good raconteur himself, he does not willingly suffer a story from +another. The varmint on occasion finishes your joke off for you, which +is his delicate way of intimating that he has heard it before. He is a +first-class mimic, and sends every one into a thousand fits while he +gives you in succession the Mayor and all the Corporation. He also +delights me at times by mimicking me. His mind is receptive rather than +creative: it picks up all sorts of gaudy ideas by the wayside like a +magpie, and I sometimes enjoy the exquisite sensation of hearing some of +these petty pilferings (which he has filched from me) laid at my feet as +if they were his own. The ideas which are his own are always +unmistakable. + +His favourite poems are Omar and the Ballad of Reading Jail, his +favourite drinks Medoc or a Cherry Mixture. Me he describes as +_serpentilous_ with _Gibbon-like arms,_ pinheaded, and so on. He amuses +me. In fact I love him. + +_March_ 16. + +No one will ever understand without personal experience that an +exceedingly self-conscious creature like myself driven in on himself to +consume himself is the unhappiest of men. I have come to loathe myself: +my finicking, hypersensitive, morbid nature, always thinking, talking, +writing about myself for all the world as if the world beyond did not +exist! I am rings within rings, circles concentric and intersecting, a +maze, a tangle: watching myself behave or misbehave, always reflecting +on what impression I am making on others or what they think of me. +Introduce me to a stranger and I swell out as big as Alice. +Self-consciousness makes me pneumatic, and consequently so awkward and +clumsy and swollen that I don't know how to converse--and God help the +other fellow. + +_Later_: Youth is an intoxication without wine, some one says. Life is +an intoxication. The only sober man is the melancholiac, who, +disenchanted, looks at life, sees it as it really is, and cuts his +throat. If this be so, I want to be very drunk. The great thing is to +live, to clutch at our existence and race away with it in some great +and enthralling pursuit. Above all, I must beware of all ultimate +questions--they are too maddeningly unanswerable--let me eschew +philosophy and burn Omar. + +In this week's _T.P.'s Weekly_ a youth advertises:--"Young thinkers +interested in philosophy, religion, social reform, the future of +humanity, and all freethought, please communicate with 'Evolution,' aged +21!" All right for 21. + +_Later_: I have in mind some work on the vascular system of larval +newts. In the autumn I see a large piece of work to be done in animal +psychology--namely, frequency of stimulus and its relation to habit +formation. Yet the doctor advises long rest and the office work remains +to be done. I must hack my way through somehow. I sit trying to +disentangle these knots; then some one plays a dreamy waltz and all my +fine edifices of the will vanish in mist. Is it worth while? Why not +float with the tide? But I soon throw off these temptations. If I live, +I shall play a fine game! I am determined. A lame-dog life is of no use. + +_April_ 17. + +_Railway Travel_ + +A journey in a railway train makes me sentimental. If I enter the +compartment a robust-minded, cheerful youth, fresh and whistling from a +walk by the sea, yet, as soon as I am settled down in one corner and the +train is rattling along past fields, woods, towns, and painted stations, +I find myself indulging in a saccharine sadness--very toothsome and +jolly. I pull a long face and gaze out of the window wistfully and look +sad. But I am really happy--and incredibly sentimental. + +The effect is produced, I suppose, by the quickly changing panoramic +view of the country, and as I see everything sliding swiftly by, and +feel myself being hurtled forward willy-nilly, I am sub-conscious of the +flight of Time, of the eternal flux, of the trajectory of my own +life.... Timid folk, of course, want some Rock of Ages, something +static. They want life a mill pond rather than the torrent which it is, +a homely affair of teacups and tabby cats rather than a dangerous +expedition. + +_April_ 22. + +Who will rid me of the body of this death? My body is chained to me--a +dead weight. It is my warder. I can do nothing without first consulting +it and seeking its permission. I jeer at its grotesqueness. I chafe at +the thongs it binds on me. On this bully I am dependent for everything +the world can give me. How can I preserve my _amour propre_ when I must +needs be for ever wheedling and cajoling a despot with delicate meats +and soft couches?--I who am proud, ambitious, and full of energy! In the +end, too, I know it intends to carry me off.... I should like though to +have the last kick and, copying De Quincey, arrange to hand it over for +dissection to the medical men--out of revenge. + +"Hope thou not much; fear thou not at all"--my motto of late. + +_April_ 30. + +I can well imagine looking back on these entries later on and blushing +at the pettiness of my soul herein revealed.... Only be charitable, kind +reader. There are three Johns, and I am much mistaken if in these pages +there will not be found something of the John known to himself, and an +inkling, perhaps, of the man as he is known to his Creator. As a timid +showman afraid that unless he emphasises the feature of his exhibit, +they will be overlooked, let me, hat in hand, point out that I know I am +an ass, that I am still hoping (in spite of ill health) that I am an +enthusiast. + +_May_ 2. + +Maeterlinck's _Wisdom and Destiny_ is distilled Marcus Aurelius. I am +rather tired of these comfortable philosophers. If a man be harassed by +Fate with a red rag and a picador let him turn and rend him--or try to, +anyway. + +_May_ 8. + +_Staying by the Sea_ + +I have been living out of doors a lot lately and am getting sunburnt. It +gives me infinite pleasure to be sunburnt--to appear the man of the open +air, the open road, and the wild life. The sun intoxicates me to-day. +The sea is not big enough to hold me nor the sky for me to breathe in. I +feel I should like to be swaying with all the passions, throbbing with +life and a vast activity of heart and sinew--to live magnificently--with +an unquenchable thirst to drink to the lees, to plumb the depth of every +joy and every sorrow, to see my life flash in the heat. Ah! Youth! +Youth! Youth!!! In these moments of ecstasy my happiness is torrential. +I have the soul of the poppy flaming in me then. I am rather like the +poppy in many ways.... It is peculiarly appropriate. It must be my +flower! I am the poppy!! + +_May_ 9. + +L---- was digging up the ground in his garden to-day and one shovelful +came up thick and shapely. He laid the sod on its back gently without +breaking it and said simply, "Doesn't it come up nice?" His face was +radiant!--Real happiness lies in the little things, in a bit of garden +work, in the rattle of the teacups in the next room, in the last chapter +of a book. + +_May_ 14. + +Returned home. I hate living in this little town. If some one dies, he +is sure to be some one you had a joke with the night before. A +suicide--ten to one--implicates your bosom friend, or else the little +man at the bookshop cut him down. There have been three deaths since I +came home--I knew them all. It depresses me. The town seems a mortuary +with all these dead bodies lying in it. Lucky for you, if you're a fat, +rubicund, unimaginative physician. + +_May_ 16. + +Two more people dead--one a school friend. Sat on a seat on the river +bank and read the _Journal of Animal Behaviour_. It made me long to be +at work. I foamed at the mouth to be sitting there perforce in an +overcoat on a seat doing nothing like a pet dove. A weak heart makes +crossing a road an adventure and turns each day into a dangerous +expedition. + +_May_ 18. + +A dirty ragamuffin on the river's bank held up a tin can to me with the +softly persuasive words,-- + +"'Ere, Mister, BAIT." + +"What are you going to do with it?" + +"Fish." + +"What for?" + +"Salmon." + +We have all tried to catch salmon with a bent pin. No matter though if +no salmon be caught. Richard Jefferies said, "If there be no immortality +still we shall have had the glory of that thought." + +_May_ 19. + +_Old Diaries_ + +Spent some happy time reading over old diaries. I was grieved and +surprised to find how much I had forgotten. To forget the past so easily +seems scarcely loyal to oneself. I am so selfishly absorbed in my +present self that I have grown not to care a damn about that ever +increasing collection of past selves--those dear, dead gentlemen who one +after the other have tenanted the temple of this flesh and handed on the +torch of my life and personal identity before creeping away silently and +modestly to rest. + +_June_ 6. + +Brilliantly fine and warm. Unable to resist the sun, so I caught the ten +train to S---- and walked across the meadow (buttercups, +forget-me-nots, ragged robins) to the Dipper stream and the ivy bridge. +Read ardently in Geology till twelve. Then took off my boots and socks, +and waded underneath the right arch of the bridge in deep water, and +eventually sat on a dry stone at the top of the masonry just where the +water drops into the green salmon pool in a solid bar. Next I waded +upstream to a big slab of rock tilted at a comfortable angle. I lay flat +on this with my nether extremities in water up to my knees. The sun +bathed my face and dragon flies chased up and down intent on murder. But +I cared not a tinker's Demetrius about Nature red in tooth and claw. I +was quite satisfied with Nature under a June sun in the cool atmosphere +of a Dipper stream. I lay on the slab completely relaxed, and the cool +water ran strongly between my toes. Surely I was never again going to be +miserable. The voices of children playing in the wood made me extra +happy. As a rule I loathe children. I am too much of a youth still. But +not this morning. For these were fairy voices ringing through enchanted +woods. + +_June_ 8. + +Brilliantly fine and warm. Went by train to C---- Woods. Took +first-class return on account of the heat. Crossed the meadow and up the +hill to the mill leat, where we bathed our feet and read. Ate a powerful +lunch and made several unsuccessful grabs at Caddie flies. I want one to +examine the mouth parts. After lunch we sat on the foot-bridge over the +stream, and I rested on it flat in the face of the sun. The sun seemed +to burn into my very bones, purging away everything that may be dark or +threatening there. The physical sensation of the blood flow beneath the +skin was good to feel, and the heat made every tissue glow with a +radiant well-being. When I got up and opened my eyes all the colours of +the landscape vanished under the silvery whiteness of the intense +sunlight. + +We put on our boots and socks (our feet seemed to have swollen to a very +large size) and wandered downstream to a little white house, a +gamekeeper's cottage, where the old woman gave us cream and milk and +home-made bread in her beautiful old kitchen with open hearth. China +dogs, of course, and on the wall an old painting representing the person +of a page boy (so she said) who was once employed up at the squire's. An +unwholesome atmosphere of pigs pervaded the garden, but as this is not +pretty I ought to leave it out.... + +_June_ 14. + +Brilliantly fine. Went by the early train to S----. Walked to the ivy +bridge and then waded upstream to the great slab of rock where I spread +myself in the sun as before. The experiment was so delightful it is +worth repeating a hundred times. In this position I read of the decline +and fall of Trilobites, of the Stratigraphy of the Lias and so on. +Geology is a very crushing science, yet I enjoyed my existence this +morning with the other flies about that stream. + +_June_ 20. + +Sat at Liverpool University for the practical exam. Zoology, Board of +Education. + +At the close the other students left but I went on working. Prof. +Herdman asked me if I had finished. I said "No," so he gave me a little +more time. Later he came up again, and again I said "No," but he replied +that he was afraid I must stop. "What could you do further?" he asked, +picking up a dish of plankton. I pointed out a _Sagitta_, an +_Oikopleura_, and a _Noctiluca_, and he replied, "Of course I put in +more than you were expected to identify in the time, so as to make a +choice possible." Then he complimented me on my written papers which +were sent in some weeks ago, and looking at my practical work he added, +"And this, too, seems to be quite excellent." + +I thanked him from the bottom of a greedy and grateful heart, and he +went on, "I see you describe yourself in your papers as a journalist, +but can you tell me exactly what has been your career in Zoology?" I +answered of course rather proudly that I had had _no_ career in Zoology. + +"But what school or college have you worked at?" he persisted. + +"None," I said a little doggedly. "What I know I have taught myself." + +"So you've had no training in Zoology at all?" + +"No, sir." + +"Well, if you've taught yourself all you know, you've done remarkably +well." + +He still seemed a little incredulous, and when I explained how I got a +great many of my marine animals for dissection and study at the Plymouth +Marine Laboratory, he immediately asked me suspiciously if I had ever +worked there. We shook hands, and he wished me all success in the +future, to which I to myself devoutly said Amen. + +Came home very elated at having impressed some one at last. + +Now for Dublin. + +_June_ 30. + +Oeconomic biology may be very useful but I am not interested in it. Give +me the pure science. I don't want to be worrying my head over remedies +for potato disease nor cures for fleas in fowls. Heaven preserve me from +ever becoming a County Council lecturer or a Government +Entomologist![1]... Give me the recluse life of a scholar or +investigator, full of leisure, culture, and delicate skill. I would +rather know Bergson than be able to stay at the Ritz Hotel. I would +rather be able to dissect a star-fish's water-vascular system than know +the price of Consols. I should make a most industrious country gentleman +with £5,000 a year and a deer park.... My idea is to withdraw from the +_mobile vulgus_ and spend laborious days in the library or laboratory. +The world is too much with us. I long for the monotony of monastic life! +Father Wasmann and the Abbé Spallanzani are the type. Let me set my +face towards them. Such lives afford poor material for novelists or +dramatists, but so much the better. Hamlet makes fine reading, but I +don't want to be Hamlet myself. + +_July_ 6. + +In the afternoon went out dredging in fifteen fathoms off the pier at +I----, but without much success.... Got a large number of interesting +things, however, in the tow net, including some advanced eggs of +_Loligo_ and a _Tomopteris_.... + +_July_ 7. + +Went to the trout stream again. After stretching a muslin net crosswise +on the water for insects floating down, sat on the footbridge and read +Geology for the Dublin Examination. Later, waded downstream to a hazel +bush on the right bank beneath a shady oak. Squatted right down on the +bush, which supported me like an arm-chair--and, with legs dangling in +the cool water, opened a Meredith and enjoyed myself. + +_July_ 28. + +Had to write backing out of the Dublin Examination for which I am +nominated to sit. I am simply not fit for the racket of such a journey +in my present state of health. My chances of success, too, are not such +as to warrant my drawing on Dad for the money. He is still ill, and +secretly agitated, I fear, because I am so bent on giving up his work. +It looks, however, as if newspaper journalism is to be my fate. It was +the refinement of torture having to write. + +_July_ 31. + +Had a letter from Dr. S---- enough to wring tears from a monument. + +Sat like a valetudinarian in the Park all day getting fresh air--among +the imbeciles, invalids, and children. Who cares? "But, gentlemen, you +_shall_ hear." + +_August_ 4. + +Still another chance--quite unexpectedly received a second nomination +this morning to sit for another exam, for two vacancies in the British +Museum. Good luck this. + +_August_ 11. + +Very hot, so went to S----, and bathed in the salmon pool. Stretched +myself out in the water, delighted to find that I had at last got to the +very heart of the countryside. I was not just watching from the +outside--on the bank. I was in it, and plunging in it, too, up to my +armpits. What did I care about the British Museum or Zoology then? All +but the last enemy and object of conquest I had overcome--for the moment +perhaps even Death himself was under heel--I was immortal--in that +minute I was always prostrate in the stream--sunk deep in the bosom of +old Mother Earth who cannot die! + +_August_ 14. + +At 4 p.m. to the Salmon Pool for a bathe. 87.3 in the shade. The meadow +was delicious in the sunshine. It made me want to hop, flirt my tail, +sing. I felt ever such a bright-eyed wily bird! + +_August_ 17. + +Caught the afternoon train to C----, but unfortunately forgot to take +with me either watch or tubes (for insects). So I applied to the +station-master, a youth of about eighteen, who is also signalman, +porter, ticket-collector, and indeed very factotal--even to the extent +of providing me with empty match boxes. I agreed with him to be called +by three halloos from the viaduct just before the evening train came in. +Then I went up to the leat, set up my muslin net in it for insects +floating down, and then went across to the stream and bathed. +Afterwards, went back and boxed the insects caught, and returned to the +little station, with its creepers on the walls and over the roof, all +as delightfully quiet as ever, and the station youth as delightfully +silly. Then the little train came around the bend of the line--green +puffing engine and red coaches, like a crawling caterpillar of gay +colour. + +_August_ 20. + +A trapper killed a specimen of _Tropidonotus natrix_ and brought it to +me. I gave him sixpence for it and am just going to dissect it. + +_August_ 21. + +There are folk who notice nothing. (Witness Capt. McWhirr in Conrad's +_Typhoon_.) They live side by side with genius or tragedy as innocent as +babies; there are heaps of people who live on a mountain, a volcano, +even, without knowing it. If the stars of Heaven fell and the Moon were +turned into blood some one would have to direct their attention to +it.... Perhaps after all, the most obvious things are the most difficult +to see. We all recognise Keats now, but suppose he was only "the boy +next door"--why should I read his verses? + +_August_ 27. + +_Preparing a Snake's Skull_ + +Prepared the skull of grass snake. I fancy I scooped out the eyes with +patent delight--I suppose symbolically, as though, on behalf of the rest +of suffering humanity, I were wiping off the old score against the beast +for its behaviour in the Garden of Eden. + +_September_ 5. + +At 2.30 Dad had three separate "strokes" of paralysis in as many +minutes, the third leaving him helpless. They sent for me in the +Library, where I was reading, and I hurried home. Just as I entered the +bedroom where he and Mother were another attack came on, and it was with +the utmost difficulty that with her help I managed to get him from the +chair to the bed. He struggled with his left arm and leg and made +inarticulate noises which sounded as if they might be groans. I don't +know if he was in pain. Dear Mother. + +_September_ 14. + +Dad cannot live long. Mother bears up wonderfully well. Tried to do some +examination work but failed utterly. A---- is watching in the sick-room +with Mother who will not leave. + +8.30. The nurse says he will not live through the night. + +8.45. Telegraphed for A---- to come. + +11.00. A---- came downstairs and had a little supper. + +12.00. Went to bed. H---- and the others lit a fire and we have all sat +around it silent, listening to its murmur. Every one felt cold. Dad has +been unconscious for over an hour. + +1.45 a.m. Heard a noise, then heard Mother coming downstairs past my +bedroom door with some one--sobbing. I knew it must be all over. +H----was helping her down. Waited in my bedroom in the dark for three +parts of an hour, when H---- came up, opened the door slowly and said, +"He's gone, old man." It was a tremendous relief to know that since he +had to die his sufferings and cruel plight were over. Fell asleep from +sheer exhaustion and slept soundly. + +_September_ 18. + +The funeral. _It is not death but the dreadful possibilities of life +which are so depressing_.[2] + +_September_ 21. + +_A Day in Autumn_ + +A cool, breezy autumn day. The beach was covered with patches of soapy +foam that shook tremulously in the wind--all the rocks and everything +were drenched with water, and the spray came off the breaking waves like +steam. A red sun went lower and lower and the shadows cast by the rocks +grew very long and grotesque. Underneath the breaking waves, the hollows +were green and dark like sea caverns. Herring gulls played about in the +air balancing themselves as they faced the breeze, then sweeping +suddenly around and downwards with the wind behind them. We all sat down +on the rocks and were very quiet, almost monosyllabic. We pointed out a +passing vessel to one another or chucked a bit of shingle into the sea. +You would have said we were bored. Yet deep down in ourselves we were +astir and all around us we could hear the rumours of divine passage, +soft and mysterious as the flight of birds migrating in the dark. + +The wind rose and tapped the line against the flag-staff at the +Coastguard Station. It roared through my hair and past my ears for an +hour on end till I felt quite windswept and bleak. On the way home we +saw the wind darting hither and thither over the long grass like a +lunatic snake. The wind! Oh! the wind--I have an enormous faith in the +curative properties of the wind. I feel better already. + +_October_ 17. + +Staying in Surrey. Exam. over and I feel fairly confident--after an +agony for a few days before on account of the development of a cold +which threatened to snatch the last chance out of my hands. + +_Justifiable Mendacity_ + +Sitting on a gate on the N. Downs I saw a long way below me in the +valley a man standing in a chalk pit and wielding a stick vigorously. +For some reason or another the idea came to me that it would be +interesting if he were in the act of killing a Snake--he so far away +below and I above and unnoticed quietly watching him. At dinner +to-night, this revised version of the story came out quite pat and +natural and obviously interested the assembly. I added graphically that +the man was too far away from me to be able to say what _species_ of +Snake it was he was killing. I possess the qualifications of an +artistic liar. Yet I can't regard such a story as a lie--it was rather a +justifiable emendation of an otherwise uninteresting incident. + +_October_ 24. + +_Une Caractère_ + +... She is a tiny little old lady, very frail and very delicate, with a +tiny voice like the noise of a fretsaw. She talks incessantly about +things which do not interest you, until your face gets stiff with +forcing a polite smile, and your voice cracked and your throat dry with +saying, "Yes," and "Really." + +To-night I attend the Zoological Society to read my first paper, so I am +really in a fluster and want to be quiet. Therefore to prevent her from +talking I write two letters which I represent as urgent. At 6.15 +desperate, so went out for a walk in the dark London streets. Returned +to supper and to Her. After the wife, the husband is intellectual +pyrotechnics. Referring to the Museum,-- + +"Would you have there, I suppose, any insects, in a case like, what you +might say to study to yourself when no one is by?" he inquired. + +6.40. It is now one hour before I need leave for the meeting, and +whether I sigh, cough, smoke, or read the paper, she goes on. She even +refuses to allow me to scan the lines below photos in the _Illustrated +London News._ I write this as the last sole resource to escape her +devastating prattle and the ceaseless hum of her tiny gnat-like mind. +She thinks (because I told her so) that I am preparing notes for the +evening meeting. + +_Later_: Spent an absolutely damnable day. Am sick, tired, bored, +frantic with her voice which I have been able to share with no one +except the intellectual giant, her husband, at tea time. In order to +break the flow of chatter, I would rudely interrupt and go on talking, +by this means keeping my end up for as long as I could, and enjoying a +short respite from the fret-sawing voice. But I tired of this and it was +of no permanent value. When I broke in, she still went on for a few +sentences unable to stop, and lo! here was the spectacle of two persons +alone together in a room both talking at the same time and neither +listening. I persisted though--and she had to stop. Once started, I was +afraid to stop--scared at the certain fact of the voice beginning to saw +again. After a while the fountain of my artificial garrulity dried up, +and the Voice at once leaped into the breach, resuming--amazing and +incredible as it seems--at the precise point where it had left off. At 7 +I am quite exhausted and sit on the opposite side of the hearth, staring +with glassy eyes, arms drooping at my sides and mouth druling. At 7.05 +her cough increases, and she has to stop to attend to it. With a +fiendish smile I push back my chair, and quietly watch her cough.... She +coughs continuously now and can talk no longer. Thank God! 8 p.m., left +for the meeting, where I read my paper in a state of awful +nervousness.... I read out all I had to say and kept them amused for +about ten minutes. I was very excited when Dr. ---- got up and praised +the paper,[3] saying it was interesting, and hoping I should continue +the experiments. The chairman, Sir John Rose Bradford, asked a question, +I answered it and then sat down. After the meeting we went upstairs to +the library, had tea and chatted with some of the big people.... Zoology +is certainly delightful, yet it seems to me the Zoologists are much as +other people. I like Zoology. I wish I could do without Zoologists.... + +_October_ 30. + +Home once more. The Natural History Museum impressed me enormously. It +is a magnificent building--too magnificent to work there--to follow +one's profession in a building like that seems an altogether too +grandiose manner of life. A pious zoologist might go up to pray in +it--but not to earn his daily bread there. + +_October_ 31. + +I'm in, in, in!!!!!!!!! being first with 141 marks to spare. Old +M----[the servant] rushes up to my sister's bedroom with the news just +after 7 a.m., and she says, "Fine, fine," and comes down in her +nightgown to my bedroom, where we drink our morning cup of tea +together--and talk! I'm delighted. What a magnificent obstacle race it +has been! Still one ditch--the medical exam! Wired to friends. + +_November_ 1. + +This is the sort of letter which is balm to me:--"My darling W----,--I +need hardly tell you how absolutely delighted we were at the grand news +of this morning. You must be feeling a huge glow of satisfaction with +the knowledge of your object attained through untold difficulties. I +don't wish to butter you up, or to gush, but I must honestly say that I +feel tip-top proud of my old Beano. I admire your brains more than ever, +and also your indomitable pluck and grit, and your quiet bravery in +disappointment and difficulty...." + +_November_ 14. + +The three most fascinating books in Science that I have so far read are +(easily):--1. Darwin's _Expression of the Emotions_. 2. Gaskell's +_Origin of Vertebrates_. 3. Bergson's _Le Rire_. + +Went to the dentist in the afternoon. Evening chiefly occupied in +reading _Le Rire_. By my halidom, it is an extraordinarily interesting +book! + +_November_ 29. + +... I am always looking out for new friends--assaying for friendship.... +There is no more delightful adventure than an expedition into a rich, +many-sided personality. Gradually over a long probation--for deep minds +are naturally reticent--piece after piece is added to the geography of +your friend's mind, and each piece pleases or entertains, while in +return you let him steal away piece after piece of your own territory, +perhaps saving a bit up here and there--such as an enthusiasm for +Francis Thompson's poetry--and then letting it go unexpectedly. It's a +delightful reciprocity. + +I dream of "the honeyed ease of the Civil Servant's working day" +(Peacock). Yet the French say _Songes sont mensonges_. + +_December_ 13. + +In the Park it was very dark and she said,-- + +"If I lose you I shan't be able to find my way home." + +"Oh! I'll look after you," I said. + +Both being of the same mind at the same time we sat down on a seat +together when a fortunate thing happened. It began to rain. So I offered +her part of my overcoat. She nestled in under my arm and I kissed her +out of hand. _Voilà_! A very pretty little girl, 'pon my word. + +_December_ 20. + +The thing is obsessing me. After an early supper called and found my +lady ready to receive me. No one else at home. So walked into the +oak-panelled room with the red-curtained windows, took off my coat and +scarf. She followed and switched off the light. There was a roaring fire +in the grate. She is very amorous and I am not Hippolytus, so we were +soon closely engaged in the large chair before the fire. As we sailed +thus, close hauled to the wind, with double entendres and she trembled +in the storm (and I was at the helm) the garden gate slammed and both of +us got up quickly. I next heard a key turn in the lock and a foot in the +passage: "Mr. ----" she said.... + +She switched on the light, went out swiftly into the passage, and +meeting him conducted him to her office, while I as swiftly put on +overcoat and scarf, and slipped out through the open door, stumbling +over his bicycle, but of course not stopping to pick it up. Later she +telephoned to say it was all right. Very relieved!... She recalls +Richepin's _La Glu_. + +_December_ 21. + +She is a fine sedative. Her movements are a pleasant adagio, her voice +piano to pianissimo, her conversation breaks off in thrilling +aposiopoeses. + +An awful comedy this morning--for as soon as I was securely "gagged" the +dentist went out of the room. She approached, leered at me helpless, and +said provokingly, "Oh! you do look funny." Minx. On returning he said to +her, "Would you like to hold his hand?" + +She: "Oh! not just now." + +And they grinned at one another and at me waiting to be tortured. + +_December_ 23. + +... On the Station waited for an hour for the train. Gave her a box of +sweets and the _Bystander_. We walked up the platform to extreme end in +the dark and kissed! But it was very windy and cold. (I noticed that!) +So we entered an empty luggage guard's van on rail beside platform left +there by shunters. Here we were out of the wind and far better off. But +a shunter came along and turned us out. She gave me a silver match-box. +But I believe for various reasons that it is one of her own and not a +new one. Said "Good-bye." + +_December_ 28. + +At R----. Played the negligent _flaneur_, reclining on the Chesterfield, +leaning against the grand piano, or measuring my length on the mat +before the fire. + +_December_ 31. + +To-morrow I begin duties at the British Museum of Natural History. I +cannot quite imagine myself a Museum assistant. Before I get there I +know I shall be the strangest assistant on the staff. It will be +singing my song in a Strange land and weeping--I hope not too +bitterly--down by the waters of a very queer Babylon. + +Still, I have burnt my bridges like Cæsar--or burnt my ships like +Cortez. So forward! + + +[1] See entry for October 8, 1913. + +[2] Italics added 1917. + +[3] The paper was "Distant Orientation in Batrachia"--detailing +experiments on the homing faculty in newts. + + + + +PART II--IN LONDON + + + + +1912 + + +_January_ 21. + +Am at last beginning to get more content with the work at the Museum, so +that I muse on Bernard Shaw's saying, "Get what you like or you'll grow +to like what you get." I have a terrible suspicion that the security of +tenure here is like the lion's den in the fable--_Nulla vestiga +retrorsum_. Of course I am wonderfully proud of being at the Museum, +although I am disappointed and write as if I were quite blasé. + +_January_ 25. + +I should be disappointed if at the end of my career (if I live to see it +through) I do not win the F.R.S. I should very much like it.... My +nature is very mixed--ambitious above all things and yet soon giddy with +the audacity of my aspirations. The B.M. and my colleagues make me feel +most inferior in fact, but in theory--in the secrecy of my own +bedchamber--I feel that there are few men there my equal. + +_April_ 26. + +Down with influenza. A boarding-house with the 'flue! + +_May_ 8. + +Went home to recuperate, a beef jelly in one pocket and sal volatile in +the other. On arrival, my blanched appearance frightened Mother and the +others, so went to bed at once. "Fate's a fiddler, life's a dance." + +_May_ 12. + +Weak enough to sit down before dressing-table while I shave and brush my +hair. Dyspepsia appalling. The Doctor in Kensington seemed to think me +an awful wreck and asked if I were concealing---- + +Reading Baudelaire and Verlaine. + +_May_ 24. + +_Bathing_ + +Sat on a seat overlooking the sand-hills with stick between my legs like +an old man, and watched a buxom wench aet. 25 run down the path pursued +by "Rough" and two little girls in blue. Later they emerged from a +striped bathing tent in the glory of blue bathing dresses. It made me +feel quite an old man to see the girl galloping out over the hard level +sands to the breakers, a child clinging to each hand. Legs and arms +twinkled in the sun which shone with brilliance. If life were as level +as those sands and as beautiful as that trio of girls! + +_May_ 26. + +_Two Young Men Talking_ + +With H---- in his garden. He is a great enthusiast. + +"I disapprove entirely of your taste in gardening," I said. "You object +to the 'ragged wilderness' style, I like it. You like lawns laid out for +croquet and your privet hedges pruned into 'God Save the King' or 'Dieu +et mon droit.' My dear boy, if you saw Mr. ----'s wilderness at +----you'd be so shocked you'd cut and run, and I imagine there'd be an +affecting reunion between you and your beloved geraniums. For my part, I +don't like geraniums: they're suburban, and all of a piece with +antimacassars and stuffed birds under glass bells. The colour of your +specimens, moreover," I rapped out, "is vulgar--like the muddied +petticoats of old market women." + +H----, quite unmoved, replied slowly, "Well, here are some like the +beautiful white cambric of a lady of fashion. You've got no taste in +flowers--you're just six feet of grief and patience." We roared with +laughing. + +"Do stop watering those damned plants," I exclaimed at last. But he +went on. I exclaimed again and out of sheer ridiculousness, in reply he +proceeded to water the cabbages, the gravel path, the oak tree--and me! +While I writhed with laughing. + +_May_ 27. + +_By the Sea_ + +Sat upon a comfortable jetty of rock and watched the waves without a +glimmer of an idea in my mind about anything--though to outward view I +might have been a philosopher in cerebral parturition with thoughts as +big as babies. Instead, little rustling dead leaves of thoughts stirred +and fluttered in the brain--the pimple _e.g._ I recollected on my Aunt's +nose, or the boyishness of Dr. ----'s handwriting, or Swinburne's lines: +"If the golden-crested wren Were a nightingale--why, then Something seen +and heard of men Might be half as sweet as when Laughs a child of +seven." + +I continued in this pleasurable coma all the afternoon and went home +refreshed. + +_May_ 29. + +Have returned to London and the B.M. My first day at the M. Sat at my +table in a state of awful apathy. + +At least temporarily, I am quite disenchanted of Zoology. I work--God +save the mark--in the Insect Room! + +On the way home, purchased:-- + +Peroxide of hydrogen (pyorrhœa threatened). One bottle of physic (for +my appalling dyspepsia). + +One flask of brandy for emergencies (as my heart is intermittent again). + +Prussic acid next. + +Must have been near pneumonia at R----. Auntie was nervous, and came in +during the night to see how I was. + +_June_ 20. + +It caused me anguish to see my article returned from the _Fortnightly_ +and lying in a big envelope on the table when I returned home this +evening. I can't do any work because of it, and in desperation rushed +off to the stately pleasure domes of the White City, and systematically +went through all the thrills--from the Mountain Railway to the Wiggle +Woggle and the 'Witching Waves. + +_June_ 21. + +To-day I am easier. The cut worm forgives the plough. But how restless +this disappointment has made me.... I have no plans for recuperation and +cannot settle down to work. + +_July_ 6. + +On my doctor's advice, went to see Dr. P----, a lung specialist. +M----found a dull spot on one of my lungs, and, not feeling very sure, +and without telling me the nature of his suspicion, he arranged for Dr. +P---- to see me, allowing me to suppose he was a stomach authority as my +dyspepsia is bad. + +Well: it is _not_ consumption, but my lungs and physique are such that +consumption might easily supervene. As soon as Dr. P---- had gone, +M----appended the following lugubrious yarn:-- + +Whenever I catch cold, I must go and be treated at once, all my leisure +must be spent out of doors, I must take cream and milk in prodigious +quantities and get fat at all costs. There is even a question of my +giving up work. + +_July_ 10. + +A young but fat woman sitting in the sun and oozing moisture is as nasty +as anything in Baudelaire. + +_July_ 14. + +_A "Brilliant Career"_ + +My old head master once prophesied for me "a brilliant career." That was +when I was in the Third Form. Now I have more than a suspicion that I am +one of those who, as he once pointed out, grow sometimes out of a +brilliant boyhood into very commonplace men. This continuous ill health +is having a very obvious effect on my work and activities. With what +courage I possess I have to face the fact that to-day I am unable to +think or express myself as well as when I was a boy in my teens--witness +this Journal! + +I intend to go on however. I have decided that my death shall be +disputed all the way. + +Oh! it is so humiliating to die! I writhe to think of being overcome by +so unfair an enemy before I have demonstrated myself to maiden aunts who +mistrust me, to colleagues who scorn me, and even to brothers and +sisters who believe in me. + +As an Egotist I hate death because I should cease to be I. + +Most folk, when sick unto death, gain a little consolation over the +notoriety gained by the fact of their decease. Criminals enjoy the pomp +and circumstance of their execution. Voltaire said of Rousseau that he +wouldn't mind being hanged if they'd stick his name on the gibbet. But +my own death would be so mean and insignificant. Guy de Maupassant died +in a grand manner--a man of intellect and splendid physique who became +insane. Tusitala's death in the South Seas reads like a romance. Heine, +after a life of sorrow, died with a sparkling witticism on his lips; +Vespasian with a jest. + +But I cannot for the life of me rake up any excitement over my own +immediate decease--an unobtrusive passing away of a rancorous, +disappointed, morbid, and self-assertive entomologist in a West +Kensington Boarding House--what a mean little tragedy! It is hard not to +be somebody even in death. + + * * * * * + +A sing-song to-night in the drawing-room; all the boarding-house present +in full muster. There was a German, Schulz, who sat and leered at his +inamorata--a sensual-looking, pasty-faced girl--while she gave us +daggers-and-moonlight recitations with the most unwarranted +self-assurance (she boasts of a walking-on part at one of the theatres); +there was Miss M---- listening to her fiancé, Capt. O---- (home from +India), singing Indian Love Songs at her; there was Miss T----, a sour +old maid, who knitted and snorted, not fully conscious of this young +blood coursing around her; Mrs. Barclay Woods pursued her usual +avocation of imposing on us all the great weight of her immense social +superiority, clucking, in between, to her one chick--a fluffy girl of 18 +or 19, who was sitting now in the draught, now too close to a "common" +musician of the Covent Garden Opera; finally our hostess, a divorcee, +who hated all males, even Tom-cats. We were a pathetic little +company--so motley, ill-assorted--who had come together not from love or +regard but because man is a gregarious animal. In fact, we sat secretly +criticising and contemning one another ... yet outside there were so +many millions of people unknown, and overhead the multitude of the stars +was equally comfortless. + +_Later_: ... Zoology on occasion still fires my ambition! Surely I +cannot be dying yet. + +Whatever misfortune befalls me I do hope I shall be able to meet it +unflinchingly. I do not fear ill-health in itself, but I do fear its +possible effect on my mind and character.... Already I am slowly +altering, as the Lord liveth. Already for example my sympathy with +myself is maudlin. + +Whenever the blow shall fall, some sort of a reaction _must_ be given. +Heine flamed into song. Beethoven wrote the 5th Symphony. So what shall +I do when my time comes? I don't think I have any lyrics or symphonies +to write, so I shall just have to grin and bear it--like a dumb +animal.... As long as I have spirit and buoyancy I don't care what +happens--for I know that or so long I cannot be accounted a failure. The +only _real_ failure is one in which the victim is left spiritless, +dazed, dejected with blackness all around, and within, a knife slowly +and unrelentingly cutting the strings of his heart. + +My head whirls with conflicting emotions, struggling, desperate ideas, +and a flood of impressions of all sorts of things that are never +sufficiently sifted and arranged to be caught down on paper. I am +brought into this world, hustled along it and then hustled out of it, +with no time for anything. I want to be on a great hill and square up +affairs. + +_August_ 28. + +... After tea, we all three walked in Kensington Gardens and sat on a +seat by the Round Pond. My umbrella fell to the ground, and I left it +there with its nose poking up in a cynical manner, as She remarked. + +"It's not cynical," I said, "only a little knowing. Won't you let yours +fall down to keep it company? Yours is a lady umbrella and a +good-looking one--they might flirt together." + +"Mine doesn't want to flirt," she answered stiffly. + +_September_ 13. + +_At C----, a tiny little village by the sea in N----._ + +Looking up from a rockpool, where I had been watching Gobies, I saw +three children racing across the sands to bathe, I saw a man dive from a +boat, and I saw a horse-man gallop his mare down to the beach and plunge +about in the line of breakers. The waters thundered, the mare whinnied, +the children shouted to one another, and I turned my head down again to +the rockpool with a great thumping heart of happiness: it was so lovely +to be conscious of the fact that out there this beautiful picture was +awaiting me whenever and as often as I chose to lift my head. I +purposely kept my head down, for the picture was so beautiful I did not +want to hurt it by breathing on it, and I kept my head down out of a +playful self-cheating delight; I decided not to indulge myself. + +_September_ 16. + +Out in the Bay dredging for Echinoderms with "Carrots." Brilliantly +fine. The haul was a failure, but, being out in a boat on a waveless sea +under a cloudless sky, I was scarcely depressed at this! We cruised +along from one little bay to another, past smugglers' caves and white +pebble beaches, the dredge all the while growling along the sea bottom, +and "Carrots" and I lying listless in the bows. I was _immensely happy_. +My mercury was positively ringing the bell. + +Who, then, is "Carrots"? He is a fine brawny boat-man who jumps over the +rocks like a Chamois, swims like a Fish, pulls like an Ox, snorts like a +Grampus--a sort of compound zoological perfection, built eclectically. + +_September_ 18. + +_Early Boughies_ + +Up the village, Mrs. Beavan keeps a tiny little shop and runs a very +large garden. She showed us all about the garden, and introduced us to +her husband, whom we discovered in an apple tree--an old man, aged 76, +very hard of hearing, and with an impediment in his speech. He at once +began to move his mouth, and I caught odd jingles of sound that sounded +like nothing at all--at first, but which gradually resolved themselves +on close attention to such familiar landmarks as "Early Boughies," +"Stubbits," "Ribstone Pippins" into a discourse on Apples. + +The following curious conversation took place between me and the deaf +gaffer, aged 76, standing in the apple tree,-- + +"These be all appulls from Kent--I got 'em all from Kent." + +"How long have you lived in C----?" + +"Bunyard & Son--that's the firm--they live just outside the town of +Maidstone." + +"Do you keep Bees here?" + +"One of these yer appulls is called Bunyard after the firm--a fine fruit +too." + +"Your good wife must be of great assistance to you in your work." + +"Little stalks maybe, but a large juishy appull for all that." + +Just then I heard Mrs. B---- saying to E----,-- + +"Aw yes, he's very active for 76. A little deaf, but he manages the +garden all 'eesulf, I bolsters 'un up wi' meat and drink--little and +often as they zay for children.... Now there's a bootifull tree, me +dear, that 'as almost beared itself to death, as you may say." + +She picked an apple off it shouting to poor Tom still aloft,-- + +"Tom what's the name of this one?" + +"You should come a bit earlier, zir," replied T. "'Tis late a bit now +doan't 'ee zee?" + +"No--what's its name I want," shouted his spouse. + +"Yes, yes, give the lady one to take home--there's plenty for all," he +said. + +"What is the NAME? THE NAME OF THIS YER APPULL," screamed Mrs. B., and +old Tom moving his bones slowly down from the tree answered quite +unmoved,-- + +"Aw the name? Why, 'tis a common kind of appull--there's a nice tree of +'em up there." + +"Oh! never mind, 'tis a Gladstone," said Mrs. B., turning to us. + +"A very fine Appull," droned the old boy. + +_September_ 28. + +Back in town again. Wandered about in a somnambulistic way all the +afternoon till I found myself taking tea in Kew Gardens. I enjoyed the +wind in my face and hair. Otherwise there is nothing to be said--a +colourless day. + +_October_ 10. + +Came across the following arresting sentence: "Pale, anæmic, cadaverous, +bad teeth and disordered digestion and a morbid egotism." Yes, but my +teeth are _not_ bad. + +_October_ 20. + +_On the N. Downs_ + +Under the oak where I sat the ground was covered with dead leaves. I +kicked them, and I beat them with my stick, because I was angry that +they were dead. In the coppice, leaves were quietly and majestically +floating earthwards in the pomp of death. It was very thrilling to +observe them. + +It was a curious sensation to realise that since the last time I sat +under the old oak I had been right up to the N. of England, then right +down to the S.W., and back once more to London town. I bragged about my +kinetic activity to the stationary oak and I scoffed at the old hill for +having to remain always in the same place. + +It gave me a pleasing sense of infinite superiority to _come back_ and +see everything the same as before, to sit on the same old seat under the +same old oak. Even that same old hurdle was lying in the same position +among the bracken. How sorry I was for it! Poor wretch--unable to +move--to go to Whitby, to go to C----, to be totally ignorant of the +great country of London.... + +Day dreamed. My own life as it unrolls day by day is a source of +constant amazement, delight, and pain. I can think of no more +interesting volume than a detailed, intimate, psychological history of +my own life. I want a perfect comprehension at least of myself.... + +We are all such egotists that a sorrow or hardship--provided it is great +enough--flatters our self-importance. We feel that a calamity by +overtaking us has distinguished us above our fellows. A man likes not to +be ignored even by a railway accident. A man with a grievance is always +happy. + +_October_ 23. + +Over to see E----. Came away disillusioned. + +_October_ 25. + +Met her in Smith's book shop looking quite bewitching. Hang it all, I +thought I had finished. Went home with her, watched her make a pudding +in the kitchen, then we sat by the firelight in the drawing-room and had +supper. Scrumptious (not the supper). + +_October_ 27. + +Quarrelled with D----! The atmosphere is changed at the flat--my +character is ruined. D---- has told them I'm a loose fellow. I've always +contrived to give him that impression--I liked to be cutting my +throat--and now it's cut! + +_November_ 1. + +D---- came and carried me off to the flat, where they asked why I hadn't +been over--which, of course, pleased me immensely. + +_November_ 6. + +Doctor M---- is very gloomy about my health and talks of S. Africa, +Labrador, and so on. I'm not responding to his treatment as I should. + +_November_ 11. + +Met her this evening in Kensington Road. "I timed this well," said she, +"I thought I should meet you." Good Heavens, I am getting embroiled. +Returned to the flat with her and after supper called her "The Lady of +Shalott." + +"I don't think you know what you're talking about"--this stiffly. + +"Perhaps not," I answered. "I leave it to you." + +"Oh! but it rests with you," she said. + +Am I in love? God knows--but I don't suppose God cares. + +_November_ 15. + +On M----'s advice went to see a stomach specialist--Dr. Hawkins. As I +got there a little too early walked up the street--Portland Place--on +the opposite side (from shyness) past an interminable and nauseating +series of night bells and brass plates, then down again on the right +side till I got to No. 66 which made me flutter--for ten doors ahead I +mused is the house I must call at. It made me shiver a little. + +The specialist took copious notes of my evidence and after examining me +retired to consult with M----. What a parade of ceremony! On coming +back, the jury returned a verdict of "Not proven." I was told I ought to +go out and live on the prairies--and in two years I should be a _giant_! +But where are the prairies? What 'bus? If I get worse, I must take +several months' leave. I think it will come to this. + +_November_ 16. + +Arthur came down for the week end. He likes the Lady of Shalott. She is +"not handsome, but arresting, striking" and "capable of tragedy." That I +believe she has achieved already.... If she were a bit more gloomy and a +bit more beautiful, she'd be irresistible. + +_November_ 22. + +He: "Have a cigarette? I enjoy lighting your cigarettes." + +She: "I don't know how to smoke properly." + +He: "You smoke only as _you_ could." + +She: "How's that?" + +H.: "Gracefully, of course." + +S.: "Do you think I like pretty things being said to me?" + +H.: "Why not, if they are true. Flattery is when you tell an ugly woman +she is beautiful. Have you so poor an opinion of yourself to think all I +say of you is flattery?" + +S.: "Yes. I am only four bare walls,--with nothing inside." + +H.: "What a deliciously empty feeling that must be. ... But I don't +think you're so simple as all that. You bewilder me sometimes." + +S.: "Why?" + +H.: "I feel like Sindbad the Sailor." + +S.: "Why?" + +H.: "Because I'm not George Meredith." The title of "husband" frightens +me. + +_December_ 9. + +It's a fearful strain to go on endeavouring to live up to time with a +carefully laid-out time-table of future achievements. I am hurrying on +with my study of Italian in order to read the Life of Spallanzani in +order to include him in my book--to be finished by the end of next year; +I am also subsidising Jenkinson's embryological lectures at University +College with the more detailed account of practical and experimental +work in his text-book; I have also started a lengthy research upon the +Trichoptera--all with a horrible sense of time fleeing swiftly and +opportunities for work too few ever to be squandered, and, in the +background, behind all this feverish activity, the black shadow that I +might die suddenly with nothing done--next year, next month, next week, +to-morrow, now! + +Then sometimes, as to-night, I have misgivings. Shall I do these things +so well now as I might once have done them? Has not my ill-health +seriously affected my mental powers? Surely the boy of 1908-10 was +almost a genius or--seen at this distance--a very remarkable youth in +the fanatical zeal with which he sought to pursue, and succeeded in +gaining, his own end of a zoological education for himself. + +It is a terrible suspicion to cross the mind of an ambitious youth that +perhaps, after all, he is a very commonplace mortal--that his life, +whether comedy or tragedy, or both, or neither, is any way +insignificant, of no account. + +It is still more devastating for him to have to consider whether the +laurel wreath was not once within his grasp, and whether he must not +ascribe his own incalculable loss to his stomach simply. + +_December_ 15. + +A very bad heart attack. As I write it intermits every three or four +beats. Who knows if I shall live thro' to-night? + +_December_ 16. + +Here I am once more. A passable night. After breakfast the intermittency +recommenced--it is better now, with a dropped beat only about once per +half-hour, so that I am almost happy after yesterday, which was Hell. +The world is too good to give up without remonstrance at the beck of a +weak heart. + +Before I went to sleep last night, my watch stopped--I at once observed +the cessation of its tick and wondered if it were an omen. I was +genuinely surprised to find myself still ticking when I awoke this +morning. A moment ago a hearse passed down the street.... Yes, but I'm +damned if I haven't a right to be morbid after yesterday. To be ill like +this in a boarding-house! I'd marry to-morrow if I had the chance. + +_December_ 22. + +_Sollas's "Ancient Hunters"_ + +Read Sollas's book _Ancient Hunters_--very thrilling--mind full of the +Aurignacians, Mousterians, Magdalenians! I have been peering down such +tremendous vistas of time and change that my own troubles have been +eclipsed into ridiculous insignificance. It has been really a Pillar of +Strength to me--a splendid tonic. Palæontology has its comfortable words +too. I have revelled in my littleness and irresponsibility. It has +relieved me of the harassing desire to live, I feel content to live +dangerously, indifferent to my fate; I have discovered I am a fly, that +we are all flies, that nothing matters. It's a great load off my life, +for I don't mind being such a micro-organism--to me the honour is +sufficient of belonging to the universe--such a great universe, so grand +a scheme of things. Not even Death can rob me of that honour. For +nothing can alter the fact that I _have_ lived; _I have been I_, if for +ever so short a time. And when I am dead, the matter which composes my +body is indestructible--and eternal, so that come what may to my "Soul," +my dust will always be going on, each separate atom of me playing its +separate part--I shall still have some sort of a finger in the Pie. +When I am dead, you can boil me, burn me, drown me, scatter me--but you +cannot destroy me: my little atoms would merely deride such heavy +vengeance. Death can do no more than kill you. + +_December_ 27. + +"It is a pleasure to note the success attending the career of Mr. W.N.P. +Barbellion now engaged in scientific work on the staff of the Natural +History Museum ..." etc., etc. + +This is a cutting from the local paper--one of many that from time to +time I once delightedly pasted in the pages of the Journal. Not so now. + +... At 23, I am a different being. Surrounded by all the stimulating +environment of scientific research, I am cold and disdainful. I keep up +the old appearances but underneath it is quite different. I am a +_hypocrite_. I have to wear the mask and cothornoi, finding the part +daily more difficult to bear. I am living on my immense initial +momentum--while the machinery gradually slows up. My career! Gadzooks. + + + + +1913 + + +_January_ 3. + +From the drawing-room window I see pass almost daily an old gentleman +with white hair, a firm step, broad shoulders, healthy pink skin, a +sunny smile--always singing to himself as he goes--a happy, rosy-cheeked +old fellow, with a rosy-cheeked mind.... I should like to throw mud at +him. By Jove, how I hate him. He makes me wince with my own pain. It is +heartless, indecently so, for an _old_ man to be so blithe. Life has, I +suppose, never lain in wait for him. The Great Anarchist has spared him +a bomb. + +_January_ 19. + +My Aunt, aged 75, who has apparently concluded from my constant absences +from Church that my spiritual life is in a parlous way, to-day read me +her portion from a large book with a broad purple-tasseled bookmark. I +looked up from "_I Promessi Sposi_" and said "Very nice." It was about +someone whose soul was not saved and who would not answer the door when +it was knocked. It is jolly to be regarded as a wicked, libidinous youth +by an aged maiden Aunt. + +_January_ 22. + +This Diary reads for all the world as if I were not living in mighty +London. The truth is I live in a bigger, dirtier city--ill-health. +Ill-health, when chronic, is like a permanent ligature around one's +life. What a fine fellow I'd be if I were perfectly well. My energy for +one thing would lift the roof off.... + +We conversed around the text: "To travel hopefully is better than to +arrive and true success is to labour." She is--well, so graceful. My +God! I love her, I love her, I love her!!! + +_February_ 3. + +_A Confession_ + +H---- B---- invited me to tea to meet his fiancée. + +Rather pleased with the invitation--I don't know why, for my idea of +myself is greater than my idea of him and probably greater than his idea +of himself. + +Yet I went and got shaved, and even thought of buying a new pair of +gloves, but poverty proved greater than vanity, so I went with naked +hands. On arriving at Turnham Green, I removed my spectacles (well +knowing how much they damage my personal appearance). However, the +beauty of the thing was that, tho' I waited as agreed, he never turned +up, and so I returned home again, crestfallen--and, with my spectacles +on again. + +_February_ 9. + +... "Now, W----, talk to me prettily," she said as soon as the door was +closed on them. + +"Oh! make him read a book," whined her sister, but we talked of marriage +instead--in all its aspects. Bless their hearts, I found these two dear +young things simply sodden with the idea of it. + +In the middle I did a knee-jerk which made them scream with +laughing--the patellar reflex was new to them, so I seized a brush from +the grate, crossed to Her and gently tapped: out shot her foot, and +----cried: "Oh, do do it to me as well." It was rare fun. + + "Oh! pretty knee, what do I see? + And he stooped and he tied up my garter for me." + +_February_ 10. + +News of Scott's great adventure! Scott dead a year ago!! The news, when +I saw it to-night in the _Pall Mall Gazette_ gave me cold thrills. I +could have wept.... What splendid people we humans are! If there be no +loving God to watch us, it's a pity for His sake as much as for our own. + +_February_ 15. + +Tried to kiss her in a taxi-cab on the way home from the Savoy--the +taxi-cab danger is very present with us--but she rejected me quietly, +sombrely. I apologised on the steps of the Flats and said I feared I had +greatly annoyed her. "I'm not annoyed," she said, "only surprised"--in +a thoughtful, chilly voice. + +We had had supper in Soho, and I took some wine, and she looked so +bewitching it sent me in a fever, thrumming my fingers on the seat of +the cab while she sat beside me impassive. Her shoulders are exquisitely +modelled and a beautiful head is carried poised on a tiny neck. + +_February_ 16. + +Walking up the steps to her flat to-night made me pose to H---- (who was +with me) as Sydney Carton in the picture in _A Tale of Two Cities_ on +the steps of the scaffold. He laughed boisterously, as he is delighted +to know of my last evening's misadventure. + +At supper, a story was told of a man who knocked at the door of his +lady's heart four times and at last was admitted. I remarked that the +last part of the romance was weak. She disagreed. H---- exclaimed, "Oh! +but this man has no sentiment at all!" + +"So much the worse for him," chimed in the others. + +"He was 66 years of age," added Mrs.----. + +"Too old," said P. "What do you think the best age for a man to marry?" + +H.: "Thirty for a man, twenty-five for a woman." + +She: "That's right: it still gives me a little time." + +P.: "What do _you_ think?" (to me). + +I replied sardonically,-- + +"A young man may not yet and an old man not at all." + +"That's right, old wet blanket," chirruped P----. + +"You know," I continued, delighted to seize the opportunity to assume +the role of youthful cynic, "Cupid and Death once met at an Inn and +exchanged arrows, since when young men have died and old men have +doted." + +H---- was charming enough to opine that it was impossible to fix a time +for love. Love simply came. + +We warned him to be careful on the boat going out. + +"Yes, I know," said H---- (who is in love with P----). + +"My brother had a dose of moonlight on board a boat when he sailed and +he's been happy ever since." + +P.: "How romantic!" + +H.: "A great passion!" + +"The only difference," I interjected in a sombre monotone, "between a +passion and a caprice is that the caprice lasts a little longer." + +"Sounds like a book," She said in contempt. + +It was--Oscar Wilde! + +P---- insisted on my taking a biscuit. "Don't mind me," she said. "Just +think I'm a waitress and take no notice at all." + +H.: "Humph! I never see him taking no notice of a waitress." + +(Sneers and Curtain.) + +_February_ 24. + +H---- came home last night and told me that she said as he came away, +"Tell W---- I hate him." So it's all right. I shall go over to-morrow +again--Hurrah! My absence has been felt then. + +_March_ 7. + +Came home, lay on my bed, still dressed, and ruminated.... + +First a suspicion then a conviction came to me that I was a cad--a +callous, selfish, sensation-hunting cad.... For the time being the +bottom was knocked out of my smug self-satisfaction. For several long +half-hours I found myself drifting without compass or stars. I was quite +disorientated, temporarily thrown off the balance of my _amour propre_. +Then I got up, lit the gas and looking at myself in the mirror, found it +was really true,--I was a mean creature, wholly absorbed in self. + +As an act of contrition, I ought to have gone out into the garden and +eaten worms. But the mirror brought back my self-consciousness and I +began to crawl back into my recently discarded skin--I began to be less +loathesome to myself. For as soon as I felt interested or amused or +curious over the fact that I had been really loathesome to myself I +began to regain my equilibrium. _Now_, I and myself are on comparatively +easy terms with one another. I am settled on the old swivel.... I take a +lot of knocking off it and if shot off soon return. + +To-day, she was silent and melancholy but wonderfully fascinating. One +day I am desperate and the next cold and apathetic. Am I in love? God +knows! She came to the door to say "Good night," and I deliberately +strangled my desire to say something. + +_March_ 9. + +In bed till 12.30 reading Bergson and the O.T. + +Over to the flat to supper. E---- was cold and silent. She spurned me. +No wonder. I talked volubly and quite brilliantly with the definite +purpose of showing up J----'s somnolence. I also pulled his leg. He +hates me. No wonder. After supper, he went in to her studio and remained +there alone with her while she worked. At 11 p.m. he was still there +when I came away in a whirlwind of jealousy, regrets, and rage. G---- +said he was going to stay on until he saw "the blighter off the +premises." Neither of us would go in to turn him out. + +I love her deeply and once my heart jumped when I thought I heard her +coming into the room. But it was only P----. Did not see her again--even +to say "Good-night." + +_March_ 10. + +Work in the evening in our bedroom--two poor miserable bachelors--H---- +reading Equity Law, a rug around his legs before an empty grate, while I +am sitting at the table in top-coat, with collar up, and writing my +_magnum opus,_ which is to bring me fame, fortune and--E----! + +H---- says that this morning I was putting on my shoes when he pointed +out a large hole in the heel of my sock. + +"Damn! I shall have to wear boots," I said--at least he says I said it, +and I am quite ready to believe him. Such unconsciousness of self is +rare with me. + +_March_ 15. + +[At a public dinner at the Holborn Restaurant] J----replied to the toast +of the Ladies. Feeble! H---- and I stood and had a silent toast to E---- +and N---- by just winking one eye at each other. He sat opposite me. + +If I had been asked to reply to this toast I should have said with the +greatest gusto, something as follows,-- + +[Here follows the imaginary speech in full, composed the same night +before going to sleep.] + +Yet I am taken for a soft fool! My manner is soft, self-conscious, shy. +What a lot of self-glorification I lose thereby! What a lot of +self-torture I gain in its stead! + +_March_ 17. + +To-day went to the B.M. but did very little work. Thought over the +matter carefully and decided to ask E---- to marry me. Relief to be able +to decide. I was happy too. + +Yesterday P---- came in to us from E----'s studio and said,-- + +"E---- sends her love." + +"To whom?" H---- inquired. + +"I don't know," P---- replied, smiling at me. + +_March_ 18. + +Had a long conversation with H---- last night. He says all E---- +intended to convey was that the quarrel was over.... I felt relieved, +because I have no money, but--a large ambition. Then I am selfish, and +have not forgotten that I want to spend my holidays in the Jura, and +next year three weeks at the Plymouth Laboratory. + +_March_ 19. + +Went over to see E----. We had an awkward half-an-hour alone together. +She was looking bewitching! I am plunging more and more into love. Had +it on the tip of my tongue once. I am dreadfully fond of her. + +"I have a most profound gloom over me," I said. + +"Why don't you try and get rid of it?" she asked. + +"I can't until Zeus has pity and rolls away the clouds." + +_April_ 21. + +We are sitting up in our beds which are side by side in a room on the +top story of a boarding house in ---- Road. + +It is 11.30 p.m. and I am leaning over one one side lighting the oil +lamp so as to boil the kettle to make Ovaltine before going to sleep. + +"Whom have I seduced?" I screamed. "You rotter, don't you know that a +dead passion full of regrets is as terrible as a dead body full of +worms? There, I talk literature, my boy, if you were only Boswell +enough to take it down.... As for K----, I shall never invite him to +dinner again. He comes to me and whines that nobody loves him, and so I +say, 'Oh! poor lad, never mind, if you're bored, why, come to my rooms +of an evening and hear me talk--you'll have the time of your life.' And +now he's cheeky." + +H. (sipping his drink and very much preoccupied with it) replied +abstractedly, "When you die you'll go to Hell." (I liked his Homeric +simplicity.) "You ought to be buried in a fireproof safe." + +Silence. + +H. (returning to the attack), "I hope she turns you down." + +"Thank you," I said. + +"As for P----," he resumed, "she's double-Dutch to me." + +"Go to the Berlitz School," I suggested, "and learn the language." + +"You bally fool.... All you do is to sit there and smile like a +sanguinary cat. Nothing I say ever rouses you. I believe if I came to +you and said, 'Here, Professor, is a Beetle with 99 legs that has lived +on granite in the middle of the Sahara for 40 days and 40 nights,' you'd +simply answer, 'Yes, and that reminds me I've forgotten to blow my +nose.'" + +The two pyjamaed figures shake with laughing, the light goes out and the +sanguinary conversation continues on similar lines until we fall asleep. + +_April_ 26. + +_Two Months' Sick Leave_ + +In a horrible panic--the last few days--I believe I am developing +locomotor ataxy. One leg, one arm, and my speech are affected, _i.e._ +the right side and my speech centre. M---- is serious.... I hope the +disease, whatever it is, will be sufficiently lingering to enable me to +complete my book. + +R---- is a dear man. I shall not easily forget his kindness during this +terrible week.... Can the Fates have the audacity?... Who can say? + +_April_ 27. + +I believe there can be no doubt that I have had a slight partial +paralysis of my right side (like Dad). I stutter a little in my speech +when excited, I cannot write properly (look at this handwriting), and my +right leg is rocky at the knee. My head swims. + +It is too inconceivably horrible to be buried in the Earth in such +splendid spring weather. Who can tell me what is in store for me?... +Life opens to me, I catch a glimpse of a vision, and the doors clang to +again noiselessly. It is dark. That will be my history. Am developing a +passionate belief in my book and a fever of haste to complete it before +the _congé définitif_. + +_April_ 29. + +Saw M---- again, who said my symptoms were alarming certainly, but he +was sure no definite diagnosis could be made. + +_April_ 30. + +Went with M---- to see a well-known nerve specialist--Dr. H----. He +could find no symptoms of a definite disease, tho' he asked me +suspiciously if I had ever been with women. + +Ordered two months' complete rest in the country. H---- chased me round +his consulting room with a drum-stick, tapping my nerves and cunningly +working my reflexes. Then he tickled the soles of my feet and pricked me +with a pin--all of which I stood like a man. He wears a soft black hat, +looks like a Quaker, and reads the _Verhandlungen d. Gesellschaft d. +Nervenarzten_. + +M---- is religious and after I had disclosed my physique to him +yesterday (for the 99th time) he remained on his knees by the couch in +his consulting room (after working my reflexes) for a moment or two in +the attitude of prayer. When the Doctor prays for you--better call in +the undertaker. My epitaph "He played Ludo well." The game anyhow +requires moral stamina--ask H----. + +_May_ 5. + +At R----. Mugged about all day. Put on a gramophone record--then crawled +up into a corner of the large, empty drawing room and ate my heart out. +Heart has a bitter taste--if it's your own. + +_May_ 6. + +Sat in the "morning room" feeling ill. In the chair opposite sat Aunt +Fanny, aged 86, knitting. I listened to the click of her needles, while +out in the garden a thrush sang, and there was a red sunset. + +_May_ 8. + +Before I left R----, A---- [My brother] had written to Uncle enclosing +my doctor's letter. I don't know the details except that Dr. M---- +emphasised the seriousness and yet held out hope that two months' rest +would allay the symptoms. + +_May_ 11. + +_At Home_ + +I made some offensive remark to H---- whom I met in the street. This set +him off. + +"You blighter, I hope you marry a loose woman. May your children be all +bandy-legged and squint-eyed, may your teeth drop out, and your toes +have bunions," and so on in his usual lengthy commination. + +I turned to the third man. + +"Bob--this!--after all I've done for that young man! I have even gone +out of my Way to cultivate in him a taste for poetry--until he is now, +in fact, quite wrapped up in it--indeed, so much so, that for a time he +was nothing but a brown paper parcel labelled Poetry." + +H. (doggedly): "When are you going to die?" + +"That Master H----," I answered menacingly, "is on the knees of the +Gods." + +H.: "I shan't believe you're dead till I see your tombstone. I shall +then say to the Sexton, 'Is he really dead, then?' and the Sexton will +say, 'Well, 'ee's buried onny way.'" + +Bob was not quite in sympathy with our boisterous spirits. + +_May_ 15. + +_Gardening_ + +Sought out H---- as he was watering his petunias in the garden. He +informed me he was going to London on Monday. + +H.: "Mother is coming too." + +B.: "Why?" + +H.: "Oh! I'm buying my kit--shirts and things. I sail at the beginning +of July." + +B.: "I suppose shirts are difficult to buy. You wouldn't know what to do +with one if you had one. Your mother will lead you by the hand into a +shop and say, 'H----, dear, this is a shirt,' and you'll reply with +pathos, 'Mother what are the wild shirts saying?'" + +H.: "You're a B.F." (goes on watering). + +"I wonder what you'd do if you were let loose in a big garden," I began. + +H.: "I should be as happy as a bird. I should hop about, chirrup and lay +eggs. You should have seen my tomato plants last year--one was as tall +as father." + +B.: "Now tell me of the Gooseberry as big as Mother." + +Mutual execrations. Then we grinned and cackled at each other, emitting +weird and ferocious cachinnations. Several times a day in confidential, +serious tones--after one of these explosions--we say, "I really believe +we're mad." You never heard such extraordinary caterwaulings. Our snappy +conversations are interrupted with them every minute or so! + +_Stagnancy_ + +A stagnant day. Lay still in the Park all day with just sufficient +energy to observe. The Park was almost empty. Every one but me at work. +Nothing is more dreary than a pleasure ground on workdays. There was one +man a little way off throwing a ball to a clever dog. Behind me on the +path, some one came along wheeling a pram. I listened in a kind of coma +to the scrunching of the gravel in the distance a long time after the +pram was out of sight. Far away--the tinkle of Church bells in a village +across the river, and, in front, the man still throwing the ball to his +clever dog. + +_May_ 25. + +_Death_ + +... I suppose the truth is I am at last broken to the idea of Death. Once +it terrified me and once I hated it. But now it only annoys me. Having +lived with the Bogey for so long, and broken bread with him so often, I +am used to his ugliness, tho' his persistent attentions bore me. Why +doesn't he do it and have done with me? Why this deference, why does he +pass me everything but the poison? Why am I such an unconscionably long +time dying? + +What embitters me is the humiliation of having to die, to have to be +pouring out the precious juices of my life into the dull Earth, to be no +longer conscious of what goes on, no longer moving abroad upon the Earth +creating attraction and repulsions, pouring out one's ego in a stream. +To think that the women I have loved will be marrying and forget, and +that the men I have hated will continue on their way and forget I ever +hated them--the ignominy of being dead! What voluble talker likes his +mouth to be stopped with earth, who relishes the idea of the carrion +worm mining in the seat of the intellect? + +_May_ 29. + +_Renunciation_ + +Staying at the King's Hotel, ----. Giddiness very bad. Death seems +unavoidable. A tumour on the brain? + +Coming down here in the train, sat in corner of the compartment, twined +one leg around the other, rested my elbow on the window ledge, and gazed +out helplessly at the exuberant green fields, green woods, and green +hedgerows. The weather was perfect, the sun blazed down. + +Certainly, I was rather sorry for myself at the thought of leaving it +all. But I girded up my loins and wrapped around me for a while the +mantle of a nobler sentiment; _i.e._ I felt sorry for the others as +well--for the two brown carters in the road ambling along with a timber +waggon, for the two old maids in the same compartment with me knitting +bedsocks, for the beautiful Swallows darting over the stream, for the +rabbit that lopped into the fern just as we passed--they too were all +leaving it. + +The extent of my benign compassion startled me--it was so unexpected. +Perhaps for the first time in my life I forgot all about my own +miserable ambitions--I forgave the successful, the time-servers, the +self-satisfied, the overweening, the gracious and condescending--all, in +fact, who hitherto have been thorns in my flesh and innocently enough +have goaded me to still fiercer efforts to win thro'. "Poor people," I +said. "Leave them alone. Let them be happy if they can." With a +submissive heart, I was ready to sit down in the rows of this world's +failures and never have thought one bitter word about success. To all +those persons who in one way or another had foiled my purposes I +extended a pardon with Olympian gravity, and, strangest of all, I could +have melted such frosty moral rectitudes with a genuine interest in the +careers of my struggling contemporaries. With perfect self-abnegation, I +held out my hand to them and wished them all "God Speed." + +It was a strange metempsychosis. Yet of a truth it is no use being +niggardly over our lives. We are all of us "shelling out." And we can +afford to be generous, for we shall all--some early, some late--be +bankrupt in the end. For my part, I've had a short and boisterous voyage +and shan't be sorry to get into port. I give up all my plans, all my +hopes, all my loves and enthusiasms without remonstrance. I renounce +all--I myself am already really dead. + +_May_ 30. + +Last night the sea was as flat as a pavement, a pretty barque with all +her sails out to catch the smallest puff of wind--the tiniest +inspiration--was nevertheless without motion--a painted ship on a +tapestry of violet. H---- Hill was an immense angular mass of indigo +blue. Even rowing boats made little progress and the water came off the +languid paddles in syrupy clots. Everything was utterly still, the air +thick--like cottonwool to the touch and very stifling; vitality in +living things leaked away under a sensuous lotus influence. +Intermittently after the darkness had come, Bullpoint Lighthouse shone +like the wink of a lascivious eye. + + * * * * * + +Pottering about all day on the Pier and Front, listening to other +people's talk, catching snippets of conversation--not edifying. If there +were seven wise men in the town, I would not save it. Damn the place! + +_May_ 31. + +... I espied her first in the distance and turned my head away quickly +and looked out to sea. A moment after, I began to turn my head round +again slowly with the cautiousness and air of suspicion of a Tortoise +poking its head out from underneath his shell. I was terrified to +discover that in the meantime she had come and sat down on the seat +immediately behind me with her back to mine. We sat like this back to +back for some time and I enjoyed the novel experience and the tension. A +few years ago, the bare sight of her gave me palpitation of the heart, +and, on the first occasion that I had the courage to stop to speak, I +felt livid and the skin on my face twitched uncontrollably. + +Presently I got up and walked past--in the knowledge that she must now +be conscious of my presence after a disappearance of three years. Later +we met face to face and I broke the ice. She's a pretty girl.... So too +is her sister. + +Few people, except my barber, know how amorous I am. He has to shave my +sinuous lips. + +_June_ 3. + +Spent many dreadful hours cogitating whether to accept their invitation +to dinner.... I wanted to go for several reasons. I wanted to see her in +a home-setting for the first time, and I wanted to spend the evening +with three pretty girls. I also had the idea of displaying myself to the +scrutinising gaze of the family as the hero of the old romance: and of +showing Her how much I had progressed since last we met and what a +treasure she had lost. + +On the other hand, I was afraid that the invitation was only a casual +one, I feared a snuffy reception, a frosty smile and a rigid hand. Could +I go up and partake of meat at their board, among brothers and sisters +taking me for an ogre of a jilt, and she herself perhaps opposite me +making me blush perpetually to recall our one-time passionate kisses, +our love letters and our execrable verses to each other! There seemed +dreadful possibilities in such an adventure. Yet I badly wanted to +experience the piquant situation. + +At 7 p.m., half an hour before I was due, decided on strong measures. I +entered a pub and took a stiff whisky and soda, and then set off with a +stout heart to take the icy family by storm--and if need be live down my +evil reputation by my amiability and urbanity! + +I went--and of course everything passed off in the most normal manner. +She is a very pretty girl--like velvet. Before dinner, we walked in the +garden--and talked only of flowers. + +_June_ 4. + +On the Hill, this morning, felt the thrill of the news of my own Death: +I mean I imagined I heard the words,-- + +"You've heard the news about B----?" + +Second Voice: "No, what?" + +"He's dead." + +Silence. + +Won't all this seem piffle if I don't die after all! As an artist in +life I _ought_ to die; it is the only artistic ending --and I ought to +die now or the Third Act will fizzle out in a long doctor's bill. + +_June_ 5. + +_A New Pile in the Pier_ + +Watched some men put a new pile in the pier. There was all the usual +paraphernalia of chains, pulleys, cranes, and ropes, with a massive +wooden pile swinging over the water at the end of a long wire hawser. +Everything was in the massive style--even the men--very powerful men, +slow, ruminative, silent men. + +Nothing very relevant could be gathered from casual remarks. The +conversation was without exception monosyllabic: "Let go," or "Stand +fast." But by close attention to certain obscure movements of the man on +the ladder near the water's edge, it gradually came thro' to my +consciousness that all these powerful, silent men were up against some +bitter difficulty. I cannot say what it was. The burly monsters were +silent about the matter.... In fact they appeared almost +indifferent--and tired, oh! so very tired of the whole business. The +attitude of the man nearest me was that for all he cared the pile could +go on swinging in mid-air to the crack of Doom. + +They continued slow, laborious efforts to overcome the secret +difficulty. But these gradually slackened and finally ceased. One +massive man after another abandoned his post in order to lean over the +rails and gaze like a mystic into the depths of the sea. No one spoke. +No one saw anything not even in the depths of the sea. One spat, and +with round, sad eyes contemplated the trajectory of his brown bolus (he +had been chewing) in its descent into the water. + +The foreman, an original thinker, lit a cigarette, which relieved the +tension. Then, slowly and with majesty, he turned on his heel, and +walked away. With the sudden eclipse of the foreman's interest, the +incident closed. I should have been scarcely surprised to find him +behind the Harbour-master's Office playing "Shove-ha'penny" or skittles +with the pile still swinging in mid-air.... After all it was only a +bloody pile. + +_June_ 11. + +_Depression_ + +Suffering from depression.... The melancholy fit fell very suddenly. All +the colour went out of my life, the world was dirty gray. On the way +back to my hotel caught sight of H----, jumping into a cab, after a +visit to S---- Sands. But the sight of him aroused no desire in me to +shout or wave. I merely wondered how on earth he could have spent a +happy day at such a Sandy place. + +On arriving at ----, sank deeper into my morass. It suffocated me to +find the old familiar landmarks coming into view ... the holiday-makers +along the streets how I hated them--the Peg Top Hill how desolate--all +as before--how dull. The very fact that they were all there as before in +the morning nauseated me. The sea-coast here is magnificent, the town is +pretty--I know that, of course. But all looked dreary and +cheerless--just the sort of feeling one gets on entering an empty house +with no fire on a winter's day and nowhere to sit down.... I felt as +lonely and desolate as a man suddenly fallen from the clouds into an +unknown town on the Antarctic Continent built of ice and inhabited by +Penguins. Who are these people? I asked myself irritably. There perhaps +on the other side of the street was my own brother. But I was not even +faintly interested and told the cabman to drive on. The spray from the +sea fogged my spectacles and made me weary. + +_June_ 14. + +_The Restlessness of the Sea_ + +The restlessness of the sea acts as a soporific on jangled nerves. You +gaze at its incessant activities, unwillingly at first because they +distract your attention from your own cherished worries and griefs,--but +later you watch with complete self-abandon--it wrenches you out of +yourself--and eventually with a kind of stupid hypnotic stare. + +_Dr. Spurgeon_ + +The day has been overcast, but to-night a soft breeze sprang up and +swept the sky clear as softly as a mop. The sun coming out shone upon a +white sail far out in the channel, scarcely another vessel hove in +sight. The white sail glittered like a piece of silver paper whenever +the mainsail swung round as the vessel tacked. Its solitariness and +whiteness in a desert of marine blue attracted the attention and held it +till at last I could look at nothing else. The sight of it--so clean and +white and fair--set me yearning for all the rarest and most exquisite +things my imagination could conjure up--a beautiful girl, with fair and +sunburnt skin, brown eyes, dark eyebrows, and small pretty feet; a +dewdrop in a violet's face; an orange-tip butterfly swinging on an umbel +of a flower. + +The sail went on twinkling and began to exert an almost moral influence +over me. It drew out all the good in me. I longed to follow it on white +wings--an angel I suppose--to quit this husk of a body "as raiment put +away," and pursue Truth and Beauty across the sea to the horizon, and +beyond the horizon up the sky itself to its last tenuous confines, no +doubt with a still small voice summoning me and the rest of the elect to +an Agapemone, with Dr. Spurgeon at the door distributing tracts. + +I can scoff like this now. But at the time my exaltation was very real. +My soul strained in the leash. I was full of a desire for unattainable +spiritual beauty. I wanted something. But I don't know what I want. + +_June_ 16. + +_My Sense of Touch_ + +My sense of touch has always been morbidly acute. I like to feel a +cigarette locked in the extreme corner of my mouth. When I remove it +from my mouth then I hold it probably up in the fork between two +fingers. If I am waiting for a meal I finger the cool knives and forks. +If I am in the country I plunge my hands with outspread fingers into a +mass of large-topped grasses, then close my fingers, crush and +decapitate the lot. + +_June_ 27. + +_Camping Out at S---- Sands_ + +A brilliant summer day. Up early, breakfasted, and, clad in sweater and +trousers, walked up the sands to the boathouse with bare feet. + +Everything was wonderful! I strode along over the level sands infatuated +with the sheer ability to put one leg in front of the other and walk. I +loved to feel the muscles of my thighs working, and to swing my arms in +rhythm with the stride. The stiff breeze had blown the sky clear, and +was rushing through my long hair, and bellowing into each ear. I strode +as Alexander must have done! + +Then I stretched my whole length out along a flat plank on the sands, +which was as dry as a bone and warm. There was not a soul on the sands. +Everything was bare, clean, windswept. My plank had been washed clean +and white. The sands--3 miles of it--were hard and purified, level. My +eye raced along in every direction--there was nothing--not a bird or a +man--to stop it. In that immense windswept space nothing was present +save me and the wind and the sea--a flattering moment for the egotist. + + * * * * * + +At the foot of the cliffs on the return journey met an old man gathering +sticks. As he ambled along dropping sticks into a long sack he called +out casually, "Do you believe in Jesus Christ?" in the tone of voice in +which one would say, "I think we shall have some rain before night." +"Aye, aye," came the answer without hesitation from a boy lying on his +back in the sands a few yards distant, "and that He died to save me." + +Life is full of surprises like this. The only other sounds I have heard +to-day were the Herring Gull's cackle. Your own gardener will one day +look over his rake and give you the correct chemical formula for +carbonic acid gas. I met a postman once reading Shelley as he walked his +rounds. + +_June_ 28. + +I am writing this by the lamp in the cabin among the sandhills waiting +for H---- to arrive from town with provisions. I wear a pair of bags, a +dirty sweater, and go without hat or shoes and stockings. There is a +"Deadwood Dick" atmosphere here. I'm a sort of bronco-breaker or rancher +off duty writing home. In a minute I haven't the slightest doubt, H---- +will gallop into the compound, tether his colt and come in "raising +Cain" for a belly-full of red meat.... If I am going to live after all +(touch wood) I shall go abroad and be in the open. + +I eat greedily, am getting very sunburnt, am growing hairy (that means +strength!), and utter portentous oaths. If I stayed here much longer I +should grow a tail and climb trees. + +After a supper of fried eggs and fried bread done to a nicety, turned in +at ten, and both of us lay warm and comfortable in bed, smoking +cigarettes and listening to Hoffmann's Barcarolle on the gramophone. We +put the lamp out, and it pleased us to watch the glow of each other's +cigarettes in the dark.... Neither of us spoke.... Went to sleep at +midnight. Awoke at sunrise to hear an Owl still hooting, a Lark singing, +and several Jackdaws clattering on our tin roof with their claws as they +walked. + +_July_ 1. + +_In London Again_ + +Returned to London very depressed. Am not so well as I was three weeks +ago. The sight of one eye is affected, and I am haunted by the +possibility of blindness. Then I have a numb feeling on one side of my +face, and my right arm is less mobile. + +Left darling Mother in a very weak state in bed, with neuritis and a +weak heart. She cried when I said "Goodbye," and asked me to go to +Church as often as I could, and to read a portion of Scripture every +day. I promised. Then she added, "For Dad's sake;" just as if I would +not do it for her. Poor dear, she suffers a deal of pain. She does not +know how ill I am. I have not told her. + +_July_ 3. + +Back at work. A terrible day. Thoughts of suicide--a pistol. + +_July_ 8. + +I get thro' each day with the utmost difficulty. I have to wrestle with +every minute. Each hour is a conquest. The three quarters of an hour at +lunch comes as a Godsend. I look forward to it all the morning, I enter +into it with joyful relief with no thought of the dreadful moment +impending when I must return and re-enter my room. By being wise like +this, I manage to husband my spirits and am relatively cheerful for one +hour in the middle of each difficult day. + +_July_ 9. + +Several times I have gone to bed and hoped I should never wake up. Life +grows daily more impossible. To-day I put a slide underneath the +microscope and looked at it. It was like looking at something thro' the +wrong end of a telescope. I sat with eye glued to the ocular, so as to +keep up a pretence of work in case some one came in. My mind was +occupied with quite different affairs. If one is pondering on Life and +Death, it is a terrible task to have to study Mites. + +_July_ 10. + +Am doing no work at all.... I sit motionless in my chair and beat the +devil's tattoo with my thumbs and think, think, think in the same +horrible circle hour after hour. I am unable to work. I haven't the +courage to. I've lost my nerve. + +At five I return "home" to the Boarding-house and get more desperate. + +Two old maids sat down to dinner to-night, one German youth (a +lascivious, ranting, brainless creature), a lady typist (who takes drugs +they say), a dipsomaniac (who has monthly bouts--H---- carried him +upstairs and put him to bed the other night), two invertebrate +violinists who play in the Covent Garden Orchestra, a colonial lady +engaged in a bedroom intrigue with a man who sits at my table. What are +these people to me? I hate them all. They know it and are offended. + +After dinner, put on my cap and rushed out anywhere to escape. Walked to +the end of the street, not knowing where I was going or what doing. +Stopped and stared with fixed eyes at the traffic in Kensington Road, +undetermined what to do with myself and unable to make up my mind +(volitional paralysis). Turned round, walked home, and went straight to +bed 9 p.m., anxiously looking forward to to-morrow evening when I go to +see her again, but at the same time wondering how on earth I am to get +through to-morrow's round before the evening comes.... This is a +hand-to-mouth existence. My own inner life is scorching up all outside +interests. Zoology appears as a curious thing in a Bagdad bazaar. I sit +in my room at the B.M. and play with it; I let it trickle thro' my +fingers and roll away like a child playing with quicksilver. + +_July_ 11. + +Over to the flat. She was looking beautiful in a black dress, with a +white silk blouse, and a Byron collar, negligently open in front as if +a button had come out. She said I varied: sometimes I went up in her +estimation, sometimes down; once I went down very low. I understood her +to say I was now UP! Alleluia! + +_July_ 14. + +... It would take too long and I am too tired to write out all the +varying phases of this day's life--all its impressions and petty +miseries chasing one another across my consciousness or leap-frogging +over my chest like gleeful fiends.[1] + +_July_ 21. + +Thoroughly enjoyed the journey up to town this morning. I secretly +gloated over the fact that the train was dashing along over the rails to +London bearing me and all the rest of the train's company upon their +pursuits--wealth, fame, learning. I was inebriated with the speed, +ferocity, and dash of living.... If the train had charged into the +buffers I should have hung my head out of the window and cheered. If a +man had got in my way, I'd have knocked him down. The wheels of the +carriage were singing a lusty song in which I joined. + +_July_ 30. + +... We talked of men and women, and she said she thought men were +neither angels nor devils but just men. I said I thought women were +either angels or devils. + +"I am afraid to ask you which you think me." + +"You needn't," I said shortly. + +_August_ 9. + +Horribly upset with news from home. Mother is really ill. The Doctor +fears serious nerve trouble and says she will always be an invalid. This +is awful, poor dear! It's dreadful, and yet I have a tiny wish buried at +the bottom of my heart that she may be removed early from us rather +than linger in pain of body and mind. Especially do I hope she may not +live to hear any grievous news of me.... What irony that she should lose +the use of her right arm only two years after Dad's death from +paralysis. It is cruel for it reminds her of Dad's illness.... What, +too, would she think if she could have heard M----'s first words to me +yesterday on one of my periodical visits to his consulting room, "Well, +how's the _paralysis_?" + + * * * * * + +In the evening went over to see her. She was wearing a black silk gown +and looked handsome.... She is always the same sombre, fascinating, +lissom, soft-voiced She! She herself never changes.... What am I to do? +I cannot give her up and yet I do not altogether wish to take her to my +heart. It distresses me to know how to proceed. I am a wily fish. + +_August_ 10. + +Sat in the gardens with her. We sat facing the sun for a while until she +was afraid of developing freckles and turned around, deliberately +turning her back on good King Sol.... I said it was disrespectful. + +"Oh! he doesn't mind," she said. "He's a dear. He kissed me and said, +'Turn round my dear if you like.'" + +Isn't she tantalising? + +I wanted to say sarcastically, "I wonder you let him kiss you," but +there was a danger of the remark reviving the dead. + +_August_ 14. + +I tried my best, I've sought every loophole of escape, but I am quite +unable to avoid the melancholy fact that her thumbs are--lamentable. I +am genuinely upset about it for I like her. No one more than I would be +more delighted if they were otherwise.... Poor dear! how I love her! +That's why I'm so concerned about her thumbs. + +_August_ 21. + +A wire from A---- came at 11.50 saying "Darling Mother passed peacefully +away yesterday afternoon." ... Yesterday afternoon I was writing Zoology +and all last night I slept soundly.... It was quite sudden. Caught the +first train home. + +_August_ 23. + +The funeral. + +_August_ 31. + +Staying at the Hotel du Guesclin at Cancale near St. Malo with my dear +A----. + +This flood of new experiences has knocked my diary habit out of gear. To +be candid, I've forgotten all about myself. I've been too engrossed in +living to stand the strain of setting down and in cold blood writing out +all the things seen and heard. If I once began I should blow thro' these +pages like a whirlwind.... But what a waste of time with M. le batelier +waiting outside with his bisque to take us mackerel fishing!... + +_September_ 8. + +Returned to Southampton yesterday. Have spent the night at Okehampton in +Devonshire _en route_ for T---- Rectory. This morning we hatched the +ridiculous idea of hiring two little Dartmoor ponies and riding out from +the town. A---- rides fairly well tho' he has not been astride a beast +for years. As for me, I cannot ride at all! Yet I had the idea that I +could easily manage a pretty little pony with brown eyes and a long +tail. On going out into the Inn yard, was horrified--two horses +saddled--one a large traction beast.... I climbed on to the smaller one, +walked him out of the yard and down the road in good style without +accident. Once in the country, however, my animal, the fresher of the +two, insisted on a smart trot which shook me up a good deal so that I +hardly kept my seat. This eventually so annoyed the animal that it +began to fidget and zigzag across the road--no doubt preparing to break +away at a stretch gallop when once it had rid itself of the +incomprehensible pair of legs across its back. + +I got off quickly and swopped horses with A----. + +Walked him most of the way, while A---- cantered forward and back to +cheer me on. Ultimately however this beast, too, got sick of walking and +began to trot. For a time I stood this well and began to rise in my +saddle quite nicely. After two miles, horrible soreness supervened, and +I had to get off--very carefully, with a funny feeling in my legs--even +looked down at them to assure myself they were not bandy! In doing so, +the horse--this traction monster--stepped on my toe and I swore. + +On nearing the village, L---- arrived, riding A----'s animal and holding +his sides for laughing at me as I crawled along holding the carthorse by +the bridle. Got on again and rode into the Rectory grounds in fine style +like a dashing cavalier, every one jeering at me from the lawn. + +_September_ 28. + +Having lived on this planet now for the space of 24 years, I can claim +with some cogency that I am qualified to express some sort of opinion +about it. I therefore hereby record that I find myself in an absorbingly +interesting place where I live, move and have my being, dominated by one +monstrous feature above all others--the mystery of it all! Everything is +so astonishing, my own existence so incredible! + +Nothing explains itself. Every one is dumb. It is like walking about at +a masqued Ball.... Even I myself am a mystery to me. How wonderful and +frightening that is--to feel yourself--your innermost and most +substantial possession to be a mystery, incomprehensible. I look at +myself in the mirror and mock at myself. On some days I am to myself as +strange and unfamiliar as a Pterodactyl. There is a certain grim humour +in finding myself here possessed of a perfectly arbitrary arrangement +of lineaments when I never asked to be here and never selected my own +attributes. To the dignity of a human being it seems like a coarse +practical joke.... My own freakish physique is certainly a joke. + +_October_ 4. + +_In London Again_ + +K---- comes in from her dancing class, nods to me, hugs her sister +around the neck and says,-- + +"Oh! you dear thing, you've got a cold." + +"I shouldn't do that," I remark, green-eyed, "she's in an awful wax +to-night." + +She: "Oh! I don't mind K----!" + +(Laughter!) + +_October_ 8. + +Heard a knock at the door last night, and, thinking it was R----, I +unbolted it and let in a tramp who at once asked God to bless me and +crown all my sorrow with joy. An amiable fellow to be sure--so I gave +him some coppers and he at once repeated with wonderful fervour, "God +bless you, sir." + +"I wish He would," I answered, "I have a horrible cold." + +"Ah, I know, I gets it myself and the hinfluenza--have you had that, +sir?" + +In ten minutes I should have told him all my personal history. But he +was thirsting for a drink and went off quickly and left me with my heart +unburthened. London is a lonely place. + +To-day journeyed to ---- where I gave evidence as an _expert_ in Economic +Entomology at the County Court in a case concerning damage to furniture +by mites for which I am paid £8 8s. fee and expenses and travelled first +class. What irony! (See June 30, 1911.) + +_October_ 11. + +I may be a weak, maundering, vacillating fool but I cannot help loving +her on one day, being indifferent the next and on some occasions even +disliking her.... To-day she was charming, with a certain warm glossy +perfection on her face and hair.... And she loves me--I could swear it. +"And when a woman woos ..." etc. How difficult for a vain and lonely man +to resist her. She tells me many times in many dainty ways that she +loves me without so much as stopping her work to talk. + +I wish I were permanently and irresistibly enamoured. I want a +_bouleversement_.... + +_October_ 13. + +Went to see a Harley Street oculist about the sight of one eye, which +has caused a lot of trouble and worry of late and continuously haunted +me with the possibility of blindness. At times, I see men as trees +walking and print becomes hopelessly blurred. + +The Specialist however is reassuring. The eye is healthy --no +neuritis--but the adjustment muscles have been thrown out of gear by the +nervous troubles of last spring. + + * * * * * + +Was ever man more sorely tempted? Here am I lonely and uncomfortable in +diggings with a heart like nascent oxygen.... Shall I? Yes, but.... And +I have neither health nor wealth. + +_October_ 22. + +_The British Museum Reading Room_ + +I saw it for the first time to-day! Gadzooks!! This is the only fit +ejaculation to express my amazement! It's a pagan temple with the Gods +in the middle and all around, various obscure dark figures prostrating +themselves in worship. + +For any one who is not simply a Sheep or Cow or whose nervous +organisation is a degree more sensitive than the village blacksmith's, +it is a besetting peril to his peace of mind to be constantly moving +about an independent being, with loves and hates, and a separate +identity among other separate identities, who prowl and prowl around +like the hosts of Midian--ready to snarl, fight, seize you, bore you, +exasperate you, to arouse all your passions, call up all the worst from +the depths where they have lain hidden.... A day spent among my fellows +goads me to a frenzy by the evening. I am no longer fit for human +companionship. People string me up to concert pitch. I develop +suspicions of one that he is prying, of another that he patronises. +Others make me horribly anxious to stand well in their eyes and horribly +curious to know what they think of me. Others I hate and loathe--for no +particular reason. There is a man I am acquainted with concerning whom I +know nothing at all. He may be Jew, Gentile, Socinian, Pre-adamite, +Anabaptist, Rosicrucian--I don't know, and I don't care, for I hate him. +I should like to smash his face in. I don't know why.... In the whole +course of our tenuous acquaintance we have spoken scarce a dozen words +to each other. Yet I should like to blow up his face with dynamite. If I +had £200 a year private income I should be in wait for him to-morrow +round a corner and land him one--just to indicate my economic +independence. He would call for the police and the policeman--discerning +creature--on arrival, would surely say, "With a face like that, I'm not +surprised." + + * * * * * + +R---- said to me this morning, "Well, have you heard?" with an +exuberance of curiosity that made my blood boil--he was referring to my +Essay still at the bar of the opinion of the Editor of the _English +Review_. "You beast," I snapped and walked off. + +R---- shouted with laughter for he realizes my anger with him is only +semi-serious: it is meant and not meant: meant, for it is justified by +the facts; not meant, for I can't be too serious over anything _au +fond_. + + * * * * * + +Of all the grim and ridiculous odds and ends of chance that Fortune has +rolled up to my feet, my friendship with a man like B---- is the +grimmest and most ridiculous. He is a bachelor of sixty, rather +good-looking, of powerful physique and a faultless constitution.... His +ignorance is colossal and he once asked whether Australia, for example, +tho' surrounded by water, is not connected up with other land underneath +the sea. Being himself a child in intelligence (tho' commercially +cunning), he has a great respect for my brains. Being himself a strong +man, he views my ill-health with much contempt. His private opinion is +that I am in consumption. When asked once by a lady if I were not going +to be "a great man" one day, he replied, "Yes--if he lives." I ought to +walk six miles a day, drink a bottle of stout with my dinner, and eat +plenty of _onions_. His belief in the curative properties of onions is +strong as death.... + +His system of prophylaxis may be quickly summarised,-- + +(1) Hot whisky _ad lib_. and off to bed. + +(2) A woman. + +These two sterling preventives he has often urged upon me at the same +time tipping out a quantity of anathemas on doctors and physic.... + +He is a cynic. He scoffs at the medical profession, the Law, the Church, +the Press. Every man is guilty until he is proved innocent. The Premier +is an unscrupulous character, the Bishop a salacious humbug. No doctor +will cure, for it pays him to keep you ill. Every clergyman puts the +Sunday-school teacher in the family way. His mouth is permanently +distorted by cynicism. + +He is vain and believes all women are in love with him. When playing the +Gallant, he turns on a special voice, wears white spats, and looks like +a Newmarket "Crook." + +"I lost my 'bus," a girl says to him. "Lost your bust," he answers, in +broad Scotch. "I can't see that you've done that." ... His sexual career +has been a remarkable one, he claiming to have brought many women to +bed, and actually to have lain with women of almost all European +nationalities, for he has been a great traveller.... + +This man is my devoted friend!... And truth to tell I get on with him +better than I do with most people. I like his gamey flavour, his utter +absence of self-consciousness, and his doggy loyalty to myself--his +weaker brother. He may be depraved in his habits, coarse in his +language, boorish in his manners, ludicrous in the wrongness of all his +views. But I like him just because he is so hopeless. I get on with him +because it is so impossible to reclaim him--my missionary spirit is not +intrigued. If he only dabbled in vice (for an experiment), if he had +pale, watery ideas about current literature--if--to use his own +favourite epithet--he were _genteel_, I should quarrel. + +_October_ 30. + +Having developed a passion for a piece of sculpture by R. Boeltzig +called the Reifenwerferin--the most beautiful figure of a woman. I am +already devoted to Rodin's "Kiss" and have a photo of it framed in my +bedroom. Have written to Bruciani's. + +I suspect that my growing appreciation of the plastic art is with me +only distilled sensuality. I enjoy my morning bath for the same reason. +My bath is a daily baptism. I revel in the pleasure of the pain of the +cold water. I whistle gleefully because I am clean and cool and nude +early in the morning with the sun still low, before the day has been +stained by clothes, dirt, pain, exasperation, death.... How I love +myself as I rub myself down!--the cool, pink skin--I could eat it! I +want to be all day in a cold bath to enjoy the pain of mortifying the +flesh--it is so beautiful, so soft, so inscrutable--if I cut out chunks +of it, it would only bleed. + +_November_ 8. + +The other morning R---- said hyperbolically that he hadn't slept all +night for fear that, before he had time to put an arresting hand on my +shoulder and say "Don't," I might have gone and become "Entangled." ... + +... No, I'm as firm as a rock, my dear. But in imagination the affair +was continued as follows,-- + +She: "I am fond of you, you know." + +He: "I wish you wouldn't say these things to me--they're quite +embarrassing." + +She: "Oh! my dear, I'm not serious, you know--you're such a vain young +man." + +He: "Well, it's equally embarrassing any way." + +She: "Then I _am_ serious." + +Tears. + +I say: "I wish you would take me only for what I am--a blackguard with +no good intentions, yet no very evil ones--but still a blackguard, whom +you seem to find has engaging manners." + +I breathe freely hoping to have escaped this terrible temptation and +turn to go. But she, looking up smiling thro' a curtain of wet +eyelashes, asks,-- + +"Won't the blackguard stop a little longer?" In a moment my earth works, +redoubts, and bastions fall down, I rush forward impetuously into her +arms shouting, "I _will_, I _will_, I will as long as for eternity." + +(Curtain.) + +I dramatised this little picture and much more last night before going +to sleep when I was in a fever. I should succumb at once to the first +really skilful coquette. + +_November_ 9. + +_Ludo_ + +We played Ludo together this evening and she won 2s. 6d. Handsomely +gowned in black and wearing black ornaments, she sat with me in the +lamplight on the sofa in the Morris Room, with the Ludo board between us +placed on a large green cushion. Her face was white as parchment and +her hair seemed an ebony black. I lolled in the opposite corner, a thin, +elongated youth, with fair hair all stivvered up, dressed in a +light-brown lounge suit with a good trouser crease, a soft linen collar +and--a red tie! Between us, on its green cushion the Ludo board with its +brilliantly coloured squares:--all of it set before a background formed +by the straight-backed, rectangular, settle-like sofa, with a charming +covering which went with the rest of the scheme. + +"Rather decorative,"---- remarked in an audible voice, turning her head +on one side and quizzing. I can well believe it was. _She_ looked wholly +admirable. + +_November_ 21. + +_My Nightmare_ + +Can't get rid of my cough. I have so many things to do--I am living in a +fever of haste to get them done. Yet this cough hinders me. There is +always something which drags me back from the achievement of my desires. +It's like a nightmare; I see myself struggling violently to escape from +a monster which draws continuously nearer, until his shadow falls across +my path, when I begin to run and find my legs tied, etc. The only +difference is that mine is a nightmare from which I never wake up. The +haven of successful accomplishment remains as far off as ever. Oh! make +haste. + +_November_ 29. + +The _English Review_ has returned my Essay!--This is a keen +disappointment to me. "I wish I could use this, but I am really too +full," the Editor writes. To be faintly encouraged and delicately +rejected--why I prefer the printed form. + +_December_ 1. + +_More Irony_ + +Renewed my cold--I do nothing all day but blow my nose, cough, and curse +Austin Harrison. + +M---- thinks the lungs are all right. "There is nothing there, I think," +said he, this morning. Alleluia! I've had visions of consumption for +weeks past and M---- himself has been expecting it. I always just escape: +I always almost get something, do something, go somewhere, I have +dabbled in a variety of diseases, but never got one downright[2]--but +only enough to make me feel horribly unfit and very miserable without +the consolation of being able to regard myself as the heroic victim of +some incurable disorder. Instead of being Stevenson with tuberculosis, +I've only been Jones with dyspepsia. So, too, in other directions, big +events have always just missed me: by Herculean efforts I succeeded in +giving up newspaper journalism and breaking thro' that steel +environment--but only to become an Entomologist! I once achieved success +in an Essay in the _Academy_, which attracted attention--a debut, +however, that never developed. I had not quite arrived. It is always +_not quite_. + +Yesterday, I received a state visit from the Editor of the _Furniture +Record_ seeking advice on how to eradicate mites from upholstering! I +received him ironically--but little did he understand. + +I shot up like a ball on a bagatelle board all steamy into zoology (my +once beloved science) but at once rolled dead into the very low hole of +Economic Entomology! Curse.... Why can't I either have a first-rate +disease or be a first-rate zoologist? + +Now just think what a much better figure I should have cut, from the +artistic view point, had I remained a newspaper reporter who had taught +himself prodigious embryology out of F.M. Balfour's Textbook, who had +cut sections of fowls' eggs and newt embryos with a hand microtome, who +had passionately dissected out the hidden, internal anatomy of a great +variety of animals, who could recite Wiedersheim's _Comparative Anatomy +of Vertebrates_ and patter off the difference between a nephridium and a +cœlomic duct without turning a hair--or the phylogenetic history (how +absorbing!) of the kidney--pronephros, mesonephros and metanephros and +all the ducts!... All this, over now and wasted. My hardly-won +knowledge wrenched away is never brought into use--it lies piled up in +my brain rotting. I could have become a first-rate comparative +anatomist. + +_December_ 3. + +Cold better. So back at work--gauging ale at Dunfermline as R---- puts +it. + +_December_ 9. + +In the evening found it quite impossible to stay in the house any +longer: some vague fear drove me out. I was alarmed to be alone or to be +still. It is my cough, I think. + +Had two glasses of port at the Kensington Hotel, conversed with the +barmaid, and then came home. + +_December_ 10. + +"Don't be an old fossil," she said to me to-night, irrelevantly. + +"_A propos_ of what?" I inquired. + +"Mother, here's W---- proposing to E----! Do come," cried ----, with +intent to confuse. I laughed heartlessly. + +Dear, dear, where will it all end? It's a sad business when you fall in +love with a girl you don't like. + +_December_ 26. + +Spent a romping day at the Flat. Kissed her sister twice under the +mistletoe, and in the evening went to a cinema. After supper made a mock +heroic speech and left hilarious. + + +[1] "The life of the Soul is different; there is nothing more changing, +more varied, more restless ... to describe the incidents of one hour +would require an eternity."--_Journal of Eugénie de Guérin_. + +[2] See entry for November 27, 1915. + + + + +1914 + + +_February_ 4. + +... Finally and in conclusion I have fallen ill again, have again +resumed my periodical visits to the Doctor, and am swallowing his +rat-poison in a blind faith as aforetime. In fact, I am in London, +leading the same solitary life, seeing no one, talking to no one, and +daily struggling with this demon of ill-health. Can no one exorcise him? +The sight of _both_ my eyes is affected now. Blindness? + +B---- continues whoring, drinking, sneering. R---- as usual, devoid of +emotion, cold, passionless, Shavian, and self-absorbed, still titillates +his mind with etching, sociology, music, etc., and I have at last ceased +to bore him with what he probably calls the febrile utterances of an +overwrought mind. + +Such is my world! Oh! I forgot--on the floor below me is a corpse--that +of an old gentleman who passed away suddenly in the night. In the small +hours, the landlady went for the Doctor over the way, but he refused to +come, saying the old man was too aged. So the poor gentleman died +alone--in this rat hole of a place. + +_February_ 7. + +Intending to buy my usual 3d. packet of Goldflakes, entered a +tobacconist's in Piccadilly, but once inside surprised to find myself in +a classy west-end establishment, which frightened my flabby nature into +buying De Reszke's instead. I hadn't the courage to face the aristocrat +behind the counter with a request for Goldflakes--probably not stocked. +What would he think of me? Besides, I shrank from letting him see I was +not perfectly well-to-do. + +_February_ 14. + +I wonder what this year has in store for me? The first twenty-four years +of my life have hunted me up and down the keyboard--I have been right to +the top and also to the bottom--very happy and very miserable. Yet I +prefer the life that is a hunt and an adventure. I don't really mind +being chased like this. I almost thrive on the excitement. If I knew +always where to look with any degree of certainty for my next day's life +I should yawn! "What if to-day be sweet," I say, and never look ahead. +To me, next week is next century. + +The danger and uncertainty of my life make me cherish and hug closely to +my heart various little projects that otherwise would seem unworthy. I +work at them quickly, frantically, sometimes, afraid to whisper to a +living soul what expectations I dare to harbour in my heart. What if +_now_ the end be near? Not a word! Let me go onward. + +_February_ 15. + +To-day I have reviewed the situation carefully, exhaustively. I have +peered into every aspect of my life and achievements and everything I +have seen nauseates me. I can find no ray of comfort in anything I have +done or in anything I might do. My life seems to have been a wilderness +of futile endeavour. I started wrong from the very beginning. At the +moment of my birth I was coming into the world in the wrong place and +under wrong conditions. Why seek to overcome such colossal initial +disadvantages? In this mood I found fault with my parentage, my +inheritance, all my mental and physical disabilities.... + +This must be a form of incipient insanity. Even as a boy, I can remember +being preternaturally absorbed in myself and preternaturally +discontented. I was accustomed to exhaust my mind by the most harassing +cross-examinations--no Counsel at the Bar ever treated a witness more +mercilessly. After a day of this sort of thing, when silently and +morbidly in every spare moment, at meals, in school, or on a walk, I +would incessantly ply the questions, "What is the ultimate value of your +work, _cui bono_?" etc. I went to bed in the evening with a feeling of +hopelessness and dissatisfaction--haggard with considerations and +reconsiderations of my outlook, my talent, my character, my future. In +bed, I tossed from side to side, mentally exhausted with my efforts to +obtain some satisfying conclusion--always hopeful, determined to the +last to be able to square up my little affairs before going to sleep. +But out of this mazy, vertiginous mass of thinking no satisfaction ever +came. _Now_, I thought--or the _next moment_--or as soon as I review and +revise myself in this or in that aspect, I shall be content. And so I +went on, tearing down and reforming, revising and reviewing, till +finally from sheer exhaustion and very unhappy I fell asleep. + +Next morning I was all right. + +_February_ 20. + +Am feeling very unwell. My ill-health, my isolation, baulked ambitions, +and daily breadwinning all conspire to bring me down. The idea of a +pistol and the end of it grows on me day by day. + +_February_ 21. + +After four days of the most profound depression of spirits, bitterness, +self-distrust, despair, I emerged from the cloud to-day quite suddenly +(probably the arsenic and strychnine begins to take effect) and walked +up Exhibition Road with the intention of visiting the Science Museum +Library so as to refer to Schafer's _Essentials of Histology_ (I have to +watch myself carefully so that I may act _at once_ as soon as the +balance of mind is restored). In the lobby was a woman screaming as if +in pain, with a passer-by at her side saying sternly, "What is the +matter with you?" as if she were making herself ridiculous by suffering +pain in public. + +I passed by quickly, pretending not to notice lest--after all--I should +be done out of my _Essentials of Histology._ Even in the Library I very +nearly let the opportunity slide by picking up a book on squaring the +circle, the preface and introduction of which I was forced to read. + +_March_ 4. + +_The Entomological Society_ + +There were a great many Scarabees present who exhibited to one another +poor little pinned insects in collecting-boxes ... It was really a +one-man show, Prof. Poulton, a man of very considerable scientific +attainments, being present, and shouting with a raucous voice in a way +that must have scared some of the timid, unassuming collectors of our +country's butterflies and moths. Like a great powerful sheep-dog, he got +up and barked, "Mendelian characters," or "Germ plasm," what time the +obedient flock ran together and bleated a pitiful applause. I suppose, +having frequently heard these and similar phrases fall from the lips of +the great man at these reunions, they have come to regard them as +symbols of a ritual which they think it pious to accept without any +question. So every time the Professor says, "Allelomorph," or some such +phrase, they cross themselves and never venture to ask him what the hell +it is all about. + +_March_ 7. + +_A Scots Fir_ + +Have been feeling very "down" of late, but yesterday I saw a fine Scots +Fir by the roadside--tall, erect, as straight as a Parthenon pillar. The +sight of it restored my courage. It had a tonic effect. Quite +unconsciously I pulled my shoulders back and walked ahead with renewed +vows never to flinch again. It is a noble tree. It has strength as a +giant, and a giant's height, and yet kindly withal, the branches +drooping down graciously towards you--like a kind giant extending its +hands to a child. + +_March_ 22. + +_A Stagnant Day_ + +Went to bed late last night so I slept on soundly till 9 a.m. Went down +to the bath-room, but found the door was shut, so went back to my +bedroom again, lay down and dosed a while, thinking of nothing in +particular. Went down again--door still locked--swore--returned once +more to my room and reclined on the bed, with door open, so that I could +hear as soon as the bath-room door opened.... Rang the bell, and +Miss ---- brought up a jug of hot water to shave with, and a tumbler of hot +water to drink (for my dyspepsia). She, on being interrogated, said +there was some one in the bath-room. I said I wanted a bath too, so as +she passed on her way down she shouted, "Hurry up, Mr. Barbellion wants +a bath as well." Her footsteps then died away as she descended lower +into the basement, where the family lives, sleeps, and cooks our food. + +At length, hearing the door open, I ejaculated, "the Lord be praised," +rushed down, entered the bath-room and secured it from further +intruders. I observed that Miss ---- senior had been bathing her members, +and that the bath, tho' empty, was covered inside with patches of soap +--unutterably black! Oh! Miss ----! + +Dressed leisurely and breakfasted. When the table was cleared wrote a +portion of my essay on _Spallanzani_.... + +Then, being giddy and tired, rang for dinner. Miss ---- laid the table. +She looked very clean. I said, "Good-morning," and she suitably replied, +and I went on reading, the _Winning Post_. Felt too slack to be amiable. +Next time she came in, I said as pleasantly as I could, "Is it all +ready?" and being informed proceeded to eat forthwith. + +In the afternoon, took a 'bus to Richmond. No room outside, so had to go +inside--curse--and sit opposite a row--curse again--of fat, ugly, +elderly women, all off to visit their married daughters, the usual +Sunday jaunt. At Hammersmith got on the outside, and at Turnham Green +was caught in a hail storm. Very cold all of a sudden, so got off and +took shelter in the doorway of a shop, which was of course closed, the +day being Sunday. Rain, wind, and hail continued for some while, as I +gazed at the wet, almost empty street, thinking, re-thinking and +thinking over again the same thought, viz., that the 'bus ride along +this route was exceptionally cheap--probably because of competition with +the trams. + +The next 'bus took me to Richmond. Two young girls sat in front, and +kept looking back to know if I was "game." I looked _through_ them. +Walked in the Park just conscious of the singing of Larks and the +chatter of Jays, but harassed mentally by the question, "To whom shall I +send my essay, when finished?" To shelter from the rain sat under an oak +where four youths joined me and said, "Worse luck," and "Not half," and +smoked cigarettes. They gossipped and giggled like girls, put their arms +around each other's necks. At the dinner last night, they said, they had +Duck and Tomato Soup and Beeswax ("Beesley, you know, the chap that goes +about with Smith a lot") wore a fancy waistcoat with a dinner jacket. +When I got up to move on, they became convulsed with laughter. I +scowled. + +Had tea in the Pagoda tea-rooms, dry toast and brown bread and butter. +Two young men opposite me were quietly playing the fool. + +"Hold my hand," one said audibly enough for two lovers to hear, +comfortably settled up in a corner. Even at a side view I could see them +kissing each other in between mouthfuls of bread and butter and jam. + +On rising to go, one of the two hilarious youths removed my cap and +playfully placed it on top of the bowler which his friend was wearing. + +"My cap, I think," I said sharply, and the young man apologised with a +splutter. I glared like a kill-joy of sixty. + +On the 'bus, coming home, thro' streets full of motor traffic and all +available space plastered with advertisements that screamed at you, I +espied in front three pretty girls, who gave me the "Glad Eye." One had +a deep, musical voice, and kept on using it, one of the others a pretty +ankle and kept on showing it. + +At Kew, two Italians came aboard, one of whom went out of his way to sit +among the girls. He sat level with them, and kept turning his head +around, giving them a sweeping glance as he did so, to shout remarks in +Italian to his friend behind. He thought the girls were prostitutes, I +think, and he may have been right. I was on the seat behind this man and +for want of anything better to do, studied his face minutely. In short, +it was fat, round, and greasy. He wore black moustachios with curly +ends, his eyes were dark shining, bulgy, and around his neck was wrapped +a scarf inside a dirty linen collar, as if he had a sore throat. I sat +behind him and hated him steadily, perseveringly. + +At Hammersmith the three girls got off, and the bulgy-eyed Italian +watched them go with lascivious eyes, looking over the rail and down at +them on the pavement--still interested. I looked down too. They crossed +the road in front of us and disappeared. + +Came home and here I am writing this. This is the content of to-day's +consciousness. This is about all I have thought, said, or done, or felt. +A stagnant day! + +_March_ 26. + +Home with a bad influenza cold. In a deplorable condition. The best I +could do was to sit by the fire and read newspapers one by one from the +first page to the last till the reading became mechanical. I found +myself reading an account of the Lincoln Handicap and a column article +on Kleptomania, while advertisements of new books were devoured with +relish as delicacies. My mind became a morass of current Divorce Court +News, Society Gossip--"if Sir A. goes Romeward, if Miss B. sings +true"--and advertisements. I went on reading because I was afraid to be +alone with myself. + +B---- arrived at tea and after saying he felt very "pin-eyed" swallowed +a glass of Bols gin--the Gin of Antony Bols--and recovered sufficiently +to inform me delightedly that he had just won £50. He told me all the +story; meanwhile, I, tired of wiping and blowing my nose, sat in the +dirty armchair hunched up with elbows on knees and let it drip on to the +dirty carpet. B----, of course, noticed nothing, which was fortunate. + +Some kinds of damned fool would have been kindly and sympathetic. I must +say I like old B----. I like him for his simpleness and utter absence of +self-consciousness, which make him as charming as a child. Moreover, he +often makes me a present of invaluable turf tips. Of course, he is a +liar, but his lies are harmless and on his mouth like milk on an +infant's. My own lies are much more dangerous. And when you are ill, to +be treated as tho' you were well is good for hypochondriacs. + +_April_ 15. + +H----'s wedding. Five minutes before time, I am told I made a dramatic +entry into the church clad in an audaciously light pair of Cashmere +trousers, lemon-coloured gloves, with top hat and cane. The latter +upset the respectability frightfully--it is not _comme il faut_. + +_April_ 16. + +... If I am to admit the facts they are that I eagerly anticipate love, +look everywhere for it, long for it, am unhappy without it. She +fascinates me--admitted. I could, if I would, surrender myself. Her +affection makes me long to do it. I am sick of living by myself. I am +frightened of myself. My life is miserable alone, and sometimes +desperately miserable when I long for a little sympathy to be close at +hand. + +I have often tried to persuade R---- to share a flat with me, because I +don't really wish to marry. I struggle against the idea, I am egotist +enough to wish to shirk the responsibilities. + +But then I am a ridiculously romantic creature with a wonderful ideal of +a woman I shall never meet or if I do she won't want me--"that (wholly) +impossible She." R---- in a flat with me would partly solve my +difficulties. I don't love her enough for marriage. Mine must be a grand +passion, a _bouleversement_--for I am capable of it. + +_April_ 17. + +_A Humble Confession_ + +The Hon. ----, son and heir of Lord ----, to-day invited me to lunch +with him in ---- Square. He's a handsome youth of twenty-five, with fair +hair and blue eyes.... and O! such an aristocrat. Good Lord. + +But to continue: the receipt of so unexpected an invitation from so +glorious a young gentleman at first gave me palpitation of the heart. I +was so surprised that I scarcely had enough presence of mind to listen +to the rest of his remarks and later, it was only with the greatest +difficulty that I could recall the place where we arranged to meet. His +remarks, too, are not easy to follow, as he talks in a stenographic, +Alfred-Jingle-like manner, jerking out disjected members of sentences, +and leaving you to make the best of them or else to Hell with you--by +the Lord, I speak English, don't I? If I said, "I beg your pardon," he +jerked again, and left me often equally unenlightened. + +On arriving at his home, the first thing he did was to shout down the +stairs to the basement: "Elsie, Elsie," while I gazed with awe at a +parcel on the hall table addressed to "Lord ----." Before lunch we sat +in his little room and talked about ----, but I was still quite unable +to regain my self-composure. I couldn't for the life of me forget that +here was I lunching with Lord ----'s son, on equal terms, with mutual +interests, that his sisters perhaps would come in directly or even the +noble Lord himself. I felt like a scared hare. How should I address a +peer of the realm? I kept trying to remember and every now and then for +some unaccountable reason my mind travelled into ----shire and I saw +Auntie C---- serving out tea and sugar over the counter of the baker's +shop in the little village. I luxuriated in the contrast, tho' I am not +at all inclined to be a snob. + +He next offered me a cigarette, which I took and lit. It was a Turkish +cigarette with one end plugged up with cotton-wool--to absorb the +nicotine--a, thing I've never seen before. I was so flurried at the time +that I did not notice this and lit the wrong end. With perfect ease and +self-possession, the Honourable One pointed out my error to me and told +me to throw the cigarette away and have another. + +By this time I had completely lost my nerve. My pride, chagrin, +excessive self-consciousness were entangling all my movements in the +meshes of a net. Failing to tumble to the situation, I inquired, "Why +the _wrong_ end? Is there a right and a wrong end?" Lord ----'s son and +heir pointed out the cotton-wool end, now blackened by my match. + +"That didn't burn very well, did it?" + +I was bound to confess that it did not, and threw the smoke away under +the impression that these wonderful cigarettes with right and wrong ends +must be some special brand sold only to aristocrats, and at a great +price, and possessing some secret virtue. Once again, handsome Mr. ---- +drew out his silver cigarette-case, selected a second cigarette for me, +and held it towards me between his long delicate fingers, at the same +time pointing out the plug at one end and making a few staccato remarks +which I could not catch. + +I was still too scared to be in full possession of my faculties, and he +apparently was too tired to be explicit to a member of the bourgeoisie, +stumbling about his drawing-room. The cotton-wool plug only suggested to +me some sort of a plot on the part of a dissolute scion of a noble house +to lure me into one of his bad habits, such as smoking opium or taking +veronal. I again prepared to light the cigarette at the wrong end. + +"Try the other end," repeated the young man, smiling blandly. I blushed, +and immediately recovered my balance, and even related my knowledge of +pipes fitted to carry similar plugs.... + +During lunch (at which we sat alone) after sundry visits to the top of +the stairs to shout down to the kitchen, he announced that he thought it +wasn't last night's affair after all which was annoying the Cook (he got +home late without a latch-key)--it was because he called her "Cook" +instead of Mrs. Austin. He smiled serenely and decided to indulge Mrs. +A., his indulgent attitude betraying an objectionable satisfaction with +the security of his own unassailable social status. There was a trace of +gratification at the little compliment secreted in the Cook's annoyance. +She wanted Mr. Charles to call her Mrs. Austin, forsooth. Very well! and +he smiled down on the little weakness _de haute en bas_. + + * * * * * + +I enjoyed this little experience. Turning it over in my mind (as the +housemaid says when she decides to stay on) I have come to the +conclusion that the social parvenu is not such a vulgar fellow after +all. He may be a bore--particularly if he sits with his finger tips +apposed over a spherical paunch, festooned with a gold chain, and keeps +on relating _in extenso_ how once he gummed labels on blacking bottles. +Often enough he is a smug fellow, yet, truth to tell, we all feel a +little interested in him. He is a traveller from an antique land, and we +sometimes like to listen to his tales of adventure and all he has come +through. He has traversed large territories of human experience, he has +met strange folk and lodged in strange caravanserai. Similarly with the +man who has come down in the world--the fool, the drunkard, the +embezzler--he may bore us with his maudlin sympathy with himself yet his +stories hold us. It must be a fine experience within the limits of a +single life to traverse the whole keyboard of our social status, whether +up or down. I should like to be a peer who grinds a barrel organ or +(better still) a one-time organ-grinder who now lives in Park Lane. It +must be very dull to remain stationary--once a peer always a peer. + +_April_ 20. + +Miss ---- heard me sigh to-day and asked what it might mean. "Only the +sparks flying upward," I answered lugubriously. + +A blackguard is often unconscious of a good deal of his wickedness. +Charge him with wickedness and he will deny it quite honestly--honest +then, perhaps, for the first time in his life. + +An Entomologist is a large hairy man with eyebrows like antennæ. + +Chronic constipation has gained for me an unrivalled knowledge of all +laxatives, aperients, purgatives and cathartic compounds. At present I +arrange two gunpowder plots a week. It's abominable. Best literature for +the latrine: picture puzzles. + +_April_ 23. + +_A Foolish Bird_ + +With a menacing politeness, B---- to-day inquired of a fat curate who +was occupying more than his fair share of a seat on top of a 'bus,-- + +"Are you going to get up or stay where ye are, sir?" + +The foolish bird was sitting nearly on top of B----, mistaking a bomb +for an egg. + +"I beg your pardon," replied the fat curate. + +B---- repeated his inquiry with more emphasis in the hideous Scotch +brogue. + +"I suppose I shall stay here till I get down presently." + +"I don't think you will," said B----. + +"What do you mean?" asked the fat one in falsetto indignation. + +"This," B---- grunted, and shunted sideways so that the poor fellow +almost slid on to the floor. + +A posse of police walking along in single file always makes me laugh. A +single constable is a Policeman, but several in single file are +"Coppers." I imagine every one laughs at them and I have a shrewd +suspicion it is one of W.S. Gilbert's legacies--the _Pirates of +Penzance_ having become part of the national Consciousness. + +_On Lighting Chloe's Cigarette_ + +R---- remarked to-day that he intended writing a lyric on lighting +Chloe's cigarette. + +"Ah!" I said at once appreciative, "now tell me, do you balance your +hand--by gently (ever so gently) resting the extreme tip of your little +finger upon her chin, and" (I was warming up) "do you hold the match +vertically or horizontally, and do you light it in the dark or in the +light? If you have finesse, you won't need to be told that the thing is +to get a steady flame and the maximum of illumination upon her face to +last over a period for as long as possible." + +"Chloe," replied R----, "is wearing now a charming blouse with a +charming V-shaped opening in front. Her Aunt asked my Mother last night +tentatively, 'How do you like Chloe's blouse? Is it too low?' My Mother +scrutinised the dear little furry, lop-eared thing and answered +doubtfully, 'No, Maria, I don't think so.'" + +"How ridiculous! Why the V is a positive signpost. My dear fellow," I +said to R----, "I should refuse to be bluffed by those old women. Tell +them you _know_." + + * * * * * + +Carlyle called Lamb a despicable abortion. What a crime! + +_May_ 2. + +Developed a savage fit. Up to a certain point, perhaps, but beyond that +anxiety changes into recklessness--you simply don't care. The aperients +are causing dyspepsia and intermittent action of the heart, which +frightens me. After a terrifying week, during which at crises I have +felt like dropping suddenly in the street, in the gardens, anywhere, +from syncope, I rebelled against this humiliating fear. I pulled my +shoulders back and walked briskly ahead along the street with a dropped +beat every two or three steps. I laughed bitterly at it and felt it +could stop or go on--I was at last indifferent. In a photographer's shop +was the picture of a very beautiful woman and I stopped to look at her. +I glowered in thro' the glass angrily and reflected how she was gazing +out with that same expression even at the butcher's boy or the +lamp-lighter. It embittered me to think of having to leave her to some +other man. To me she represented all the joy of life which at any moment +I might have had to quit for ever. Such impotence enraged me and I +walked off up the street with a whirling heart and the thought, "I shall +drop, I suppose, when I get up as far as that." Yet don't think I was +alarmed. Oh! no. The iron had entered me, and I went on with cynical +indifference waiting to be struck down. + +... She is a very great deal to me. Perhaps I love her very much after +all. + +_May_ 3. + +Bad heart attack all day. Intermittency is very refined torture to one +who wants to live very badly. Your pump goes a "dot and carry one," or +say "misses a stitch," what time you breathe deep, begin to shake your +friend's hand and make a farewell speech. Then it goes on again and you +order another pint of beer. + +It is a fractious animal within the cage of my thorax, and I never know +when it is going to escape and make off with my precious life between +its teeth. I humour and coax and soothe it, but, God wot, I haven't much +confidence in the little beast. My thorax it appears is an intolerable +kennel. + +_May_ 10. + +In a very cheerful mood. Pleased with myself and everybody till a +seagull soared overhead in Kensington Gardens and aroused my vast +capacities for envy--I wish I could fly. + +_May_ 24. + +In L---- with my brother, A----. The great man is in great form and very +happy in his love for N----. He is a most delightful creature and I love +him more than any one else in the wide world. There is an almost +feminine tenderness in my love. + +We spent a delightful day, talking and arguing and insulting one +another.... At these seances we take delight in anaesthetising our +hearts for the purposes of argument, and a third person would be bound +to suppose we were in the throes of a bitter quarrel. We pile up one +vindictive remark on another, ingeniously seeking out--and with +malice--weak points in each other's armour, which previous exchange of +confidences makes it easy to find. Neither of us hesitates to make use +of such private confessions, yet our love is so strong that we can +afford to take any liberty. There is, in fact, a fearful joy in testing +the strength of our affection by searching for cutting rejoinders--to +see the effect. We rig up one another's cherished ideals like Aunt +Sallies and then knock them down, we wax sarcastic, satirical, +contemptuous in turn, we wave our hands animatedly (hand-waving is a +great trick with both of us), get flushed, point with our fingers, and +thump the table to clinch some bit of repartee. Yet it's all smoke. Our +love is unassailable--it's like the law of gravitation, you cannot +dispute it, it underlies our existence, it is the air we breathe. + +N---- is charming, and thought we were quarrelling, and therefore +intervened on his side! + +_May_ 31. + +R---- outlined an impression he had in Naples one day during a sirocco +of the imminence of his own death. It was evidently an isolated +experience and bored me a little as I could have said a lot myself about +that. When he finished I drew from my pocket an envelope with my name +and three addresses scribbled on it to help the police in case of +syncope as I explained. I have carried this with me for several years +and at one time a flask of brandy. + +_June_ 3. + +Went to see the Irish Players in _The Playboy_. Sitting in front of me +was a charming little Irish girl accompanied by a male clod with +red-rimmed eyes like a Bull-terrier's, a sandy, bristly moustache like a +housemaid's broom, and a face like a gluteal mass, and a horrid voice +that crepitated rather than spoke. + +She was dark, with shining blue eyes, and a delightful little nose of +the utmost import to every male who should gaze upon her. Between the +acts, the clod hearkened to her vivacious conversation--like an +enchanted bullock. Her vivacity was such that the tip of her nose moved +up and down for emphasis and by the end of the Third Act I was captured +entirely. Lucky dog, that clod! + +After the play this little Irish maiden caught my eye and it became a +physical impossibility for me to check a smile--and oh! Heavens!--she +gave me a smile in return. Precisely five seconds later, she looked +again to see if I was still smiling--I was--and we then smiled broadly +and openly on one another--her smile being the timorous ingénue's not +the glad eye of a _femme de joie_. Later, on the railway platform +whither I followed her, I caught her eye again (was ever so lucky a +fellow?), and we got into the same carriage. But so did the clod--ah! +dear, was ever so unlucky a fellow? Forced to occupy a seat some way +off, but she caught me trying to see her thro' a midnight forest of +opera hats, lace ruffles, projecting ears and fat noses. + +Curse! Left her at High Street Station and probably will never see her +again. This is a second great opportunity. The first was the girl on +Lundy Island. These two women I shall always regret. There must be so +many delightful and interesting persons in London if only I could get at +them. + +_June_ 4. + +Rushed off to tell R---- about my little Irish girl. Her face has been +"shadowing" me all day. + +_June_ 6. + +A violent argument with R---- _re_ marriage. He says Love means +appropriation, and is taking the most elaborate precautions to forfend +passion--just as if it were a militant suffragette. Every woman he meets +he first puts into a long quarantine, lest perchance she carries the +germ of the infectious disease. He quotes Hippolytus and talks like a +mediæval ascetic. Himself, I imagine, he regards as a valuable but +brittle piece of Dresden china which must be saved from rough handling +and left unmolested to pursue its high and dusty destiny--an old crock +as I warned him. By refusing to plunge into life he will live long and +be a well preserved man, but scarcely a living man--a mummy rather. I +told him so amid much laughter. + +"You're a reactionary," says he. + +"Yes, but why should a reactionary be a naughty boy?" + +_June_ 7. + +My ironical fate lured me this evening into another discussion on +marriage in which I had to take up a position exactly opposite to the +one I defended yesterday against R----. In fact, I actually subverted to +my own pressing requirements some of R----'s own arguments! The +argument, of course, was with Her. + +Marriage, I urged, was an economic trap for guileless young men, and for +my part (to give myself some necessary stiffening) I did not intend to +enter upon any such hazardous course, even if I had the chance. Miss +---- said I was a funk--to me who the day before had been hammering +into R---- my principle of "Plunge and damn the consequences." I was +informed I was an old woman afraid to go out without an umbrella, an old +tabby cat afraid to leave the kitchen fire, etc., etc. + +"Yes, I _am_ afraid to go out without an umbrella," I argued formally, +"when it's raining cats and dogs. As long as I am dry, I shall keep dry. +As soon as I find myself caught in the rain or victimised by a passion, +I shan't be afraid of falling in love or getting wet. It would be a +misadventure, but I am not going in search of one." + +All the same the discussion was very galling, for I was acting a part. + +... The truth is I have philandered abominably with her. I know it. And +now I am jibbing at the idea of marriage.... I am such an egotist, I +want, I believe, a Princess of the Blood Royal. + +_June_ 9. + +Some days ago sent a personal advertisement to the newspaper to try to +find my little Irish girl who lives at Notting Hill Gate. To-day they +return me the money and advert, no doubt mistaking me for a White Slave +trafficker. And by this time, I'm thinking, my little Irish girl can go +to blazes. Shall spend the P.O. on sweets or monkey nuts. + +_June_ 10 + +_Lupus_ + +It is raining heavily. I have just finished dinner. In the street an +itinerant musician is singing dolefully, "O Rest in the Lord." In my +dirty little sitting room I begin to feel very restless, so put on my +hat and cloak and walk down towards the Station for a paper to read. It +is all very dark and dismal, and I gaze with hungry eyes in thro' some +of the windows disclosing happy comfortable interiors. At intervals +thunder growls and lightning brightens up the deserted dirtiness of the +Station Waiting Room. A few bits of desolate paper lie about on the +floor, and up in one corner on a form a crossing-sweeper, motionless and +abject, driven in from his pitch by the rain. His hands are deep in his +trousers' pockets, and the poor devil lies with legs sprawling out and +eyes closed: over the lower part of his face he wears a black mask to +hide the ravages of lupus.... He seemed the last man on earth--after +every one else had died of the plague. Not a soul in the station. Not a +train. And this is June! + +_June_ 15. + +_Measuring Lice_ + +Spent the day measuring the legs and antennæ of lice to two places of +decimals! + +To the lay mind how fantastic this must seem! Indeed, I hope it is +fantastic. I do not mind being thought odd. It seems almost fitting that +an incurable dilettante like myself should earn his livelihood by +measuring the legs of lice. I like to believe that such a bizarre manner +of life suits my incurable frivolousness. + +I am a Magpie in a Bagdad bazaar, hopping about, useless, inquisitive, +fascinated by a lot of astonishing things: _e.g._, a book on the +quadrature of the circle, the _gabbertushed fustilugs_ passage in +Burton's _Anatomy of Melancholy_, names like Mr. Portwine or Mr. +Hogsflesh, Tweezer's Alley or Pickle Herring Street, the excellent, +conceitful sonnets of Henry Constable or Petticoat Lane on a Sunday +morning. + +Colossal things such as Art, Science, etc., frighten me. I am afraid I +should develop a thirst that would make me wish to drink the sea dry. My +mind is a disordered miscellany. The world is too distracting. I cannot +apply myself for long. London bewilders me. At times it is a +phantasmagoria, an opium dream out of De Quincey. + +_June_ 17. + +Prof. Geo. Saintsbury's book on Elizabethan literature amuses me. +_George_, there can be no doubt, is a very refined, cultivated fellow. I +bet he don't eat periwinkles with a pin or bite his nails--and you +should hear him refer to folk who can't read Homer in the original or +who haven't been to Oxford--to Merton above all. He also says _non so +che_ for _je ne sais quoi_. + +_June_ 26. + +... I placed the volume on the mantelpiece as if it were a bottle of +physic straight from my Dispensary, and I began to expostulate and +expound, as if she were a sick person and I the doctor.... She seemed a +little nettled at my proselytising demeanour and gave herself out to be +very preoccupied--or at any rate quite uninterested in my physic. I read +the book last night at one sitting and was boiling over with it. + +"I fear I have come at an inconvenient time," I said, with a sardonic +smile and strummed on the piano.... "I must really be off. Please read +it (which sounded like 'three times a day after meals') and tell me how +you like it. (Facetiously.) Of course don't give up your present manual +for it, that would be foolish and unnecessary." ... I rambled +on--disposed to be very playful. + +At last calmly and horribly, in a thoughtful voice she answered,-- + +"I think you are very rude; you play the piano after I asked you to +stop and walk about just as if it were your own home." + +I remained outwardly calm but inwardly was very surprised and full of +tremors. I said after a pause,-- + +"Very well, if you think so.... Good-bye." + +No answer; and I was too proud to apologise. + +"Good-bye," I repeated. + +She went on reading her novel in silence while I got as far as the +door--very upset. + +"_Au revoir_." + +No answer. + +"Oh," said I, and went out of the room leaving my lady for good and all +and I'm not sorry. + +In the passage met Miss ----. "What?" she said, "going already?" + +"Farewell," I said sepulchrally. "A very tragic farewell," which left +her wondering. + +_June_ 29. + +_At the Albert Hall_ + +Went with R---- to the Albert Hall to the _Empress of Ireland_ Memorial +Concert with massed bands. We heard the Symphonie Pathétique, Chopin's +Funeral March, Trauermarsch from Götterdammerung, the Ride of the +Valkyries and a solemn melody from Bach. + +This afternoon I regard as a mountain peak in my existence. For two +solid hours I sat like an Eagle on a rock gazing into infinity--a very +fine sensation for a London Sparrow.... + +I have an idea that if it were possible to assemble the sick and +suffering day by day in the Albert Hall and keep the Orchestra going all +the time, then the constant exposure of sick parts to such heavenly air +vibrations would ultimately restore to them the lost rhythm of health. +Surely, even a single exposure to--say Beethoven's Fifth Symphony--must +result in some permanent reconstitution of ourselves body and soul. No +one can be quite the same after a Beethoven Symphony has streamed thro' +him. + +If one could _develop_ a human soul like a negative the effect I should +say could be seen.... I'll tell you what I wish they'd do--seriously: +divide up the arena into a series of cubicles where, unobserved and in +perfect privacy, a man could execute all the various movements of his +body and limbs which the music prompts. It would be such a delicious +self-indulgence and it's torture to be jammed into a seat where you +can't even tap one foot or wave an arm. + +The concert restored my moral health. I came away in love with people I +was hating before and full of compassion for others I usually condemn. A +feeling of immeasurable well being--a jolly bonhomie enveloped me like +incandescent light. At the close when we stood up to sing the National +Anthem we all felt a genuine spirit of camaraderie. Just as when Kings +die, we were silent musing upon the common fate, and when the time came +to separate we were loath to go our several ways, for we were comrades +who together had come thro' a great experience. For my part I wanted to +shake hands all round--happy travellers, now alas! at the journey's end +and never perhaps to meet again--never. + +R---- and I walked up thro' Kensington Gardens like two young Gods! + +"I even like that bloody thing," I said, pointing to the Albert +Memorial. + +We pointed out pretty girls to one another, watched the children play +ring-a-ring-a-roses on the grass. We laughed exultingly at the thought +of our dismal colleagues ... tho' I said (as before!) I loved 'em +all--God bless 'em--even old ----. R---- said it was nothing short of +insolence on their part to have neglected the opportunity of coming to +the Concert. + +Later on, an old gaffer up from the country stopped us to ask the way to +Rotten Row--I overwhelmed him with directions and happy descriptive +details. I felt like walking with him and showing him what a wonderful +place the world is. + +After separating from R---- very reluctantly--it was horrible to be left +alone in such high spirits, walked up towards the Round Pond, and caught +myself avoiding the shadows of the trees--so as to be every moment out +in the blazing sun. I scoffed inwardly at the timorousness of pale, +anæmic folk whom I passed hiding in the shadows of the elms. + +At the Round Pond, came across a Bulldog who was biting out great chunks +of water and in luxuriant waste-fulness letting it drool out again from +each corner of his mouth. I watched this old fellow greedily (it was +very hot), as well pleased with him and his liquid "chops" as with +anything I saw, unless it were a girl and a man lying full length along +the grass and kissing beneath a sunshade. I smiled; she saw me, and +smiled, too, in return, and then fell to kissing again. + +_June_ 30. + +_Dinosaurs_ + +There are books which are Dinosaurs--Sir Walter Raleigh's _History of +the World_, Gibbon's _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_. There are +men who are Dinosaurs--Balzac completing his Human Comedy, Napoleon, +Roosevelt. I like them all. I like express trains and motor lorries. I +enjoy watching an iron girder swinging in the air or great cubes of ice +caught up between iron pincers. I must always stop and watch these +things. I like everything that is swift or immense: London, lightning, +Popocatepetl. I enjoy the smell of tar, of coal, of fried fish, or a +brass band playing a Liszt Rhapsody. And why should those foolish Mænads +shout Women's Rights just because they burn down a church? All bonfires +are delectable. Civilisation and top hats bore me. My own life is like a +tame rabbit's. If only I had a long tail to lash it in feline rage! I +would return to Nature--I could almost return to Chaos. There are times +when I feel so dour I would wreck the universe if I could.[1] + +(1917: I think after three years of Armageddon I feel quite ready to go +back to top hats and civilisation.) + +_July_ 8. + +_Sunset in Kensington Gardens_ + +The instinct for worship occurs rhythmically--at morning and evening. +This is natural, for twice a day at sunrise and sunset--however +work-sodden we may be, however hypnotised by daily routine--our natural +impulse is (provided we are awake) to look to the horizon at the sun and +stand a moment with mute lips. During the course of the day or night, we +are too occupied or asleep--but sunrise is the great hour of the +departure and sunset is the arrival at the end. Everything puts on a +mysterious appearance--to-night the tops of the elms seemed +super-naturally high and, pushing up into the sky, had secret communion +with the clouds; the clouds seemed waiting for a ceremony, a way had +been prepared by the tapissier, a moment of suspense while one cloud +stretched to another like courtiers in whispered conversation; a rumour +of the approach; then slowly the news came thro' that the sun had +arrived for immediate departure. + +_July_ 14. + +Have finished my essay. But am written out--obviously. To-night I +struggled with another, and spent two hours sucking the end of my pen. +But after painfully mountainous parturition, all I brought forth were +the two ridiculous mice of one meretricious trope and one grammatical +solecism. I can sometimes sit before a sheet of paper, pen in hand, +unable to produce a word. + +_July_ 19. + +For a walk with R---- in the country, calling for tea at his Uncle's +house at ----. Played clock golf and made the acquaintance of Miss ----, +a tall, statuesque lady, with golden hair, as graceful as an antelope +and very comely, her two dear little feet clad in white shoes peeping +out (as R---- said) like two white mice one after the other as she +moved across the lawn. + +Coming home I said to R---- histrionically, "Some golden-haired little +boy will some day rest his head upon her bosom, beautiful in line and +depth, all unconscious of his luck or of his part in a beautiful +picture--would that I were the father to make that group a _fait +accompli._" R----, with meticulous accuracy, always refers to her as +"that elegant virgin." + +_July_ 25. + +While sketching under Hammersmith Bridge yesterday, R---- heard a +whistle, and, looking up, saw a charming "young thing" leaning over the +Bridge parapet smiling like the blessed Damozel out of Heaven. + +"Come down," he cried. + +She did, and they discussed pictures while he painted. Later he walked +with her to the Broadway, saw her into a 'bus and said "Good-bye," +without so much as an exchange of names. + +"Even if she _were_ a whore," I said, "it's a pity your curiosity was so +sluggish. You should have seen her home, even if you did not go home +with her. Young man, you preferred to let go of authentic life at +Hammersmith Broadway, so as to return at once to your precious +water-colour painting." + +"Perhaps," replied he enigmatically. + +"Whatever you do, if ever you meet her again," I rejoined, "don't +introduce her to that abominable ----. He is abominably handsome, and I +hate him for it. To all his other distinctions he is welcome--parentage, +money, success, but I can never forgive him his good looks and the +inevitable marriage to some beautiful fair-skinned woman." + +R. (reflectively): "Up to now, I was inclined to think that envy as a +_passion_ did not exist." + +"Have you none?" + +"Not much," he answered, and I believe it. + +"Smug wretch, then. All I can say is, I may have instincts and passions +but I am not a pale water-colour artist.... What's the matter with you," +I foamed, "is that you like pictures. If I showed you a real woman, you +would exclaim contemplatively, 'How lovely;' then putting out one hand +to touch her, unsuspectingly, you'd scream aghast, 'Oh! it's alive, I +hear it ticking.' 'Yes, my boy,' I answer severely with a flourish, +'_That_ is a woman's heart.'" + +R---- exploded with laughter and then said, "A truce to your desire for +more life, for actual men and women. ... I know this that last night I +would not have exchanged the quiet armchair reading the last chapter of +Dostoieffsky's _The Possessed_ for a Balaclava Charge." + +"A matter of temperament, I suppose," I reflected, in cold detachment. +"You see, I belong to the raw meat school. _You_ prefer life cooked for +you in a book. You prefer the confectioner's shop to cutting down the +wheat with your own scythe." + +_July_ 26. + +The B.M. is a ghastly hole. They will give me none of the apparatus I +require. If you ask the Trustees for a thousand pounds for the +propagation of the Gospel in foreign parts they say, "Yes." If you ask +for twenty pounds for a new microscope they say, "No, but we'll cut off +your nose with a big pair of scissors." + +_July_ 27. + +To a pedantic prosy little old maid who was working in my room this +morning, I exclaimed,-- + +"I'd sooner make a good dissection than go to a Lord Mayor's Banquet. +Turtle Soup ain't in it." + +She was uninspired, and said, "Oom," and went on pinning insects. Then +more brightly, and with great punctilio in the pronunciation of her +words, having cleared her throat and drawn herself up with great +deliberation to deliver herself of a remark, she volunteered,-- + +"I whish I had nevah taken up such a brittle grooop as the Stones +(Stoneflies). One dare not loook at a Stone." + +Poor dear little old maid. This was my turn to say "Oom." + +"Pretty dismal work," I added ambiguously. Then with malice aforethought +I whistled a Harry Lauder tune, asked her if she had ever heard Willie +Solar sing, "You made me love you," and then absent-mindedly and in +succession inquired,-- + +"What's become of all the gold?" + +"What's become of Waring?" + +"What shall I sing when all is sung?" + +To which several categorical interrogations she ventured no reply, but +presently in the usual voice,-- + +"I have placed an Agrionine in this drawer for security and, now I want +it, cannot find it." + +"Life is like that," I said. "I never can find my Agrionines!" + +_August_ 1. + +All Europe is mobilising. + +_August_ 2. + +Will England join in? + +_August_ 12. + +We all await the result of a battle between two millions of men. The +tension makes me feel physically sick. + +_August_ 21--_August_ 24. + +In bed with a fever. I never visit the flat now, but her mother kindly +came over to see me. + +_September_ 25. + +[Living now in rooms alone.] + +I have--since my return from Cornwall--placed all my journals in a +specially made cabinet. R---- came to dinner and after a glass or so of +Beaune and a cigarette, I open my "coffin"[2] (it is a long box with a +brass handle at each end), and with some show of deliberation select a +volume to read to him, drawing it from its division with lavish +punctiliousness, and inquiring with an oily voice, "A little of 1912?" +as if we were trying wines. R---- grins at the little farce and so +encourages me. + +_September_ 26. + +Doctor's Consulting Rooms--my life has been spent in them! Medical +specialists--Harley Street men--I have seen four and all to no purpose. +M---- wrote me the other day,-- + +"Come along and see me on Tuesday; some day I dare say we shall find +something we can patch." + +He regards me with the most obvious commiseration and always when I come +away after a visit he shakes me warmly by the hand and says, "Good-bye, +old man, and good luck." More luck than the pharmacopœia. + +My life has always been a continuous struggle with ill-health and +ambition, and I have mastered neither. I try to reassure myself that +this accursed ill-health will not affect my career. I keep flogging my +will in the hope of winning thro' in the end. Yet at the back of my mind +there is the great improbability that I shall ever live long enough to +realise myself. For a long time past my hope has simply been to last +long enough to convince others of what I might have done--had I lived. +That will be something. But even to do that I will not allow that I have +overmuch time. I have never at any time lived with any sense of +security. I have never felt permanently settled in this life--nothing +more than a shadowy _locum tenens_, a wraith, a festoon of mist likely +to disappear any moment. + +At times, when I am vividly conscious of the insecurity of my tenure +here, my desires enter on a mad race to obtain fulfilment before it is +too late ... and as fulfilment recedes ambition obsesses me the more. I +am daily occupied in calculating with my ill-health: trying to +circumvent it, to carry on in spite of all. I conquer each day. Every +week is a victory. I am always surprised that my health or will has not +collapsed, that, by Jove! I am still working and still living. + +One day it looks like appendicitis, another stoppage, another threatened +blindness, or I develop a cough and am menaced with consumption. So I go +on in a hurricane of bad dreams. I struggle like Laocoon with the +serpents--the serpents of nervous depression that press around the heart +tighter than I care to admit. I must use every kind of blandishment to +convince myself that my life and my work are worth while. Frequently I +must smother and kill (and it calls for prompt action) the shrill voice +that cries from the tiniest corner of my heart, "Are you quite sure you +are such an important fellow as you imagine?" Or I fret over the +condition of my brain, finding that I forget what I read, I lose in +acuteness of my perceptions. My brain is a tumefaction. But I won't give +in. I go on trying to recollect what I have forgotten, I harry my brain +all day to recall a word or name, I attack other folk importunately. I +write things down so as to look them up in reference books--I am always +looking up the things I remember I have forgotten.... + +There is another struggle, too, that often engrosses all my energies.... +It is a horrible thing that with so large an ambition, so great a love +of life, I should nevertheless court disaster like this. Truly Sir +Thomas Browne you say, "Every man is his own Atropos." + +In short, I lead an unfathomably miserable existence in this dark, gray +street, in these drab, dirty rooms--miserable in its emptiness of home, +love, human society. Now that I never visit the flat, I visit about two +houses in London--the Doctor's and R----'s Hotel. I walk along the +streets and stare in the windows of private houses, hungry for a little +society. It creates in me a gnawing, rancorous discontent to be seeing +people everywhere in London--millions of them--and then to realise my +own ridiculously circumscribed knowledge of them. I am passionately +eager to have acquaintances, to possess at least a few friends. If I die +to-morrow, how many persons shall I have talked to? or how many men and +women shall I have known? A few maiden aunts and one or two old fossils. +I am burning to meet real live men, I have masses of mental stuff I am +anxious to unload. But I am ignorant of people as of countries and live +in celestial isolation. + +This, I fear, reads like a wail of self-commiseration. But I am trying +to give myself the pleasure of describing myself at this period +truthfully, to make a bid at least for some posthumous sympathy. +Therefore it shall be told that I who am capable of passionate love am +sexually starved, and endure the pangs of a fiendish solitude in rooms, +with an ugly landlady's face when ... I despair of ever finding a woman +to _love_. I never meet women of my own class, and am unprepossessing in +appearance and yet I fancy that once my reserve is melted I am not +without attractions. "He grows on you," a girl said of me once. But I am +hypercritical and hyperfastidious. I want too much.... I search daily in +the streets with a starved and hungry look. What a horrible and powerful +and hateful thing this love instinct is! I hate it, hate it, hate it. It +will not let me rest. I wish I were a eunuch. + +"There's a beautiful young thing," R---- and I say to one another +sardonically, hoping thereby to conceal the canker within. + +I could gnash my teeth and weep in anger--baulked, frustrated as I am at +almost every turn of life--in my profession, in my literary efforts, and +in my love of man and woman kind. I would utter a whole commination +service in my present state of mind. + +_October_ 7. + +To me woman is _the_ wonderful fact of existence. If there be any next +world and it be as I hope it is, a jolly gossiping place, with people +standing around the mantelpiece and discussing their earthly +experiences, I shall thump my fist on the table as my friends turn to me +on entering and exclaim in a loud voice, "WOMAN." + +_October_ 11. + +Since I grew up I have wept three times. The first time they were tears +of exasperation. Dad and I were sitting down side by side after a wordy +combat in which he had remained adamant and I was forced both by +conscience and argument to give in, to relinquish my dissections, and go +off to some inquest on a drowning fatality. The second time was when +Mother died, and the third was _to-day._ But I am calm now. To-day they +were tears of remorse.... + +On occasion bald confession in this Journal is sweet for the soul and +strengthens it. It gives me a kind of false backbone to communicate my +secrets: for I am determined that some day some one shall know. If God +really intervenes in our affairs, here is an opportunity. Let Him save +me. I challenge Him to save me from perishing in this ditch.... It is +not often I am cornered into praying but I did this morning, for I feel +defeated this day, and almost inarticulate in my misery. + +Nietzsche in a newspaper I read to-day: "For myself I have felt +exceptionally blest having Hell's phantoms inside me to thrust at in the +dark, internal enemies to dominate till I felt myself an ecstatic +victor, wrenching at last good triumphant joys thro' the bars of my own +sickness and weakness--joys with which your notions of happiness, poor +sleek smug creatures, cannot compare! You must carry a chaos inside you +to give birth to a dancing star." + +But Nietzsche is no consolation to a man who has once been weak enough +to be brought to his knees. There I am and there I think I have prayed a +little somehow to-day. But it's all in desperation, not in faith. +Internal chaos I have, but no dancing star. Dancing stars are the +consolation of genius. + +_October_ 12. + +Am better to-day. My better self is convinced that it is silly and +small-minded to think so much about my own puny destiny--especially at +times like these when--God love us all--there is a column of casualties +each day. The great thing to be thankful for is that I am _alive_ and +alive _now_, that I was alive _yesterday_, and even may be to-morrow. +Surely that is thrilling enough. What, then, have I to complain of? I'm +a lucky dog to be alive at all. My plight is bad, but there are others +in a worse one. I'm going to be brave and fight on the side of +Nietzsche. Who knows but that one day the dancing star may yet be born! + +_October_ 13. + +Spent the evening in my lodgings struggling with my will. Too flabby to +work, disinclined to read, a dreadful vague unrest possessing me. I +couldn't sit still in my chair, so walked around the table continuously +like a squirrel in a cage. I wanted to be going out somewhere, talking +to some one, to be among human beings. + +Many an evening during the past few months, I have got up and gone down +the road to look across at the windows of the flat, to see if there were +a red light behind the curtains, and, if so, wonder if she were there, +and how she was. My pride would never allow me to visit there again on +my own initiative. K---- has managed to bring about a rapprochement but +I go very seldom. Pride again. + +I wanted to do so to-night. I thought I would just go down the road to +look up at the windows. That seemed to be some comfort. Why do I wish to +do this? I do not know. From a mere inspection one would say that I am +in love. But remember I am also ill. Three times to-night I nearly put +on my boots and went down to have a look up! What ridiculous weakness! +Yet this room can be a frightful prison. Shall I? I cannot decide. I see +her figure constantly before me--gentle, graceful, calm, stretching +forth both hands and to me.... + +Seized a pack of cards and played Patience and went on playing Patience +because I was afraid to stop. Given a weak constitution, a great +ambition, an amorous nature, and at the same time a very fastidious one, +I might have known I was in for trouble. + +_October_ 14. + +_Marie Bashkirtseff_ + +Some time ago I noticed a quotation from one, Marie Bashkirtseff in a +book on Strindberg, and was struck with the likeness to a sentiment of +my own. Who _are_ you? I wondered. + +This evening went to the Library and read about her in Mathilde Blind's +introductory essay to her Journal. I am simply astounded. It would be +difficult in all the world's history to discover any two persons with +temperaments so alike. She is the "very spit of me "! I devoured +Mathilde Blind's pages more and more astonished. We are identical! Oh, +Marie Bashkirtseff! how we should have hated one another! She feels as I +feel. We have the same self-absorption, the same vanity and corroding +ambition. She is impressionable, volatile, passionate--ill! So am I. Her +journal is my journal. All mine is stale reading now. She has written +down all my thoughts and forestalled me! Already I have found some +heart-rending parallels. To think I am only a replica: how humiliating +for a human being to find himself merely a duplicate of another. Is +there anything in the transmigration of souls? She died in 1886. I was +born in 1889. + +_October_ 15. + +A man is always looking at himself in the mirror if for no other reason +than to tie his tie and brush his hair. What does he think of his face? +He must have private opinions. But it is usually considered a little out +of taste to entertain opinions about one's personal appearance. + +As for myself, some mirrors do me down pretty well, others depress me! +I am bound to confess I am biassed in favour of the friendly mirror. I +am not handsome, but I look interesting--I hope distinguished. My eyes +are deep-set ... but my worst moments are when the barber combs my hair +right down over my forehead, or when I see a really handsome man in Hyde +Park. Such occasions direct my gaze reflexly, and doubt like a thief in +the night forces the back door! + + * * * * * + +To-day, M---- sent me dancing mad by suggesting that I copied R---- in +my manner of speech and opinions. + +Now R---- has a damned pervasive way of conducting himself--for all the +world as if he were a high official of the Foreign Office. I, on the +contrary, am shy, self-conscious, easily overlooked, and this makes me +writhe. As we are inseparable friends--everybody assumes that I am his +tacky-lacky, a kind of appoggiatura to his big note. He, they suppose, +is my guide, philosopher, and Great Maecenas--Oxford befriending the +proletariat. The thought of it makes me sick--that any one should +believe I imbibe his ideas, echo his conceits, and even ape his gestures +and manner of voice. + +"Lost yourself?" inquired a despicable creature the other morning as I +came out of R----'s room after finding him out. I could have shot him +dead! ... As for ---- more than one person thinks that he alone is the +brilliant author until at last he himself has got into the way of +thinking it. + +"It makes me hate you like mad," I said to him to-day. "How can I +confront these people with the naked truth?" R---- chuckled +complacently. + +"If I deny your alleged supremacy, as I did this morning, or if +suddenly, in a fit of spleen, I'm induced to declare that I loathe you +(as I sometimes do)"--(more chuckles) "that your breath stinks, your +eyes bulge, that you have swollen jugulars and a platter face: they will +think I am either jealous or insincere.... To be your Echo tho'!--my +God!" I spat. We then grinned at one another, and I, being bored, went +to the lavatory and read the newspaper secure from interruption. + +_Resignation_ + +In the Tube, a young widow came in and sat in front of me--pale-faced, +grief-stricken, demure--a sort of "Thy Will be Done" look. The +adaptability of human beings has something in it that seems horrible. It +is dreadful to think how we have all accommodated ourselves to this War. +Christian resignation is a feeble thing. Why won't this demure widow +with a loud voice blaspheme against this iniquitous world that permits +this iniquitous war? + +_October_ 21. + +I myself (licking a stamp): "The taste of gum is really very nice." + +R.: "I hate it." + +I: "My dear fellow" (surprised and entreating), "envelope gum is simply +delicious." + +R.: "I never lick stamps--it's dangerous--microbes." + +I: "I always do: I shall buy a bookful and go away to the seaside with +them." + +R.: "Yes, you'll need to." + +(Laughter.) + +Thus gaily and jauntily we went on to discuss wines, whiskies, and +Worthington's, and I rounded it up in a typical cock-eyed manner,-- + +"Ah! yes, it's only when the day is over that the day really +begins--what?" + +_October_ 23. + +I expressed to R---- to-day my admiration for the exploit of the brave +and successful Submarine Commander Max Kennedy Horton. (Name for you!) +R---- was rather cold. "His exploits," said this bloody fool, "involve +loss of life and scarcely make me deliriously eulogistic." + +I cleared my throat and began,-- + +"Your precious sociology again--it will be the ruin of your career as an +artist. It is so interwoven into the fibre of your brain that you never +see anything except in relation to its State value. You are afraid to +approve of a lying, thieving rogue, however delightful a rascal he may +be, for fear of what Karl Marx might say.... You'll soon be drawing +landscapes with taxpayers in the foreground, or we shall get a picture +of Ben Nevis with Keir Hardie on the summit." And so on to our own +infinite mutual amusement. + +The _English Review_ returns my Essay. I am getting simply furious with +an ambition I am unable to satisfy, among beautiful London women I +cannot get to know, and in ill-health that I cannot cure. Shall I ever +find any one? Shall I ever be really well? My one solace is that I do +not submit, it infuriates me, I resent it; I will never be resigned and +milky. I will keep my claws sharp and fight to the end. + +_October_ 24. + +Went to Mark Lane by train, then walked over the Tower Bridge, and back +along Lower Thames Street to London Bridge, up to Whitechapel, St. +Paul's, Fleet Street, and Charing Cross, and so home. + +Near Reilly's Tavern, I saw a pavement artist who had drawn a loaf with +the inscription in both French and English: "This is easy to draw but +hard to earn." A baby's funeral trotted briskly over the Tower Bridge +among Pink's jam waggons, carts carrying any goods from lead pencils and +matches to bales of cotton and chests of tea. + +In the St. Catherine's Way there is one part like a deep railway +cutting, the whole of one side for a long way, consisting of the +brickwall of a very tall warehouse with no windows in it and beautifully +curved and producing a wonderful effect. Walked past great blocks of +warehouses and business establishments--a wonderful sight; and +everywhere bacon factors, coffee roasters, merchants. On London Bridge, +paused to feed the sea-gulls and looked down at the stevedores. Outside +Billingsgate Market was a blackboard on an easel--for market prices--but +instead some one had drawn an enormously enlarged chalk picture of a +cat's rear and tail with anatomical details. + +In Aldgate, stopped to inspect a street stall containing popular +literature--one brochure entitled _Suspended for Life_ to indicate the +terrible punishment meted out to ----, a League footballer. The +frontispiece enough to make a lump come in the juveniles' throats! +Another stall held domestic utensils with an intimation, "Anything on +this stall _lent_ for 1d." A newsvendor I heard exclaim to a +fellow-tradesman in the same line of business,-- + +"They come and look at your bloody plakaard and then passe on." + +Loitered at a dirty little Fleet Street bookshop where Paul de Koch's +_The Lady with the Three Pairs of Stays_ was displayed prominently +beside a picture of Oscar Wilde. + +In Fleet Street, you exchange the Whitechapel sausage restaurants for +Taverns with "snacks at the bar," and the chestnut roasters, with their +buckets of red-hot coals, for Grub Street camp followers, selling +_L'Indépendance Belge_ or pamphlets entitled, _Why We Went to War_. + +In the Strand you may buy war maps, buttonhole flags, etc., etc. I +bought a penny stud. One shop was turned into a shooting gallery at +three shots a penny where the Inner Temple Barristers in between the +case for the defence and the case for the prosecution could come and +keep their eye in against the time the Germans come. + +Outside Charing Cross Station I saw a good-looking, well-dressed woman +in mourning clothes, grinding a barrel organ.... + +Returned to the Library and read the _Dublin Review_ (article on Samuel +Butler), _North American Review_ (one on Henry James) and dined at seven. +After dinner, read: _Evening Standard, Saturday Westminster_, and the +_New Statesman_. Smoked six cigarettes and went to bed. To-morrow Fifth +Symphony of Beethoven. + +_October_ 25. + +_Too Late_ + +Yesterday's ramble has left me very sore in spirit. London was spread +out before me, a vast campagne. But I felt too physically tired to +explore. I could just amble along--a spectator merely--and automatically +register impressions. Think of the misery of that! I want to see the +Docks and Dockland, to enter East End public-houses and opium-dens, to +speak to Chinamen and Lascars: I want a first-rate, first-hand knowledge +of London, of London men, London women. I was tingling with anticipation +yesterday and then I grew tired and fretful and morose, crawled back +like a weevil into my nut. By 6.30 I was in a Library reading the +_Dublin Review_! + +What a young fool I was to neglect those priceless opportunities of +studying and tasting life and character in North ----, at Borough +Council meetings, Boards of Guardians, and electioneering campaigns--not +to mention inquests, police courts, and country fairs. Instead of +appraising all these precious and genuine pieces of experience at their +true value, my diary and my mind were occupied only with--Zoology, if +you please. I ignored my exquisite chances, I ramped around, fuming and +fretting, full of contempt for my circumscribed existence, and impatient +as only a youth can be. What I shall never forgive myself is my present +inability to recall that life, so that instead of being able now to push +my chair back and entertain myself and others with descriptions of some +of those antique and incredible happenings, my memory is rigid and +formal: I remember only a few names and one or two isolated events. All +that time is just as if it had never been. My recollections form only an +indefinite smudge--odd Town Clerks, Town Criers (at least five of them +in wonderful garb), policemen (I poached with one), ploughing match +dinners (platters of roast beef and boiled potatoes and I, bespectacled +student of Zoology, sitting uncomfortably among valiant trenchermen +after their day's ploughing), election meetings in remote Exmoor +villages (and those wonderful Inns where I had to spend the night!)--all +are gone--too remote to bear recital--yet just sufficiently clear to +harass the mind in my constant endeavours to raise them all again from +the dead in my consciousness. I hate to think it is lost; that my youth +is buried--a cemetery without even headstones. To an inquest on a +drowned sailor--disclosing some thrilling story of the wild seas off the +coast--with a pitiful myopia--I preferred Wiedersheim's _Comparative +Anatomy of Vertebrates_. I used to carry Dr. Smith Woodward's +_Paleontology_ with me to a Board of Guardians meeting, mingling +_Pariasaurus_ and Holoptychians with tenders for repairs and reports +from the Master. Now I take Keats or Tschekov to the Museum! + +London certainly lies before me. Certainly I am alive at last. Yet now +my energy is gone. It is too late. I am ill and tired. It costs me +infinite discomfort to write this entry, all the skin of my right hand +is permanently "pins and needles" and in the finger tips I have lost all +sense of touch. The sight of my right eye is also very bad and sometimes +I can scarcely read print with it, etc., etc. But why should I go on? + +A trance-like condition supervenes in a semi-invalid forced to live in +almost complete social isolation in a great whirling city like London. +Days of routine follow each other as swiftly as the weaver's shuttle and +numb the spirit and turn palpitating life into a silent picture show. +Everywhere always in the street people--millions of them --whom I do not +know, moving swiftly along. I look and look and yawn and then one day as +to-day I wake up and race about beside myself--a swollen bag ready to +burst with hope, love, misery, joy, desperation. + +_Apologia pro vita mea_ + +How may I excuse myself for continuing to talk about my affairs and for +continuing to write zoological memoirs during the greatest War of all +time? + +Well, here are some precedents:-- + +Goethe sat down to study the geography of China, while his fatherland +agonised at Leipsig. + +Hegel wrote the last lines of the _Phenomenology of Spirit_ within sound +of the guns of Jena. + +While England was being rent in twain by civil war, Sir Thomas Browne, +ensconced in old Norwich, reflected on Cambyses and Pharaoh and on the +song the Sirens sang. + +Lacépède composed his _Histoire des Poissons_ during the French +Revolution. + +Then there were Diogenes and Archimedes. + +This defence of course implicates me in an unbounded opinion of the +importance of my own work. "He is quite the little poet," some one said +of Keats. "It is just as if a man remarked of Buonaparte," said Keats, +in a pet, "that he's quite the little general." + +_A Woman and a Child_ + +On the way to the Albert Hall came upon the most beautiful picture of +young maternity that ever I saw in my life. She was a delightfully +girlish young creature--a perfect phœnix of health and beauty. As she +stood with her little son at the kerb waiting for a 'bus, smiling and +chatting to him, a luminous radiance of happy, satisfied maternal love, +maternal pride, womanliness streamed from her and enveloped me. + +We got on the same 'bus. The little boy, with his long hair and dressed +in velvet like little Lord Fauntleroy, said something to her--she smiled +delightedly, caught him up on her knees and kissed him. Two such pretty +people never touched lips before--I'm certain of it. It was impossible +to believe that this virginal creature was a mother--childbirth left no +trace. She must have just budded off the baby boy like a plant. Once, in +her glance, she took me in her purview, and I knew she knew I was +watching her. In travelling backwards from Kensington Gardens to the boy +again, her gaze rested on me a moment and I, of course, rendered the +homage that was due. As a matter of fact there was no direct evidence +that she was the mother at all. + +_The Albert Hall Hag_ + +While waiting outside the Albert Hall, an extraordinarily weird contrast +thrust itself before me--she was the most pathetic piece of human jetsam +that ever I saw drifting about in this sea of London faces. Tall, gaunt, +cadaverous, the skin of her face drawn tightly over her cheekbones and +over a thin, pointed, hook-shaped nose, on her feet brown sandshoes, +dressed in a long draggle-tailed skirt, a broken-brimmed straw hat, +beneath which some scanty hair was scraped back and tied behind in a +knot--this wretched soul of some thirty summers (and what summers!) +stood in the road beside the waiting queue and weakly passed the bow +across her violin which emitted a slight scraping sound. She could not +play a tune and the fingers of her left hand never touched the +strings--they merely held the handle. + +A policeman passed and, with an eye on the queue, muttered audibly, "Not +'arf," but no one laughed. Then she began to rummage in her skirt, +holding the violin by the neck in her right hand just as she must hold +her brat by the arm when at home. Simultaneously sounds issued from her +mouth in a high falsetto key; they were unearthly sounds, the tiny voice +of an articulating corpse underneath the coffin lid. For a moment no one +realised that she was reciting. For she continued to rummage in her +skirt as she squeaked, "Break, break, break, on thy cold gray stones, O +sea," etc. The words were scarcely audible tho' she stood but two yards +off. But she repeated the verse and I then made out what it was. She +seemed ashamed of herself and of her plight, almost without the courage +to foist this mockery of violin-playing on us--one would say she was +frightened by her own ugliness and her own pathos. + +After conscientiously carrying out her programme but with the +distracted, uncomfortable air of some one scurrying over a painful +task--like a tired child gabbling its prayers before getting into +bed--she at length produced from her skirt pocket a small canvas money +bag which she started to hand around. This was the climax to this +harrowing incident--for each time she held out the bag, she smiled, +which stretched the skin still more tightly down over her malar +prominence and said something--an inarticulate noise in a very high +pitch. "A woman," I whispered to R----, "She claims to be a woman." If +any one hesitated a moment or struggled with a purse she would wait +patiently with bag outstretched and head turned away, the smile +vanishing at once as if the pinched face were but too glad of the +opportunity of a rest from smiling. She stood there, gazing +absently--two lifeless eyes at the bottom of deep socket holes in a head +which was almost a bare skull. She was perfunctorily carrying out an +objectionable task because she could not kill the will to live. + +As she looked away and waited for you to produce the copper, she +thought, "Why trouble? Why should I wait for this man's aid?" The clink +of the penny recalled her to herself, and she passed on, renewing her +terrible grimacing smile. + +Why didn't I do something? Why? Because I was bent on hearing +Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, if you please.... And she may have been a +well-to-do vagrant--well got up for the occasion--a clever +simulator?... + +_October_ 28. + +_Rigor Bordis_ + +Rigor bordis!--I write like this as if it were a light matter. But +to-night I was _in extremis_.... First I read the paper; then I finished +the book I was reading--"_Thus Spake Zarathustra_." Not knowing quite +what next to do, I took my boots off and poured out another cup of +coffee. But these manœuvres were only the feeble attempts of a +cowardly wretch to evade the main issue which was:-- + +How to occupy myself and keep myself sane during the hour and a half +before bedtime. + +Before now I have tried going off to bed. But that does not work--I +don't sleep. Moreover, I have been in the grip of a horrible mental +unrest. To sit still in my chair, much less to lie in bed doing nothing +seemed ghastly. I experienced all the cravings of a dissolute neurotic +for a stimulus, but what stimulus I wanted I did not know. Had I known I +should have gone and got it. The dipsomaniac was a man to be envied. + +Some mechanical means were necessary for sustaining life till bedtime. I +sat down and played a game of Patience--no one knows how I loathe +playing Patience and how much I despise the people who play it. Tiring +of that, sat back in my chair, yawned, and thought of a word I wanted to +look up in the Dictionary. This quest, forgotten until then, came like a +beam of bright light into a dark room. So looked the word up leisurely, +took out my watch, noted the time, and then stood up with elbows on the +mantelpiece and stared at myself in the glass.... I was at bay at last. +There was simply nothing I could do. I would have given worlds to have +some one to talk to. Pride kept me from ringing for the landlady. I must +stand motionless, back to the wall, and wait for the hour of my release. +I had but one idea, viz., that I was surely beaten in this game of life. +I was very miserable indeed. But being so miserable that I couldn't feel +more so, I began to recover after a while. I began to visualise my +lamentable situation, and rose above it as I did so. I staged it before +my mind's eye and observed myself as hero of the plot. I saw myself +sitting in a dirty armchair in a dirty house in a dirty London street, +with the landlady's dirty daughter below-stairs singing, "Little Grey +Home in the West," my head obscured in a cloud of depression, and in my +mind the thought that if life be a test of endurance I must hang on +grimly to the arms of the chair and sit tight till bedtime. + +This attitude proved a useful means of self-defence. When I had +dramatised my misery, I enjoyed it, and acute mental pain turned into +merely aesthetic malaise. + +_November_ 4. + +A lurid day. Suffering from the most horrible physical languor. Wrote +the Doctor saying I was rapidly sliding down a steep place into the sea +(like the swine I am). Could I see him? + + * * * * * + +Endured an hour's torture of indecision to-night asking myself whether I +should go over to ask her to be my wife or should I go to the Fabian +Society and hear Bernard Shaw. Kept putting off the decision even till +after dinner. If I went to the flat, I must shave; to shave required hot +water--the landlady had already cleared the table and was rapidly +retreating. Something must be done and at once. I called the old thing +back impulsively and ordered shaving water, consoling myself with the +reflection that it was still unnecessary to decide; the hot water could +be at hand in case the worst happened. If I decided on matrimony I could +shave forthwith. Should I? (After dark I always shave in the +sitting-room because of the better gaslight.) + +Drank some coffee and next found myself slowly, mournfully putting on +hat and coat. You can't shave in hat and coat so I concluded I had +decided on Shaw. Slowly undid the front door latch and went off. + +Shaw bored me. He is mid-Victorian. Sat beside a bulgy-eyed youth +reading the _Freethinker_. + +_November_ 9. + +In the evening asked her to be my wife. She refused. Once perhaps ... +but now.... + +I don't think I have any moral right to propose to any woman seeing the +state of my health and I did not actually intend or wish to.... It was +just to get it off my mind--a plain statement.... If I don't really and +truly love her it was a perfectly heartless comedy. But I have good +reason to believe I do. With me, moments of headstrong passion alternate +with moods of perfectly immobile self-introspection. It is a relief to +have spoken. + +_November_ 10. + +Very miserable. Asked R---- three times to come and have dinner with me. +Each time he refused. My nerves are completely jangled. _Tu l'as voulu, +George Dandin_--that's the rub. + +_November_ 11. + +She observed me carefully--I'm looking a perfect wreck _--tu l'as voulu, +George Dandin_--but it's mainly ill-health and not on her account. + +I said,-- + +"Some things are too funny to laugh at." + +"Is that why you are so solemn?" + +"No," I answered, "I'm not solemn, I am laughing--some things are too +solemn to be serious about." + +She saw me off at the door and smiled quietly--an amused faraway smile +of feline satisfaction.... + +_November_ 12. + +Horrible nervous depression. Thinking of suicide with a pistol--a +Browning. Or of 10 days' mysterious disappearance, when I will go and +live in a good Hotel, spend all my money, and live among human beings +with eyes and noses and legs. This isolation. Am I going mad? If I +disappeared, it would be interesting to see if any one missed me. + +_November_ 13. + +Still thinking of suicide. It seems the only way out. This morning my +Essay was returned by the Editor of ----. One by one I have been +divested of all my most cherished illusions. Once my ambitions gave me +the fuel with which to keep myself alive. One after another they have +been foiled, and now I've nothing to burn. I am daily facing the fact +that my ambitions have overtaxed my abilities and health. For years, my +whole existence has rested on a false estimate of my own value, and my +life been revolving around a foolish self-deception. But I know myself +as I am at last--and am not at all enamoured. The future has nothing for +me. I am wearied of my life already. What is there for any of us to do +but die? + +_November_ 14. + +Before going over to-night bought _London Opinion_ deliberately in order +to find a joke or better still some cynicism about women to fire off at +her. Rehearsed one joke, one witticism from Oscar Wilde, and one +personal anecdote (the latter for the most part false), none of which +came off, tho' I succeeded in carrying off a nonchalant or even jaunty +bearing. + +"Don't you ever swear?" I asked. "It's a good thing you know, swearing +is like pimples, better to come out, cleanses the moral system. The +person who controls himself must have lots of terrible oaths circulating +in his blood." + +"Swearing is not the only remedy." + +"I suppose you prefer the gilded pill of a curate's sermon: I prefer +pimples to pills." + +Is it a wonder she does not love me? + + * * * * * + +I wonder why I paint myself in such horrid colours--why have I this +morbid pleasure in pretending to those I love that I am a beast and a +cynic? I suffer, I suppose, from a lacerated self-esteem, from a painful +loneliness, from the consciousness of how ridiculous I have made myself, +and that most people if they knew would regard me with loathing and +disgust. + +I am very unhappy. I am unhappy because she does not care for me, and I +am chiefly unhappy because I do not care for her. Instead of a passion, +only a dragging heavy chain of attraction ... some inflexible law makes +me gravitate to her, seizes me by the neck and suspends me over her, I +cannot look away.... + +In the early days when I did my best to strangle my love--as one would a +bastard child--I took courage in the fact that for a man like me the +murder was necessary. There were books to write and to read, and name +and fame perhaps. To these everything must be sacrificed. ... That is +all gone now. No man could have withstood for ever that concentrated +essence of womanhood that flowed from her.... + +Still the declaration has made amends. She is pleased about it--it is a +scalp. + +Yet how can I forgive her for saying she supposed it was a natural +instinct for a girl not to feel drawn to an invalid like me. That was +cruel tho' true. + +_November_ 19. + +I might be Captain Scott writing his last words amid Antarctic cold and +desolation. It is very cold. I am sitting hunched up by the fire in my +lodgings after a meal of tough meat and cold apple-tart. I am full of +self-commiseration--my only pleasure now. It is very cold and I cannot +get warm--try as I will. + +My various nervous derangements take different forms. This time my +peripheral circulation is affected, and the hand, arm, and shoulder are +permanently cold. My right hand is blue--tho' I've shut up the window +and piled up a roaring fire. It's Antarctic cold and desolation. London +in November from the inside of a dingy lodging-house can be very +terrible indeed. This celestial isolation will send me out of my mind. I +marvel how God can stick it--lonely, damp, and cold in the clouds. That +is how I live too--but then I am not God. + +I fall back on this Journal just as some other poor devil takes to +drink. I, too, have toyed with the idea of drinking hard. I have +frequented bars and billiards saloons and in fits of depression done my +best to forget myself. But I am not sufficiently fond of alcohol (and it +would take a lot to make _me_ forget myself). So I plunge into these +literary excesses and drown my sorrows in Stephens' Blue-black Ink. It +gives me a sulky pleasure to think that some day somebody will know.... + +It is humiliating to feel ill as I do. If I had consumption, the disease +would act as a stimulus--I could strike an attitude feverishly and be +histrionic. But to be merely "below par"--to feel like a Bunny rabbit +perennially "poorly," saps my character and mental vigour. I want to +crawl away and die like a rat in a hole. A bronzed healthy man makes me +wince. Healthy people regard a chronic sickly man as a leper. They +suspect him, something fishy. + +_November_ 20. + +Still at home ill. + +If anything, R---- is more of a précieux than I am myself. At the +present moment he is tickling himself with the idea that he's in love +with a certain golden-haired damsel from the States. He reports to me +fragments of his conversations with her, how he snatches a fearful joy +by skirting dangerous conversational territory, or he takes a pencil and +deftly outlines her profile or the rondeur of her bosom. Or he +discourses at length on her nose or eye. I can well imagine him driving +a woman crazy and then collecting her tears in a bottle as mementoes. +Then whenever he requires a little heart stimulus he could take the +phial from his waistcoat pocket and watch the tears condensing. + +"Why don't you marry her out of hand and be done with all this +dalliance? I can tell you what's the matter with you," I growled, +"you're a landscape artist.... You'll grow to resemble, that mean, Jewy, +secretive, petty creature, J.W.M. Turner, and allow no human being to +interfere with your art. A fine artist perhaps--but what a man! You'll +finish up with a Mrs. Danby." + +"Yes," he answered, quoting Tennyson with great aptness, "and 'lose my +salvation for a sketch,' like Romney deserting his wife. If I were not +married I should have no wife to desert." + +It is useless to argue with him. His cosmogony is wrongly centred in Art +not life. Life interests him--he can't altogether resign himself to the +cowl and the tonsured head, but he will not plunge. He insists on being +a spectator, watching the maelstrom from the bank and remarking +exquisitely, "Ah! there is a very fine sorrow," or, "What an exquisite +sensation." The other day after one of our furious conversational bouts +around this subject, I drew an insect, cut it out, and pinned the slip +in a collecting box. Then suddenly producing the box, and opening it +with a facetious grin, I said,-- + +"Here is a jolly little sorrow I caught this morning." The joke pleased +him and we roared, bellowed. + +"That terrible forefinger of yours," he smiled. + +"Like Cardinal Richelieu's eyes--piercing?" I suggested with +appreciation. (It is because I tap him on his shirt front in the space +between waistcoat and tie aggressively for emphasis in conversation.) + +"You must regard my passion for painting," he began once more, "as a +sort of dipsomania--I really can't help myself." + +I jumped on him vehemently,-- + +"Exactly, my pernickety friend; it's something abnormal and unnatural. +When, for purposes of self-culture, I see a man deliberately lop off +great branches of himself so as to divert his strength into one limb, I +know that if he is successful he'll be something as vulgar as a fat +woman at a country fair; and if he is unsuccessful he'll be just a +pathetic mutilation.... You are trying to pervert a natural instinct. +You want to paint, I believe. Quite so. But when a boy reaches the age +of puberty he does not grow a palette on his chin but hair.... Still, +now you recognise it as a bad habit, why need I say more?" ("Why +indeed?") "It's a vice, and I'm very sorry for you, old boy. I'll do all +I can--come and have some dinner with me to-night." + +"Oh! thank you very much," says my gentleman, "but I'm not at all sorry +for myself." + +"I thought as much. So that we are not so very much agreed after all. +We're not shaking hands after the boxing contest, but scowling at each +other from the ropes and shaping for another round." + +"Your pulpit orations, my dear Barbellion, in full canonicals," he +reflected, "are worthy of a larger audience.... To find _you_ of all +people preaching. I thought you were philosopher enough to see the angle +of every one's vision and broadminded so as to see every point of view. +Besides, you are as afraid of marriage as I am, and for the same +reasons." + +"I confess, when in the philosophic citadel of my own armchair," I +began, "I _do_ see every one's point of view. You sit on the other side +of the rug and put out the suggestion tentatively that murder may be a +moral act. I examine your argument and am disposed to accept it. But +when you slit up my brother's abdomen before my eyes, I am sufficiently +weak and human to punch you on the nose.... You are too cold and +Olympian, up above the snowline with a box of paints." + +"It is very beautiful among the snows." + +"I suppose so." + +(Exit.) + +_November_ 23. + +Great physical languor, especially in the morning. It is Calvary to get +out of bed and shoulder the day's burden. + +"What's been the matter?" they ask. + +"Oh! senile decay--general histolysis of the tissues," I say, fencing. + +To-night, I looked at myself accidentally in the glass and noticed at +once the alarming extent of my dejection. Quite unconsciously I turned +my head away and shook it, making the noise with my teeth and tongue +which means, "Dear, dear." M---- tells me these waves of ill-health are +quite unaccountable unless I were "leading a dissolute life, which you +do not appear to be doing." Damn his eyes. + +_Reading Nietzsche_ + +Reading Nietzsche. What splendid physic he is to Pomeranian puppies like +myself! I am a hopeless coward. Thunderstorms always frighten me. The +smallest cut alarms for fear of blood poisoning, and I always dab on +antiseptics at once. But Nietzsche makes me feel a perfect mastiff. + +_The Test for True Love_ + +The test for true love is whether you can endure the thought of cutting +your sweetheart's toe-nails--the onychiotomic test. Or whether you find +your Julia's sweat as sweet as otto of roses. I told her this to-night. +Probably she thinks I only "saw it in a book." + +_Chopin_ + +On Sunday, went to the Albert Hall, and warmed myself at the Orchestra. +It is a wonderful sight to watch an orchestra playing from the gallery. +It spurts and flickers like a flame. Its incessant activity arrests the +attention and holds it just as a fire does--even a deaf man would be +fascinated. Heard Chopin's Funeral March and other things. It would be a +rich experience to be able to be in your coffin at rest and listen to +Chopin's Funeral March being played above you by a string orchestra with +Sir Henry Wood conducting. + +Sir Henry like a melanic Messiah was crucified as usual, the Hungarian +Rhapsody No. 2 causing him the most awful agony.... + +_November_ 28. + +_Rodin_ + +More than once lately have been to see and admire Rodin's recent gifts +to the nation exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The "Prodigal +Son" is Beethoven's Fifth Symphony done in stone. It was only on my +second visit that I noticed the small pebble in each hand--a superb +touch!--what a frenzy of remorse! + +The "Fallen Angel" I loved most. The legs of the woman droop lifelessly +backwards in an intoxicating curve. The eye caresses it--down the thighs +and over the calves to the tips of the toes--like the hind limbs of some +beautiful dead gazelle. He has brought off exactly the same effect in +the woman in the group called "Eternal Spring," which I have only seen +in a photograph. + +This morning at 9 a.m. lay in bed on my back, warm and comfortable, and, +for the first time for many weeks, with no pain or discomfort of any +kind. The mattress curved up around my body and legs and held me in a +soft warm embrace.... I shut my eyes and whistled the saccharine melody +for solo violin in Chopin's Funeral March. I wanted the moment prolonged +for hours. Ill-health chases the soul out of a man. He becomes a body, +purely physical. + +_November_ 29. + +This evening she promised to be my wife after a long silent ramble +together thro' dark London squares and streets! I am beside myself! + + * * * * * + +_December_ 6. + +I know now--I love her with passion. Health and ambition and sanity are +returning. Projects in view:-- + +(1) To make her happy and myself worthy. + +(2) To get married. + +(3) To prepare and publish a volume of this Journal. + +(4) To write two essays for _Cornhill_ which shall surely induce the +Editor to publish and not write me merely long complimentary and +encouraging letters as heretofore. + +Wired to A----, "The brave little pennon has been hauled down." + +_December_ 7. + +Have so many projects in view and so little time in which to get them +done! Moreover I am always haunted by the fear that I may never finish +them thro' physical or temperamental disabilities--a breakdown in health +or in purpose. I am one of those who are apt to die unexpectedly and no +one would be surprised. An inquest would probably be unnecessary. I +badly want to live say another twelve months. Hey! nonny-no! a man's a +fool that wants to die. + +_December_ 9. + +... I shook her angrily by the shoulders to-night and said, "Why do I +love you?--Tell me," but she only smiled gently and said, "I cannot +tell...." I ought not to love her, I know--every omen is against it.... +Then I am full of self-love: an intellectual Malvolio proud of his +brains and air of distinction.... + +Then I am fickle, passionate, polygamous ... I am haunted by the memory +of how I have sloughed off one enthusiasm after another. I used to +dissect snails in a pie-dish in the kitchen while Mother baked the +cakes--the unravelling of the internal economy of a _Helix_ caused as +great an emotional storm as to-day the Unfinished Symphony does! I look +for the first parasol in Kensington Gardens with the same interest as +once I sought out the first snowdrop or listened for the first Cuckoo. I +am as anxious to identify an instrument in Sir Henry's Orchestra as once +to identify the song of a new bird in the woods. Nothing is further from +my intention or desire to continue my old habit of nature study. I never +read nature books--my old favourites--Waterton's _Wanderings_, Gilbert +White, _The Zoologist_, etc.--have no interest for me--in fact they give +me slight mental nausea even to glance at. Wiedersheim (good old +Wiedersheim) is now deposed by a text book on Harmony. My main desire +just now is to hear the best music. In the country I wore blinkers and +saw only zoology. Now in London, I've taken the bit in my mouth--and +it's a mouth of iron--wanting a run for all my troubles before Death +strikes me down. + +All this evidence of my temperamental instability alarms and distresses +me on reflection and makes the soul weary. I wish I loved more steadily. +I am always sidetracking myself. The title of "husband" scares me. + +_December_ 12. + +_Sir Henry Wood conducting_ + +Went to the Queen's Hall, sat in the Orchestra and watched Sir Henry's +statuesque figure conducting thro' a forest of bows, "which pleased me +mightily." He would be worth watching if you were stone deaf. If you +could not hear a sound, the animation and excitement of an orchestra in +full swing, with the conductor cutting and slashing at invisible foes, +make a magnificent spectacle. + +The face of Sir Henry Wood strikes me as very much like the traditional +pictures of Jesus Christ, tho' Sir Henry is dark--the melanic Messiah I +call him (very much to my own delight). Rodin ought to do him in +stone--Chesterfield's ideal of a man--a Corinthian edifice on Tuscan +foundations. In Sir Henry's case there can be no disputing the Tuscan +foundations. However swift and elegant the movements of his arms, his +splendid lower extremities remain as firm as stone columns. While the +music is calm and serene his right hand and baton execute in concert +with the left, perfect geometric curves around his head. Then as it +gathers in force and volume, when the bows begin to dart swiftly across +the fiddles and the trumpets and trombones blaze away in a +conflagration, we are all expectant--and even a little fearful, to +observe his sabre-like cuts. The tension grows ... I hold my breath.... +Sir Henry snatches a second to throw back a lock of his hair that has +fallen limply across his forehead, then goes on in unrelenting pursuit, +cutting and slashing at hordes of invisible fiends that leap howling out +towards him. There is a great turmoil of combat, but the Conductor +struggles on till the great explosion happens. But in spite of that, you +see him still standing thro' a cloud of great chords, quite undaunted. +His sword zigzags up and down the scale--suddenly the closed fist of his +left hand shoots up straight and points to the zenith--like the arm of a +heathen priest appealing to Baal to bring down fire from Heaven.... But +the appeal avails nought and it looks as tho' it were all up for poor +Sir Henry. The music is just as infuriated--his body writhes with +it--the melanic Messiah crucified by the inappeasable desire to express +by visible gestures all that he feels in his heart. He surrenders --so +you think--he opens out both arms wide and baring his breast, dares them +all to do their worst--like the picture of Moffat the missionary among +the savages of the Dark Continent! + +And yet he wins after all. At the very last moment he seems to summon +all his remaining strength and in one final and devastating sweep mows +down the orchestra rank by rank.... You awake from the nightmare to +discover the victor acknowledging the applause in a series of his +inimitable bows. + +One ought to pack one's ears up with cotton wool at a concert where Sir +Henry conducts. Otherwise, the music is apt to distract one's attention. +R.L.S. wanted to be at the head of a cavalry charge--sword over +head--but I'd rather fight an orchestra with a baton. + +_Beethoven's Fifth Symphony_ + +This symphony always works me up into an ecstasy; in ecstatic sympathy +with its dreadfulness I could stand up in the balcony and fling myself +down passionately into the arena below. Yet there were women sitting +alongside me to-day--knitting! It so annoyed and irritated me that at +the end of the first movement I got up and sat elsewhere. They would +have sat knitting at the foot of the Cross, I suppose. + +At the end of the second movement, two or three other women got up and +went home to tea! It would have surprised me no more to have seen a cork +extract itself from its bottle and promenade. + +_Tschaikovsky_ + +Just lately I've heard a lot of music including Tschaikovsky's +Pathétique and Fifth Symphonies, some Debussy, and odd pieces by Dukas, +Glinka, Smetana, Mozart. I am chock-full of impressions of all this +precious stuff and scarcely know what to write. As usual, the third +movement of the Pathétique produced a frenzy of exhilaration; I seemed +to put on several inches around my chest and wished to shout in a voice +of thunder. The conventions of a public concert hall are dreadfully +oppressive at such times. I could have eaten "all the elephants of +Hindustan and picked my teeth with the spire of Strassburg Cathedral." + +In the last movement of the Fifth Symphony of that splendid fellow +Tschaikovsky, the orchestra seemed to gallop away leaving poor Landon +Ronald to wave his whip in a ridiculously ineffective way. They went on +crashing down chords, and just before the end I had the awful +presentiment that the orchestra simply could not stop. I sat still +straining every nerve in the expectancy that this chord or the next or +the next was the end. But it went on pounding down--each one seemed the +last but every time another followed as passionate and emphatic as the +one before, until finally, whatever this inhuman orchestra was +attempting to crush and destroy must have been reduced to shapeless +pulp. I wanted to board the platform and plead with them, elderly +gentlemen turned their heads nervously, everyone was breathless, we all +wanted to call "For God's sake, stop"--to do anything to still this +awful lust for annihilation.... The end came quickly in four drum beats +in quick succession. I have never seen such hate, such passionate +intensity of the will to destroy.... And Tschaikovsky was a Russian! + +Debussy was a welcome change. "L'Après-midi d'un Faun" is a musical +setting to an oscitatory exercise. It is an orchestral yawn. Oh! so +tired! + +Came away thoroughly delighted. Wanted to say to every one "Bally good, +ain't it?" and then we would all shake hands and go home whistling. + +_December_ 14. + +My rooms are littered with old concert programmes and the Doctor's +prescriptions (in the yellow envelopes of the dispenser) for my various +ailments and diseases, and books, books, books. + +Among the latter those lying on my table at this moment are-- + +Plays of M. Brieux. + +_Joseph Vance._ + +The Sequel to _Pragmatism: The Meaning of Truth_, by Wiliam James. + +_Beyond Good and Evil._ + +Dostoievsky's _The Possessed._ + +Marie Bashkirtseff's _Journal._ + +I have found time to read only the first chapter of this last and am +almost afraid to go on. It would be so humiliating to find I was only +her duplicate. + +On my mantelpiece stands a photograph of Huxley--the hero of my +youth--which old B---- has always taken to be that of my grandpapa! A +plaster-cast mask of Voltaire when first hung up made him chuckle with +indecent laughter. "A regular all-nighter. Who is it?" he said. + +_December_ 15. + +_Petticoat Lane_ + +This morning, being Sunday, went to Petticoat Lane and enjoyed myself. + +On turning the corner to go into Middlesex Street, as it it now called, +the first thing I saw was a little girl--a Jewess--being tackled for +selling Belgian button-hole flags by two policemen who ultimately +marched her off to the police station. + +In the Lane, first of all, was a "Royal Ascot Jockey Scales" made of +brass and upholstered in gaudy red velvet--a penny a time. A very fat +man was being weighed and looked a little distressed on being given his +ticket. + +"Another stone," he told the crowd mournfully. + +"You'll have to eat less pork," some one volunteered and we all laughed. + +Next door to the Scales was a man selling gyroscopes. "Something +scientific, amusing as well as instructive, illustrating the principles +of gravity and stability. What I show you is what I sell--price one +shilling. Who?" + +I stopped next at a stall containing nothing but caps,--"any size, any +colour, any pattern, a shilling apiece--now then!" This show was being +run by two men--a Jew in a fur cap on one side of the stall and a very +powerful-looking sort of Captain Cuttle on the other--a seafaring man, +almost as broad as he was long, with a game leg and the voice of a +skipper in a hurricane. Both these men were selling caps at a prodigious +pace, and with the insouciance of tradesmen sure of their custom. The +skipper would seize a cap, chuck it across to a timid prospective +purchaser, and, if he dropped it, chuck him over another, crying, with a +"yo-heave-ho" boisterousness, "Oh! what a game, what a bees' nest." + +Upon the small head of another customer, he would squash down his +largest sized cap saying at once,-- + +"There, you look the finest gentleman--oh! ah! a little too large." + +At which we all laughed, the customer looked silly, but took no offence. + +"Try this," yells the skipper above the storm, and takes off his own +cap. "Oh! ye needn't be afraid--I washed my hair last--year." +(Laughter.) + +Then to his partner, the Jew on the other side of the stall, "Oh! what a +face you've got. Here! 6d. for any one who can tell me what it is. Why +not take it to the trenches and get it smashed in?" + +The Jew wore spectacles and had a soft ingratiating voice and brown +doe-like eyes--a Jew in every respect. "Oh!" says he, in the oleaginous +Semitic way, and accurately taking up his cue (for all this was +rehearsed patter), "my wife says 'my face is my fortune.'" + +"No wonder you're so hard up and 'ave got to take in lodgers. What's yer +name?" + +"John Jones," in a demure wheedling voice. + +"Hoo--that's not your name in your own bloody country--I expect it's +Hullabullinsky." + +"Do you know what my name really is?" + +"No." + +"It's Assenheimopoplocatdwizlinsky Kovorod." (Loud laughter.) + +"I shall call you 'ass' for short." + +I was laughing loudly at these two clowns and the skipper observing as +much, shouted out to me,-- + +"Parlez-vous Francois, M'sieur?" + +"Oui, oui," said I. + +"Ah! lah, you're one of us--oh! what a game! what a bees' nest," and all +the time he went on selling caps and chucking them at the purchasers. + +Perhaps one of the most extraordinary things I saw was a stream of young +men who, one after another, came up to a stall, paid a penny and +swallowed a glass of "nerve tonic"--a green liquid syphoned out of a +large jar--warranted a safe cure for + +"Inward weakness, slightest flurry or body oppressed." + +Another man was pulling teeth and selling tooth powder. Some of the +little urchins' teeth, after he had cleaned them as a demonstration, +were much whiter than their faces or his. This was "the original Chas. +Assenheim." + +Mrs. Meyers, "not connected with any one else of the same name in the +Lane" was selling eels at 2d., 3d. and 6d. and doing a brisk trade too. + +But I should go on for hours if I were to tell everything seen in this +remarkable lane during an hour and a half on a Sunday morning. Each +stall-holder sells only one kind of article--caps or clocks or songs, +braces, shawls, indecent literature, concertinas, gramophones, coats, +pants, reach-me-downs, epergnes. The thoroughfare was crowded with +people (I saw two Lascars in red fez caps) inspecting the goods +displayed and attentively observed by numerous policemen. The alarm +clocks were all going off, each gramophone was working a record (a +different one!) and every tradesman shouting his wares--a perfect +pandemonium. + +_December_ 31. + +_A Conversation_ + +"There is that easily calculable element in your nature, dear boy," I +said, "by which you forego the dignity of a free-willed human being and +come under an inflexible natural law. I can anticipate your movements, +intentions, and opinions long beforehand. For example, I know quite well +that every Saturday morning will see you with _The New Statesman_ under +your arm; I know that the words 'Wagner' or 'Shaw' uttered slowly and +deliberately in your ear will produce a perfectly definite reaction." + +"I bet you can't predict what I am going to buy now," + +R---- replied gaily, advancing to the newspaper stall. + +He bought the _Pink 'Un_ and I laughed.... + +"And so you read _Pragmatism_," he mused, "while the fate of the Empire +stands in the balance." + +"Yes," said I, "and the Paris Academy of Sciences were discussing the +functions of _θ_ and the Polymorphism of Antarctic diatoms last +September when the Germans stood almost at the gates of Paris." + +This was a lucky stroke for me, for he knew he was rubbing me on the +raw. We are, of course, great friends, but sometimes we get on one +another's nerves. + +"I am polychromatic," I declaimed, "rhetorical, bass. You--besides being +a bally fool--are of a pretty gray colour, a baritone and you paint in +water-colours." + +"Whereas you, of course, would paint in blood?" he answered facetiously. + +His Oxford education has a firm hold on him. He says for example, "e +converso" instead of "on the other hand" and "entre nous" for "between +ourselves." He labels his paragraphs _α, β, γ_, instead of a, b, c, and +quotes Juvenal, knows Paris and Naples, visits the Alps for the winter +sports, all in the approved manner of dons. + +Not infrequently he visits the East End to Study "how the poor live," he +lectures at Toynbee Hall, and calls the proletariat "the prolly." In +fact, he does everything according to the regulations, being a socialist +and an agnostic, a follower of Shaw and a devotee of Bunyan. "Erotic" he +is careful to pronounce _eròtic_ to show he knows Greek, and the "Duma," +the _Dumà_, tho' he doesn't know Russian. Like any don, he is always +ready to discuss and give an opinion on any sub- supra- or circum-lunary +subject from bimetallism to the Symphony as an art-form. + +"That's a dominant fifth," I said to him the other day; no answer. + +"You ignorant devil," I said, "you don't know what a dominant fifth is!" + +We made grimaces at one another. + +"Who's the Master of the Mint?" I asked him. "That is an easy one." + +"The Chancellor of the Exchequer," was the prompt reply. + +"Oh! that's right," I said sarcastic and crestfallen. "Now tell me the +shortest verse in the Bible and the date of Rameses II." + +We laughed. R---- is a very clever man and the most extraordinarily +versatile man I know. He is bound to make his mark. His danger is--too +many irons in the fire. Here are some of his occupations and +acquirements: Art (etching, drypoint, water-colours), music (a charming +voice), classics, French, German, Italian (both speaking and reading +knowledge), biology, etc., etc. He is for ever titillating his mind with +some new thing. "For God's sake, do leave it alone--you simply rag your +mind to death. Put it out to grass--go thro' an annual season of +complete abstinence from knowledge--an intellectual Lent." + +No one more than he enjoys my ragging him like this--and I do it rather +well. + + +[1] "I could eat all the elephants of Hindustan and pick my teeth with +the Spire of Strassburg Cathedral." + +[2] See January 2nd, 1915. + + + + +1915 + + +_January_ 1. + +I have grown so ridiculously hypercritical and fastidious that I will +refuse a man's invitation to dinner because he has watery blue eyes, or +hate him for a mannerism or an impediment or affectation in his speech. +Some poor devil who has not heard of Turner or Debussy or Dostoieffsky I +gird at with the arrogance of a knowledgeable youth of 17. Some oddity +who should afford a sane mind endless amusement, I write off as a _Insus +naturæ_ and dismiss with a flourish of contempt. My intellectual +arrogance--excepting at such times as I become conscious of it and pull +myself up--is incredible. It is incredible because I have no personal +courage and all this pride boils up behind a timid exterior. I quail +often before stupid but over-bearing persons who consequently never +realise my contempt of them. Then afterwards, I writhe to think I never +stood up to this fool; never uttered an appropriate word to interfere +with another's nauseating self-love. It exasperates me to be unable to +give a Roland for an Oliver--even servants and underlings "tick me +off"--to fail always in sufficient presence of mind to make the +satisfying rejoinder or riposte. I suffer from such a savage _amour +propre_ that I fear to enter the lists with a man I dislike on account +of the mental anguish I should suffer if he worsted me. I am therefore +bottled up tight--both my hates and loves. For a coward is not only +afraid to tell a man he hates him, but is nervous too of letting go of +his feeling of affection or regard lest it be rejected or not returned. +I shudder to think of such remarks as (referring to me), "He's one of my +admirers, you know" (sardonically), or, "I simply can't get rid of him." + +If however my cork _does_ come out, there is an explosion, and placid +people occasionally marvel to hear violent language streaming from my +lips and nasty acid and facetious remarks. + +Of course, to intimate friends (only about three persons in the wide, +wide world), I can always give free vent to my feelings, and I do so in +privacy with that violence in which a weak character usually finds some +compensation for his intolerable self-imposed reserve and restraint in +public. I can never marvel enough at the ineradicable turpitude of my +existence, at my _double-facedness_, and the remarkable contrast between +the face I turn to the outside world and the face my friends know. It's +like leading a double existence or artificially constructing a puppet to +dangle before the crowd while I fulminate behind the scenes. If only I +had the moral courage to play my part in life--to take the stage and be +myself, to enjoy the delightful sensation of making my presence felt, +instead of this vapourish mumming--then this Journal would be quite +unnecessary. For to me self-expression is a necessity of life, and what +cannot be expressed one way must be expressed in another. When colossal +egotism is driven underground, whether by a steely surface environment +or an unworkable temperament or as in my case by both, you get a truly +remarkable result, and the victim a truly remarkable pain--the pain one +might say of continuously unsuccessful attempts at parturition. + +It is perhaps not the whole explanation to say that my milky affability +before, say bores or clods is sheer personal cowardice.... It is partly +real affability. I am so glad to have opposite me some one who is making +himself pleasant and affable and sympathetic that I forget for the +moment that he is an unconscionable time-server, a sycophant, +lick-spittle, toady, etc. My first impulse is always to credit folk with +being nicer, cleverer, more honest and amiable than they are. Then, on +reflection, I discover unpleasing characteristics, I detect their little +motives, and hate myself for not speaking. The fellow is intolerable, +why did I not tell him so? Bitter recriminations from my critical self +upon my flabby amiable half. + +On the whole, then, I lead a pretty disgraceful inner life--excepting +when I pull myself together and smile benignly on all things with a +philosophical smugness, such as is by no means my mood at this present +moment. I am so envious that a reprint of one of Romney's Ramus girls +sends me into a dry tearless anger--for the moment till I turn over the +next page.... Inwardly I was exacerbated this morning when R---- +recited, "Come and have a tiddle at the old Brown Bear," and explained +how a charming "young person" sang this at breakfast the other morning. +It was simply _too_ charming for him to hear. + +To-night as I brushed my hair, I decided I was quite good-looking, and +_I believe_ I mused that E---- was really a lucky girl.... All that is +the matter with me is a colossal conceit and a colossal discontent, +qualities exaggerated where a man finds himself in an environment which +.... + + * * * * * + +You observant people will notice that this explanation is something of a +self-defence whereby the virtue goes out of my confession. I plead +guilty, but great and unprecedented provocation as well. Intense pride +of individuality forbids that I should ever be other than, shall I say, +amiably disposed towards myself _au fond_, however displeased I may be +with my environment. It is indeed impossible without sending him to a +lunatic asylum ever to knock a man off the balance of his +self-esteem.... A man's loyalty to himself is the most pig-headed thing +imaginable. + +_January_ 2. + +_The Fire Bogey_ + +"This Box contains Manuscripts. One guinea will be paid to any one who +in case of danger from fire saves it from damage or loss." + +Signed: W.N.P. BARBELLION. + +I have had this printed in large black characters on a card, framed and +nailed to my "coffin" of Journals. I told the printer first to say _Two +Guineas_, but he suggested that One Guinea was quite enough. I agreed +but wondered how the devil _he_ knew what the Journals were +worth--nobody knows. + +Next month, I expect I shall have a "hand" painted on the wall and +pointing towards the box. And the month after that I shall hire a +fireman to be on duty night and day standing outside No. 101 in a brass +helmet and his hatchet up at the salute. + +These precious Journals! Supposing I lost them! I cannot imagine the +anguish it would cause me. It would be the death of my real self and as +I should take no pleasure in the perpetuation of my flabby, flaccid, +anæmic, amiable puppet-self, I should probably commit suicide. + +_August_ 7. + +Harvey who discovered the circulation of the blood also conducted a +great many investigations into the Anatomy and development of insects. +But all his MSS. and drawings disappeared in the fortunes of war, and +one half of his life work thus disappeared. This makes me feverish, +living as I do in Armageddon! + +Again, all Malpighi's pictures, furniture, books and MSS. were destroyed +in a lamentable fire at his house in Bononia, occasioned it is said by +the negligence of his old wife. + +About 1618, Ben Jonson suffered a similar calamity thro' a fire breaking +out in his study. Many unpublished MSS. perished. + +A more modern and more tragic example I found recently in the person of +an Australian naturalist, Dr. Walter Stimpson, who lost all his MSS., +drawings, and collections in the great fire of Chicago, and was so +excoriated by this irreparable misfortune that he never recovered from +the shock, and died the following year a broken man and unknown. + +Of course the housemaid who lit the fire with the _French Revolution_ is +known to all, as well as Newton's "Fido, Fido, you little know what you +have done." + +There are many dangers in preserving the labours of years in MS. form. +Samuel Butler (of _Erewhon_) advised writing in copying ink and then +pressing off a second copy to be kept in another and separate locality. +My own precautions for these Journals are more elaborate. Those who know +about it think I am mad. I wonder.... But I dare say I am a pathetic +fool--an incredible self-deceiver! + +Anyhow--the "coffin" of raw material I sent down to T---- while I retain +the two current volumes. This is to avoid Zeppelins. E---- took the +"coffin" down for me on her way home from school, and at Taunton, +inquisitive porters mistaking it, I suppose, for an infant's coffin +carried it reverently outside the station and laid it down. She caught +them looking at it just in time before her train left. Under her +instructions they seized it by the brass handles and carried it back +again. I sit now and with a good deal of curiosity fondle the idea of +porters carrying about my Journals of confession. It's like being +tickled in the palm of the hand.... Two volumes of abstracted entries I +keep here, and, as soon as I am married, I intend to make a second copy +of these.... Then all in God's good time I intend getting a volume ready +for publication. + +_January_ 30. + +_Hearing Beethoven_ + +To the Queen's Hall and heard Beethoven's Fifth and Seventh Symphonies. + +Before the concert began I was in a fever. I kept on saying to myself, +"I am going to hear the Fifth and Seventh Symphonies." I regarded myself +with the most ridiculous self-adulation--I smoothed and purred over +myself--a great contented Tabby cat--and all because I was so splendidly +fortunate as to be about to hear Beethoven's Fifth and Seventh +Symphonies. + +It certainly upset me a little to find there were so many other people +who were singularly fortunate as well, and it upset me still more to +find some of them knitting and some reading newspapers as if they waited +for sausage and mashed. + +How I gloried in the Seventh! I can't believe there was any one present +who gloried in it as I did! To be processing majestically up the steps +of a great, an unimaginable palace (in the "Staircase" introduction), +led by Sir Henry, is to have had at least a crowded ten minutes of +glorious life--a suspicion crossed the mind at one time "Good Heavens, +they're going to knight me." I cannot say if that were their intentions. +But I escaped however.... + +I love the way in which a beautiful melody flits around the Orchestra +and its various components like a beautiful bird. + +_January_ 19. + +_An Average Day_ + +After a morning of very mixed emotions and more than one annoyance ... +at last sat down to lunch and a little peace and quiet with R----. We +began by quoting verse at one another in open competition. Of course +neither of us listened to the other's verses. We merely enjoyed the +pleasure of recollecting and repeating our own. I began with Tom Moore's +"Row gently here, my Gondolier." R---- guessed the author rightly at +once and fidgeted until he burst out with, "The Breaths of kissing night +and day"--to me an easy one. I gave, "The Moon more indolently sleeps +to-night" (Baudelaire), and in reply he did a great stroke by reciting +some of the old French of Frangois Villon which entirely flummuxed me. + +I don't believe we really love each other, but we cling to each other +out of ennui and discover in each other a certain cold intellectual +sympathy. + +At the pay desk (Lyons' is our rendezvous) we joked with the cashier--a +cheerful, fat little girl, who said to R---- (indicating me),-- + +"He's a funny boy, isn't he?" + +"Dangerous," chirped R----, and we laughed. In the street we met an +aged, decrepit newsvendor--very dirty and ragged--but his voice was +unexpectedly fruity. + +"British Success," he called, and we stopped for the sake of the voice. + +"I'm not interested," I said--as an appetiser. + +"What! Not.... Just one sir: I haven't sold a single copy yet, and I've +a wife and four children." + +"That's nothing to me--I've three wives and forty children," I remarked. + +"What!" in affected surprise, turning to R----, "he's Brigham Young from +Salt Lake City. Yes I know it--I've been there myself and been dry ever +since. Give us a drink, sir--just one." + +In consideration of his voice we gave him 2d. and passed on.... + +After giving a light to a Belgian soldier whose cigarette had gone out, +farther along we entered a queer old music shop where they sell +flageolets, serpents, clavichords, and harps. We had previously made an +appointment with the man to have Schubert's Unfinished Symphony played +to us, so as to recall one or two of the melodies which we can't recall +and it drives us crazy. "What is that one in the second movement which +goes like this?" and R---- whistled a fragment. "I don't know," I said, +"but let's go in here and ask." In the shop, a youth was kind enough to +say that if we cared to call next day, Madame A----, the harp player +would be home and would be ready to play us the symphony. + +So this morning, before Madame's appearance, this kind and obliging +youth put a gramophone record of it on, to which we listened like two +intelligent parrots with heads sideways. Presently, the fat lady harpist +appeared and asked us just what we wanted to find out--a rather awkward +question for us, as we did not want to "find out" anything excepting how +the tunes went. + +I therefore explained that as neither of us had sisters or wives, and we +both wanted, etc.... so would she...? In response, she smiled +pleasantly and played us the second movement on a shop piano. Meanwhile, +Henry the boy, hid himself behind the instruments at the rear of the +shop and as we signed to her she would say,-- + +"What's that, Henry?" + +And Henry would duly answer from his obscurity, "Wood wind," or "Solo +oboe," or whatever it was, and the lad really spoke with authority. In +this way, I began to find out something about the work. Before I left, I +presented her with a copy of the score, which she did not possess and +because she would not accept any sort of remuneration. + +"Won't you put your name on it?" she inquired. + +I pointed gaily to the words "Ecce homo," which I had scribbled across +Schubert's name and said, "There you are." Madame smiled incredulously +and we said, "Good-bye." + +It was a beautifully clement almost springlike day, and at the street +corner, in a burst of joyousness, we each bought a bunch of violets of +an old woman, stuck them on the ends of our walking-sticks, and marched +off with them in triumphant protest to the B.M. Carried over our +shoulders, our flowers amused the police and ----, who scarcely realised +the significance of the ritual. "This is my protest," said R----, +"against the war. It's like Oscar Wilde's Sunflower." + +On the way, we were both bitterly disappointed at a dramatic meeting +between a man and woman of the artizan class which instead of beginning +with a stormy, "Robert, where's the rent, may I ask?" fizzled out into, +"Hullo, Charlie, why you _are_ a stranger." + +At tea in the A.B.C. shop, we had a violent discussion on Socialism, and +on the station platform, going home, I said that before marriage I +intended saving up against the possibility of divorce--a domestic +divorce fund. + +"Very dreadful," said R---- with mock gravity, "to hear a recently +affianced young man talk like that." + +... What should I do then? Marry? I suppose so. Shadows of the +prison-house. At first I said I ought not to marry for two years. Then +when I am wildly excited with her I say "next week." We could. There are +no arrangements to be made. All her furniture--flat, etc. But I feel we +ought to wait until the War is over. + +At dinner-time to-night I was feverish to do three things at once: write +out my day's Journal, eat my food, and read the _Journal_ of Marie +Bashkirtseff. Did all three--but unfortunately not at once, so that when +I was occupied with one I would surreptitiously cast a glance sideways +at the other--and repined. + +After dinner, paid a visit to the ---- and found Mrs. ---- playing Patience. +I told her that 12,000 lives had been lost in the great Italian +earthquake. Still going on dealing out the cards, she said in her gentle +voice that that was dreadful and still absorbed in her cards inquired if +earthquakes had aught to do with the weather. + +"An earthquake must be a dreadful thing," she gently piped, as she +abstractedly dealt out the cards for a new game in a pretty +Morris-papered room in Kensington. + +_January_ 20. + +_At a Public Dinner_ + +... The timorous man presently took out his cigarette-case and was going +to take out a cigarette, when he recollected that he ought first to +offer one to the millionaire on his right. Fortunately the cigarette +case was silver and the cigarettes appeared--from my side of the +dinner-table--to be fat Egyptians. Yet the timorous and unassuming +bug-hunter hesitated palpably. Ought he to offer his cigarettes? He +thought of his own balance at the bank and then of the millionaire's and +trembled. The case after all was only silver and the cigarettes were not +much more than a halfpenny each. Was it not impertinent? He sat a moment +studying the open case which he held in both hands like a hymn book, +while the millionaire ordered not wines--but a bass! At last courage +came, and he inoffensively pushed the cigarettes towards his friend. + +"No, thanks!" smiled the millionaire, "I don't smoke." And so, 'twas a +unicorn dilemma after all. + +_February_ 15. + +Spent Xmas week at work in her studio, transcribing my Journals while +she made drawings. All unbeknown to her I was copying out entries of +days gone by--how scandalised she would be if...! + +_February_ 22. + +What an amazing Masque is Rotten Row on a Sunday morning! I sat on a +seat there this morning and watched awhile. + +It was most exasperating to be in this kaleidoscope of human life +without the slightest idea as to who they all were. One man in +particular, I noticed--a first-class "swell"--whom I wanted to touch +gently on the arm, slip a half-a-crown into his hand and whisper, +"There, tell me all about yourself." + +Such "swells" there were that out in the fairway, my little cockle-shell +boat was wellnigh swamped. To be in the wake of a really magnificent +Duchess simply rocks a small boat in an alarming fashion. I leaned over +my paddles and gazed up. They steamed past unheeding, but I kept my +nerve all right and pulled in and out quizzing and observing. + +It is nothing less than scandalous that here I am aged 25 with no means +of acquainting myself with contemporary men and women even of my own +rank and station. The worst of it is, too, that I have no time to +lose--in my state of health. This accursed ill-health cuts me off from +everything. I make pitiful attempts to see the world around me by an +occasional visit (wind, weather, and health permitting) to Petticoat +Lane, the Docks, Rotten Row, Leicester Square, or the Ethical Church. +To-morrow I purpose going to the Christian Scientists'. Meanwhile, the +others participate in Armageddon. + +_February_ 23. + +_Looking for Lice at the Zoo_ + +The other day went to the Zoological Gardens, and, by permission of the +Secretary, went round with the keepers and searched the animals for +ectoparasites. + +Some time this year I have to make a scientific Report to the Zoological +Society upon all the Lice which from time to time have been collected on +animals dying in the gardens and sent me for study and determination. + +We entered the cages, caught and examined several Tinamous, +_Rhinochetus, Eurypygia_, and many more, to the tune of "The Policeman's +Holiday" whistled by a Mynah! It was great fun. + +Then we went into the Ostrich House and thoroughly searched two Kiwis. +These, being nocturnal birds, were roosting underneath a heap of straw. +When we had finished investigating their feathers, they ran back to +their straw at once, the keeper giving them a friendly tap on the rear +to hurry them up a bit. They are just like little old women bundling +along. + +The Penguins, of course, were the most amusing, and, after operating +fruitlessly for some time on a troublesome Adèle, I was amused to find, +on turning around, all the other Adèles clustered close around my feet +in an attitude of mute supplication. + +The Armadillo required all the strength of two keepers to hold still +while I went over his carcass with lens and forceps. I was also allowed +to handle and examine the Society's two specimens of that amazing +creature the _Echidna_. + +_Balœniceps rex_ like other royalty had to be approached decorously. He +was a big, ill-tempered fellow, and quite unmanageable except by one +keeper for whom he showed a preference. While we other conspirators hid +ourselves outside, this man entered the house quietly and approached the +bird with a gentle cooing sound. Then suddenly he grabbed the bill and +held on. We entered at the same moment and secured the wings, and I +began the search--without any luck. We must have made an amusing +picture--three men holding on for dear life to a tall, grotesque bird +with an imperial eye, while a fourth searched the feathers for +parasites! + +_February_ 28. + +What a boon is Sunday! I can get out of bed just when the spirit moves +me, dress and bath leisurely, even with punctilio. How nice to dawdle in +the bath with a cigarette, to hear the holiday sound of Church bells! +Then comes that supreme moment when, shaven, clean, warm and hungry for +breakfast and coffee, I stand a moment before the looking-glass and comb +out my towzled hair with a parting as straight as a line in Euclid. That +gives the finishing touch of self-satisfaction, and I go down to +breakfast ready for the day's pleasure. I hate this weekday strain of +having to be always each day at a set time in a certain place. + +_March_ 3. + +I often sit in my room at the B.M. and look out at the traffic with a +glassy, mesmerised face--a fainéant. How different from that extremely +busy youth who came to London in 1912. Say--could that lad be I? How +many hours do I waste day-dreaming. This morning I dreamed and dreamed +and could not stop dreaming--I had not the will to shake myself down to +my task.... My memories simply trooped the colour. + +It surprised me to find how many of them had gone out of my present +consciousness and with what poignancy of feeling I recognised them +again! How selfishly for the most part we all live in our present selves +or in the selves that are to be. + +Then I raced thro' all sorts of future possibilities--oh! when and how +is it all going to end? How do you expect me to settle down to +scientific research with all this internal unrest! The scientific man +above all should possess the "quiet mind in all changes of fortune"--Sir +Henry Wotton's _How happy is he born and taught_. + +The truth is I am a hybrid: a mixture of two very distinct temperaments +and they are often at war. To keep two different natures and two +different mental habits simultaneously at work is next to impossible. +Consequently plenty of waste and fever and--as I might have discovered +earlier for myself--success almost out of the question. If only I were +pure-bred science or pure-bred art! + +_March_ 4. + +Life is a dream and we are all somnambuloes. We know that for a fact at +all times when we are most intensely alive--at crises of unprecedented +change, in sorrow or catastrophe, or in any unusual incident brought +swiftly to a close like a vision! + + * * * * * + +I sit here writing this--a mirage! Who am I? No one can say. What am I? +"A soap-bubble hanging from a reed." + +Every man is an inexhaustible treasury of human personality. He can go +on burrowing in it for an eternity if he have the desire--and a taste +for introspection. I like to keep myself well within the field of the +microscope, and, with as much detachment as I can muster, to watch +myself live, to report my observations of what I say, feel, think. In +default of others, I am myself my own spectator and +self-appreciator--critical, discerning, vigilant, fond!--my own stupid +Boswell, shrewd if silly. This spectator of mine, it seems to me, must +be a very moral gentleman and eminently superior. His incessant +attentions, while I go on my way misconducting myself, goad me at times +into a surly, ill-tempered outbreak, like Dr. Johnson. I hate being +shadowed and reported like this. Yet on the whole--like old Samuel +again--I am rather pleased to be Boswelled. It flatters me to know that +at least one person takes an unremitting interest in all my ways. + +And, mind you, there are people who have seen most things but have never +seen themselves walking across the stage of life. If someone shows them +glimpses of themselves they will not recognise the likeness. How do you +walk? Do you know your own idiosyncrasies of gait, manner of speech, +etc.? + +I never cease to interest myself in the Gothic architecture of my own +fantastic soul.[1] + +_March_ 6. + +_The Punch and Judy Show_ + +Spent a most delightful half-an-hour to-day reading an account in the +_Encyclopædia Britannica_ (one of my favourite books--it's so "gey +disconnekkit") the history of the Punch and Judy Show. It's a delightful +bit of antiquarian lore and delighted me the more because it had never +occurred to me before that it had an ancient history. I am thoroughly +proud of this recent acquisition of knowledge and as if it were a +valuable freehold I have been showing it off saying, "Rejoice with +me--see what I have got here." I fired it off first in detail at ----; +and H---- and D---- will probably be my victims to-morrow. After all, it +is a charming little cameo of history: compact, with plenty of scope for +conjecture, theory, research, and just that combination of all three +which would suit my taste and capacity if I had time for a Monograph. + +_March_ 22 + +I waste much time gaping and wondering. During a walk or in a book or in +the middle of an embrace, suddenly I awake to a stark amazement at +everything. The bare fact of existence paralyses me--holds my mind in +mort-main. To be alive is so incredible that all I do is to lie still +and merely breathe--like an infant on its back in a cot. It is +impossible to be interested in anything in particular while overhead the +sun shines or underneath my feet grows a single blade of grass. "The +things immediate to be done," says Thoreau, "I could give them all up to +hear this locust sing." All my energies become immobilised, even my +self-expression frustrated. I could not exactly master and describe how +I feel during such moments. + +_March_ 23. + +_Johnson_ v. _Yves Delage_ + +I expect we have all of us at one time or another heard ourselves +addressing to annoying, objectionable acquaintances some such stinging +castigation as Hazlitt's letter to Gifford, or Burke's letter to a Noble +Lord, or Johnson's letter to Lord Chesterfield, or Rousseau's letter to +the Archbishop of Paris. If only I could indulge myself! At this moment +I could glut my rancours on six different persons at least! + +What a raging discontent I have suffered to-day! What cynicism, what +bitterness of spirit, what envy, hate, exasperation, childish petulance, +what pusillanimous feelings and desires, what crude efforts to flout +simple, ingenuous folk with my own thwarted, repressed +self-assertiveness! + +A solemn fellow told me he had heard from Johnson who said he had +already had much success from collecting in moss.[2] With an icy +politeness I asked who Johnson was. Who the Hell is Johnson? As a _quid +pro quo_ I began to talk of Yves Delage, which left him as much in the +dark as he left me. Our Gods differ, we have a different hierarchy. + +"Well, how's your soul?" said R----, bursting in with a sardonic smile. + +I gave him a despairing look and said: + +"Oh! a pink one with blue spots," and he left me to my fate. + +Had tea with the ---- and was amazed to find on the music tray in the +drawing-room of these inoffensive artists a copy of ----'s Memoir on +_Synapta_. Within his hearing, I said, "Did you and Mrs. ---- find this +exciting reading?" And I held it up with a sneer. I felt I had laid bare +a nerve and forthwith proceeded to make it twinge. ----, of course, was +glib with an explanation, yet the question remains incalculable--just +how pleased that young man is with himself. + +After tea went out into the Studio and watched these two enthusiasts +paint. I must have glowered at them. I--the energetic, ambitious, +pushing youth--of necessity sitting down doing nought, as unconsidered +as a child playing on the floor. I recollected my early days in my attic +laboratory and sighed. Where is my energy now? + +Mrs. ---- plays Chopin divinely well. How I envied this man--to have a +wife play you Chopin! + +_March_ 24. + +It is fortunate I am ill in one way for I need not make my mind up about +this War. I am not interested in it--this filth and lunacy. I have not +yet made up my mind about myself. I am so steeped in myself--in my +moods, vapours, idiosyncrasies, so self-sodden, that I am unable to +stand clear of the data, to marshal and classify the multitude of facts +and thence draw the deduction what manner of man I am. I should like to +know--if only as a matter of curiosity. So what in God's name am I? A +fool, of course, to start with--but the rest of the diagnosis? + +One feature is my incredible levity about serious matters. Nothing +matters, provided the tongue is not furred. I have coquetted with death +for so long now, and endured such prodigious ill-health that my main +idea when in a fair state of repair is to seize the passing moment and +squeeze it dry. The thing that counts is to be drunken; as Baudelaire +says, "One must be for ever drunken; that is the sole question of +importance. If you would not feel the horrible burden of time that +bruises your shoulders and bends you to the earth, you must be drunken +without cease." + +Another feature is my insatiable curiosity. My purpose is to move about +in this ramshackle, old curiosity shop of a world sampling existence. I +would try everything, meddle lightly with everything. Religions and +philosophies I devour with a relish, Pragmatism and Bishop Berkeley and +Bergson have been my favourite bagatelles in turn. My consciousness is a +ragbag of things: all quips, quirks, and quillets, all excellent passes +of pate, all the "obsolete curiosities of an antiquated cabinet" take my +eye for a moment ere I pass on. In Sir Thomas Browne's _Pseudodoxia_, I +am interested to find "why Jews do not stink, what is the superstition +of sneezing after saluting, wherefore negroes are black," and so forth. +There is a poetic appropriateness that in A.D. 1915 I should be occupied +mainly in the study of Lice. I like the insolence of it. + +They tell me that if the Germans won it would put back the clock of +civilisation for a century. But what is a meagre 100 years? Consider the +date of the first Egyptian dynasty! We are now only in A.D. 1915--surely +we could afford to chuck away a century or two? Why not evacuate the +whole globe and give the ball to the Boches to play with--just as an +experiment to see what they can make of it. After all there is no +desperate hurry. Have we a train to catch? Before I could be serious +enough to fight, I should want God first to dictate to me his programme +of the future of mankind. + +_March_ 25. + +Often in the middle of a quite vivid ten seconds of life, I find I have +switched myself off from myself to make room for the person of a +disinterested and usually vulgar spectator. Even in the thrill of a +devotional kiss I have overheard myself saying, "Hot stuff, this witch." +Or in a room full of agreeable and pleasant people, while I am being as +agreeable as I know how, comes the whisper in a cynical tone, "These +damned women." I am apparently a triple personality: + +(1) The respectable youth. + +(2) The foul-mouthed commentator and critic. + +(3) The real but unknown I. + +Curious that these three should live together amiably in the same +tenement! + +_In a Crowd_ + +A crowd makes egotists of us all. Most men find it repugnant to them to +submerge themselves in a sea of their fellows. A silent, listening crowd +is potentially full of commotion. Some poor devils suffocating and +unable any longer to bear the strain will shout, "Bravo," or "Hear, +hear," at every opportunity. At the feeblest joke we all laugh loudly, +welcoming this means of self-survival. Hence the success of the +Salvation Army. To be preached at and prayed for in the mass for long on +end is what human nature can't endure in silence and a good deal of self +can be smuggled by an experienced Salvationist into "Alleluia" or "The +Lord be praised." + +_Naming Cockroaches_ + +I had to determine the names of some exotic cockroaches to-day and +finding it very difficult and dull raised a weak smile in two +enthusiasts who know them as "Blattids" by rechristening them with great +frivolity, "Fat 'eds." + +"These bloody insects," I said to an Australian entomologist of rare +quality. + +"A good round oath," he answered quietly. + +"If it was a square one it wouldn't roll properly," I said. It is nice +to find an entomologist with whom I can swear and talk bawdy. + +_March_ 26. + +_A Test of Happiness_ + +The true test of happiness is whether you know what day of the week it +is. A miserable man is aware of this even in his sleep. To be as +cheerful and rosy-cheeked on Monday as on Saturday, and at breakfast as +at dinner is to--well, make an ideal husband. + +... It is a strange metempsychosis, this transformation of an +enthusiast--tense, excitable, and active, into a sceptic, nerveless, +ironical, and idle. That's what ill-health can do for a man. To be among +enthusiasts--zoologists, geologists, entomologists--as I frequently am, +makes me feel a very old man, regarding them as children, and provokes +painful retrospection and sugary sentimentality over my past flame now +burnt out. + +I do wonder where I shall end up; what shall I be twenty years hence? It +alarms me to find I am capable of such remarkable changes in character. +I am fluid and can be poured into any mould. I have moments when I see +in myself the most staggering possibilities. I could become a wife +beater, and a drug-taker (especially the last). My curiosity is often +such a ridiculous weakness that I have found myself playing Peeping Tom +and even spying into private documents. In a railway carriage I will +twist my neck and risk any rudeness to see the title of the book my +neighbour is reading or how the letter she is reading begins. + +_April_ 10. + +"Why," asks Samuel Butler, "should not chicken be born and clergymen be +laid and hatched? Or why, at any rate, should not the clergyman be born +full grown and in Holy Orders not to say already beneficed? The present +arrangement is not convenient ... it is not only not perfect but so much +the reverse that we could hardly find words to express our sense of its +awkwardness if we could look upon it with new eyes...." + +As soon as we are born, if we could but get up, bathe, dress, shave, +breakfast once for all, if we could "cut" these monotonous cycles of +routine. If once the sun rose it would stay up, or once we were alive we +were immortal!--how much forrarder we should all get--always at the +heart of things, working without let or hindrance in a straight line for +the millennium! Now we waltz along instead. Even planets die off and new +ones come in their place. How infinitely wearisome it seems. When an old +man dies what a waste, and when a baby is born what a redundancy of +labour in front! + +_Two People I hate in particular_ + +The man walking along the pavement in front of me giving me no room to +pass under the satisfactory impression that he is the only being on the +pavement or in the street, city, country, world, universe: and it all +belongs to him even the moon and sun and stars. + +The woman on the 'bus the other night--pouring out an interminable flow +of poisonous chatter into the ear of her man--poor, exhausted devil who +kept answering dreamily "Oom" and"Yes" and "Oom"--how I hated her for +his sake! + +_April_ 11. + +_Beethoven's Fifth Symphony_ + +If music moves me, it always generates images--a procession of +apparently disconnected images in my mind. In the Fifth Symphony, for +example, as soon as the first four notes are sounded and repeated, this +magic population springs spontaneously into being. A nude, +terror-stricken figure in headlong flight with hands pressed to the ears +and arms bent at the elbows--a staring, bulgy-eyed mad-woman such as one +sees in Raemakers' cartoons of the Belgian atrocities. A man in the +first onset of mental agony on hearing sentence of death passed upon +him. A wounded bird, fluttering and flopping in the grass. It is the +struggle of a man with a steam-hammer--Fate. As tho' thro' the walls of +a closed room--some mysterious room, a fearful spot--I crouch and listen +and am conscious that inside some brutal punishment is being meted out +--there are short intervals, then unrelenting pursuit, then hammerlike +blows--melodramatic thuds, terrible silences (I crouch and wonder what +has happened), and the pursuit begins again. I see clasped hands and +appealing eyes and feel very helpless and mystified outside. An +epileptic vision or an opium dream--_Dostoievsky_ or De Quincey set to +music. + +In the Second Movement the man is broken, an unrecognisable vomit. I see +a pale youth sitting with arms hanging limply between the knees, hands +folded, and with sad, impenetrable eyes that have gazed on unspeakable +horrors. I see the brave, tearful smile, the changed life after personal +catastrophe, the Cross held before closing eyes, sudden absences of +mind, reveries, poignant retrospects, the rustle of a dead leaf of +thought at the bottom of the heart, the tortuous pursuit of past +incidents down into the silence of yesterday, the droning of comfortable +words, the painful collection of the wreckage of a life with intent to +"carry on" for a while in duty bound, for the widow consolation in the +child; a greyhound's cold wet nose nozzling into a listless hand, and +outside a Thrush singing after the storm, etc., etc. + +In the Third Movement comes the crash by which I know something final +and dreadful has happened. Then the resurrection with commotion in +Heaven: tempests and human faces, scurryings to and fro, brazen +portcullises clanging to, never to open more, the distant roll of drums +and the sound of horses' hoofs. From behind the inmost veil of Heaven I +faintly catch the huzzas of a great multitude. Then comes a great +healing wind, then a few ghost-like tappings on the window pane till +gradually the Avenue of Arches into Heaven come into view with a solemn +cortege advancing slowly along. + +Above the great groundswell of woe, Hope is restored and the Unknown +Hero enters with all pomp into his Kingdom, etc., etc. + +I am not surprised to learn that Beethoven was once on the verge of +suicide. + +_April_ 15. + +There is an absurd fellow ... who insists on taking my pirouettes +seriously. I say irresponsibly, "All men are liars," and he replies with +jejuneness and exactitude of a pronouncing dictionary, "A liar is one +who makes a false statement with intent to deceive." What can I do with +him? "Did I ever meet a lady," he asked, "who wasn't afraid of mice?" "I +don't know," I told him, "I never experiment with ladies in that way." + +He hates me. + +_May_ 11. + +This mysterious world makes me chilly. It is chilly to be alive among +ghosts in a nightmare of calamity. This Titanic war reduces me to the +size and importance of a debilitated housefly. So what is a poor egotist +to do? To be a common soldier is to become a pawn in the game between +ambitious dynasts and their ambitious marshals. You lose all +individuality, you become a "bayonet" or a "machine gun," or "cannon +fodder," or "fighting material." + +_May_ 22. + +Generosity may be only weakness, philanthropy (beautiful word), +self-advertisement, and praise of others sheer egotism. One can almost +hear a eulogist winding himself up to strike his eulogy that comes out +sententious, pompous, and full of self. + +_May_ 23. + +The following is a description of Lermontov by Maurice Baring: + +"He had except for a few intimate friends an impossible temperament; he +was proud, over-bearing, exasperated and exasperating, filled with a +savage _amour-propre_ and he took a childish delight in annoying; he +cultivated 'le plaisir aristocratique de déplaire.' ... He could not +bear not to make himself felt and if he felt he was unsuccessful in this +by fair means he resorted to unpleasant ones. Yet he was warm-hearted, +thirsting for love and kindness and capable of giving himself up to love +if he chose.... At the bottom of all this lay no doubt a deep-seated +disgust with himself and with the world in general, and a complete +indifference to life resulting from large aspirations which could not +find an outlet and recoiled upon himself." + +This is an accurate description of Me. + +_May_ 26. + +The time will come--it's a great way off--when a joke about sex will be +not so much objectionable as unintelligible. Thanks to Christian +teaching, a nude body is now an obscenity, of the congress of the sexes +it is indecent to speak and our birth is a corruption. Hence come a +legion of evils: reticence, therefore ignorance and therefore venereal +disease; prurience especially in adolescence, poisonous literature, and +dirty jokes. The mind is contaminated from early youth; even the +healthiest-minded girl will blush at the mention of _the wonder of +creation_. Yet to the perfectly enfranchised mind it should be as +impossible to joke about sex as about mind or digestion or physiology. +The perfectly enfranchised poet--and Walt Whitman in "The Song of +Myself" came near being it--should be as ready to sing of the incredible +raptures of the sexual act between "twin souls" as of the clouds or +sunshine. Every man or woman who has loved has a heart full of beautiful +things to say but no man dare--for fear of the police, for fear of the +coarse jests of others and even of a breakdown in his own +highmindedness. I wonder just how much wonderful lyric poetry has thus +been lost to the world! + +_May_ 27. + +_The Pool: A Retrospect_ + +From above, the pool looked like any little innocent sheet of water. But +down in the hollow itself it grew sinister. The villagers used to say +and to believe that it had no bottom and certainly a very great depth +in it could be _felt_ if not accurately gauged as one stood at the +water's edge. A long time ago, it was a great limestone quarry, but +to-day the large mounds of rubble on one side of it are covered with +grass and planted with mazzard trees, grown to quite a large girth. On +the other side one is confronted by a tall sheet of black, carboniferous +rock, rising sheer out of the inky water--a bare sombre surface on which +no mosses even--"tender creatures of pity," Ruskin calls them--have +taken compassion by softening the jagged edges of the strata or nestling +in the scars. It is an excellent example of "Contortion" as Geologists +say, for the beds are bent into a quite regular geometrical pattern +--syncline and anticline in waves--by deep-seated plutonic force that +makes the mind quake in the effort to imagine it. + +On the top of this rock and overhanging the water--a gaunt, +haggard-looking Fir tree impends, as it seems in a perilous balance, +while down below, the pool, sleek and shiny, quietly waits with a +catlike patience. + +In summer time, successive rows of Foxgloves one behind the other in +barbaric splendour are ranged around the grassy rubble slopes like +spectators in an amphitheatre awaiting the spectacle. Fire-bellied Efts +slip here and there lazily thro' the water. Occasionally a Grass-snake +would swim across the pool and once I caught one and on opening his +stomach found a large fire-bellied Eft inside. The sun beats fiercely +into this deep hollow and makes the water tepid. On the surface grows a +glairy Alga, which was once all green but now festers in yellow patches +and causes a horrible stench. Everything is absolutely still, air and +water are stagnant. A large _Dytiscus_ beetle rises to the surface to +breathe and every now and then large bubbles of marsh gas come sailing +majestically up from the depth and explode quietly into the fetid air. +The _horrificness_ of this place impressed me even when I was intent +only on fishing there for bugs and efts. Now, seen in retrospect, it +haunts me. + +_May_ 28. + +It is only by accident that certain of our bodily functions are +distasteful. Many birds eat the faeces of their young. The vomits of +some Owls are formed into shapely pellets, often of beautiful +appearance, when composed of the glittering multi-coloured elytra of +Beetles, etc. The common Eland is known to micturate on the tuft of hair +on the crown of its head, and it does this habitually, when lying down, +by bending its head around and down--apparently because of the aroma, +perhaps of sexual importance during mating time, as it is a habit of the +male alone. + +At lunch time, had an unpleasant intermittency period in my heart's +action and this rather eclipsed my anxiety over a probable Zeppelin +Raid. Went home to my rooms by 'bus, and before setting off to catch my +train for West Wycombe to stay for the week-end at a Farm with +E---- swallowed two teaspoonfuls of neat brandy, filled my flask, and +took a taxi to Paddington. At 3.50 started to walk to C---- H---- Farm +from W. Wycombe Station, where E---- has been lodging for some weeks +taking a rest cure after a serious nervous breakdown thro' overwork. As +soon as I stepped out of the train, I sniffed the fresh air and soon +made off down the road, happy to have left London and the winter and the +war far behind. The first man of whom I inquired the way happened to +have been working at the Farm only a few weeks ago, so I relied +implicitly on his directions, and as it was but a mile and a half +decided that my wobbly heart could stand the strain. I set out with a +good deal of pleasurable anticipation. I was genuinely looking forward +to seeing E----, altho' in the past few weeks our relations had become a +little strained, at least on my part, mainly because of her little +scrappy notes to me scribbled in pencil, undated, and dull! Yet I could +do with a volume of "Sonnets from the Portuguese." These letters chilled +me. In reply, I wrote with cold steel short, lifeless formal notes, for +I felt genuinely aggrieved that she should care so little how she wrote +to me or how she expressed her love. I became ironical with myself over +the prospect of marrying a girl who appeared so little to appreciate my +education and mental habits. [What a popinjay!--1917.] My petty spirit +grew disenchanted, out of love. I was false to her in a hundred +inconsiderable little ways and even deliberately planned the breaking +off of the engagement some months hence when she should be restored to +normal health. + +But once in the country and, as I thought, nearing my love at every step +and at every bend in the road, even anticipating her arms around me with +real pleasure (for she promised to meet me half way), I on a sudden grew +eager for her again and was assured of a happy week-end with her. Then +the road grew puzzling and I became confused, uncertain of the way. I +began to murmur she should have given me instructions. Every now and +then I had to stop and rest as my heart was beating so furiously. +Espying a farm on the left I made sure I had arrived at my destination +and walked across a field to it and entered the yard where I heard some +one milking a cow in a shed. I shouted over the five-barred gate into +empty space, "Is this C---- H---- Farm?" A labourer came out of the shed +and redirected me. It was now ten to five. I was tired and out of sorts, +and carried a troublesome little handbag. I swore and cursed and found +fault with E---- and the Universe. + +I trudged on, asking people, as I went, the way, finally emerging from +the cover of a beautiful wood thro' a wicket gate almost at the entrance +to the Farm I sought. At the front door we embraced affectionately and +we entered at once, I putting a quite good face upon my afternoon's +exertions--when I consider my unbridled fury of a short time before. +E----, as brown as a berry, conducted me to my bedroom and I nearly +forgot to take this obvious opportunity of kissing her again. + +"How are you?" I asked. + +"All right," she said, fencing. + +"But really?" + +"All right." + +(A little nettled): "My dear, that isn't going to satisfy me. You will +have to tell me exactly how you are." + +After tea, I recovered myself and we went for a walk together. The +beauty of the country warmed me up, and in the wood we kissed--I for my +part happy and quite content with the present state of our relations, +_i.e._, affectionate but not perfervid. + +_May_ 29. + +Got up early and walked around the Farm before breakfast. Everything +promises to be delightful--young calves, broods of ducklings, and +turkeys, fowls, cats and dogs. In the yard are two large Cathedral +barns, with enormous pent roofs sloping down to within about two feet of +the ground and entered by way of great double doors that open with the +slowness and solemnity of a Castle's portal studded with iron knobs. It +thrilled me to the marrow on first putting my head outside to be greeted +with the grunt of an invisible pig that I found scraping his back on the +other side of the garden wall. + +In the afternoon, E---- and I sat together in the Beech Wood: E---- on a +deck chair and I on a rug on the ground. In spite of our beautiful +surroundings we did not progress very well, but I attributed her slight +aloofness to the state of her nerves. She is still far from recovered. +These wonderful Beech Woods are quite new to me. The forest beech is a +very different plant from the solitary tree. In the struggle to reach +the light the Forest Beech grows lean and tall and gives an +extraordinary suggestion of wiry powerful strength. On the margins of +the wood, Bluebells were mobilised in serried ranks. Great Tits +whistled--in the language of our allies--"Bijou, Bijou" and I agreed +with every one of them. + +Some folk don't like to walk over Bluebells or Buttercups or other +flowers growing on the ground. But it is foolish to try to pamper Nature +as if she were a sickly child. She is strong and can stand it. You can +stamp on and crush a thousand flowers--they will all come up again next +year. + +By some labyrinthine way which I cannot now recall, the conversation +worked round to a leading question by E.--if in times like these we +ought not to cease being in love? She was quite calm and serious. I said +"No, of course not, silly." My immediate apprehension was that she had +perceived the coldness in my letters and I was quite satisfied that she +was so well able to read the signs in the sky. "But you don't wish to go +on?" she persisted. I persisted that I did, that I had no misgivings, no +second thoughts, that I was not merely taking pity on her, etc. The wild +temptation to seize this opportunity for a break I smothered in +reflecting how ill she was and how necessary to wait first till she was +well again. These thoughts passed swiftly, vaguely like wraiths thro' my +mind: I was barely conscious of them. Then I recalled the sonnet about +coming in the rearward of a conquered woe and mused thereon. But I took +no action. [Fortunately--for me. 1916.] + +Presently with cunning I said that there was no cloud on my horizon +whatever--only her "letters disappointed me a little--they were so +cold," but "as soon as I saw you again, darling, those feelings +disappeared." + +As soon as they were spoken I knew they were not as they might seem, the +words of a liar and hypocrite. They _became_ true. E---- looked very +sweet and helpless and I loved her again as much as ever. + +"It's funny," she said, "but I thought your letters were cold. Letters +are so horrid." + +The incident shews how impossible is intellectual honesty between +lovers. Truth is at times a hound which must to kennel. + +"Write as you would speak," said I. "You know I'm not one to carp about +a spelling mistake!" + +The latter remark astonished me. Was it indeed I who was speaking? All +the week I had been fuming over this. Yet I was honest: the Sun and E.'s +presence were dispelling my ill-humours and crochets. We sealed our +conversation with a kiss and swore never to doubt each other again. E.'s +spell was beginning to act. It is always the same. I cannot resist the +actual presence of this woman. Out of her sight, I can in cold blood +plan a brutal rupture. I can pay her a visit when the first kiss is a +duty and the embrace a formality. But after 5 minutes I am as passionate +and devoted as before. It is always thus. After leaving her, I am angry +to think that once more I have succumbed. + +In the evening we went out into a field and sat together in the grass. +It is beautiful. We lay flat on our backs and gazed up at the sky. + + * * * * * + +S.H. has died of enteric at Malta. In writing to Mrs. H., instead of +dwelling on what a splendid fellow he was I belaboured the fact that I +still remembered our boyish friendship in every detail and still kept +his photo on my mantelpiece and altho' "in later years" I didn't suppose +we "had a great deal in common I discovered that a friendship even +between two small boys cannot wholly disappear into the void." +Discussing myself when I ought to have been praising him! Ugh! She will +think what a conceited, puff-breasted Jackanapes. These phrases have +rankled in my mind ever since I dropped the letter into the letter-box. +"Your Stanley, Mrs. H., was of course a very inferior sort of person and +naturally, you could hardly expect me to remain friendly with him but +rest assured I hadn't forgotten him," etc. + +_The Luxury of Lunacy_ + +Yesterday, I read a paper at the Zoological Society about lice. There +was a goodly baldness of sconce and some considerable length of beard +present that listened or appeared to listen to my innocent remarks with +great solemnity and sapience.... I badly wanted to tell them some horrid +stories about human lice but I had not the courage. I wanted to jolt +these middle-aged gentlemen by performing a few tricks but I am too +timid for such adventures. But before going to sleep I imagined a +pandemonium in which with a perfectly glacial manner I produced lice +alive from my pockets, conjured them down from the roof in a rain, with +the skilful sleight of hand drew them out of the chairman's beard, made +the ladies scream as I approached, dared to say they were all lousy and +unclean and finished up with an eloquent apostrophe after the manner of +Thomas de Quincey (and of Sir Walter Raleigh before him) beginning: + +"O just, subtle and eloquent avenger, pierce the hides of these +abominable old fogies, speckle their polished calvaria with the scarlet +blood drops...." + +But I hadn't the courage. Shelley in a crowded omnibus suddenly burst +out: "O let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the deaths of +Kings, etc." I've always wanted to do something like that and when I +have £5 to spare I hope to pull the communication cord of an express +train--my hands tingle as often as I look at it. Dr. Johnson's courage +in tapping the lamp-posts is really everyone's envy tho' we laugh at him +for it and say, green-eyed, that he was mad. In walking along the +pavement, I sometimes indulge myself in the unutterable, deeply rooted +satisfaction of stepping on a separate flagstone where this is possible +with every stride. And if this is impossible or not easy, there arises +in me a vague mental uneasiness, some subconscious suspicion that the +world is not properly geometrical and that the whole universe perhaps is +working out of truth. I am also rather proud of my courageous +self-surrender to the daemon of laughter, especially in those early days +when H. and I used to sit opposite one another and howl like hyenas. +After the most cacophonous cachinnations as soon as we had recovered +ourselves he or I would regularly remark in serious and confidential +tones, "I say--we _really_ are going mad." But what a delightful luxury +to be thus mad amid the great, spacious, architectural solemnity with +gargoyles and effigies of a scientific meeting! Some people never do +more than chuckle or smile--and they are often very humorous happy +people, ignorant nevertheless of the joy of riding themselves on the +snaffle and losing all control. + +While boating on ---- last summer, we saw two persons, a man and a girl +sitting together on the beach reading a book with heads almost touching. + +"I wonder what they're reading?" I said, and I was dying to know. We +made a few facetious guesses. + +"Shall I ask?" + +"Yes, do," said Mrs. ----. + +The truth is we all wanted to know. We were suddenly mad with curiosity +as we watched the happy pair turning over leaf after leaf. + +While R---- leaned on his oars, I stood up in the boat and threatened to +shout out a polite enquiry--just to prove that the will is free. But +seeing my intention the boat-load grew nervous and said seriously, "No," +which unnerved me at the last moment so I sat down again. Why was I so +afraid of being thought a lunatic by two persons in the distance whom I +had never seen and probably would never see again? Besides I _was_ a +lunatic--we all were. + +In our post-prandial perambulations about S. Kensington G---- and I +often pass the window of a photographer's shop containing always a +profusion of bare arms, chests, necks, bosoms belonging to actresses, +aristocrats and harlots--some very beautiful indeed. Yet on the whole +the window annoys us, especially one picture of a young thing with an +arum lily (ghastly plant!) laid exquisitely across her breast. + +"Why do we suffer this?" I asked G----, tapping the window ledge as we +stood. + +"I don't know," he answered lamely--morose. (Pause while the two +embittered young men continue to look in and the beautiful young women +continue to look out.) + +Thoroughly disgruntled I said at last: "If only we had the courage of +our innate madness, the courage of children, lunatics and men of genius, +we should get some stamp paper, and stick a square beneath each +photograph with our comments." + +Baudelaire describes how he dismissed a glass vendor because he had no +coloured glasses--"glasses of rose and crimson, magical glasses, glasses +of Paradise"--and, stepping out on to his balcony, threw a flowerpot +down on the tray of glasses as soon as the man issued into the street +below, shouting down furiously, "The Life Beautiful! The Life +Beautiful." + +Bergson's theory is that laughter is a "social gesture" so that when a +man in a top hat treads on a banana skin and slips down we laugh at him +for his lack "of living pliableness." At this rate we ought to be +profoundly solemn at Baudelaire's action and moreover a "social gesture" +is more likely to be an expression of society's will to conformity in +all its members rather than any dangerous "living pliableness." Society +hates living pliableness and prefers drill, routine, orthodoxy, +conformity. It hated the living pliableness of Turner, of Keats, of +Samuel Butler and a hundred others. + +But to return to lunacy: the truth is we are all mad fundamentally and +are merely schooled into sanity by education. Pascal wrote: "Men are so +necessarily mad that not to be mad would amount to another form of +madness." And, in fact, the man who has succeeded in extirpating this +intoxication of life is usually said to be "temporarily insane." In +those melancholy interludes of sanity when the mind becomes rationalised +we all know how much we have been deceived and gulled, what an +extraordinary spectacle humanity presents rushing on in noise and tumult +no one knows why or whither. Look at that tailor in his shop--why does +he do it? Some day in the future he thinks he will.... But the day +never comes and he is nevertheless content. + +_May_ 30. + +A brilliantly sunny day. This funny old farm-house where we are staying +quite delights me. It is pleasant, too, to dawdle over dressing, to put +away shaving tackle for a day or so, to jump out of bed in the morning +and thrust my head out of the window into the fresh and stock-scented +air of the garden, listen to the bird chorus or watch a "scrap" in the +poultry-run. Then all unashamed, I dress myself before a dear old lady +in a flowery print gown concealing 4 thin legs and over the top of the +mirror a piece of lace just like a bonnet, caught up in front by a +piece of pink ribbon. On the walls Pear's Soap Annuals, on a side table +_Swiss Family Robinson_ and _Children of the New Forest_. Then there are +rats under the floors, two wooden staircases which wind up out of sight, +two white dairies, iron hapses on all the doors and a privy at the top +of the orchard. (Tell me--how do you explain the psychosis of a being +who on a day must have seized hammer and nail and an almanac picture of +a woman in the snow with a basket of goodies--"An Errand of +Mercy"--carried all three to the top of the orchard and nailed the +picture up on the dirty wall in the semi-darkness of an earth-closet?) + +Got up quite early before breakfast and went birds'-nesting.... It would +take too long and be too sentimental for me to record my feelings on +looking into the first nest I found--a Chaffinch's, the first wild +bird's eggs I have seen for many years. As I stood with an egg between +thumb and forefinger, my memories flocked down like white birds and +surrounded me. I remained still, fed them with my thoughts and let them +perch upon my person--a second St. Francis of Assisi. Then I shoo'ed +them all away and prepared for the more palpitating enjoyment of to-day. + +After breakfast we sat in the Buttercup field--my love and I--and +"plucked up kisses by the roots that grew upon our lips." The sun was +streaming down and the field thickly peopled with Buttercups. From where +we sat we could see the whole of the valley below and Farmer Whaley--a +speck in the distance--working a machine in a field. We watched him +idly. The gamekeeper's gun went off in one of the covers. It was jolly +to put our heads together right down deep in the Buttercups and +luxuriously follow the pelting activities of the tiny insects crawling +here and there in the forest of grass, clambering over a broken blade +athwart another like a wrecked tree or busily enquiring into some low +scrub at the roots. A chicken came our way and he seemed an enormous +bird from the grass-blade's point of view. How nice to be a chicken in +a field of Buttercups and see them as big as Sunflowers! or to be a +Gulliver in the Beech Woods! to be so small as to be able to climb a +Buttercup, tumble into the corolla and be dusted yellow or to be so big +as to be able to pull up a Beech-tree with finger and thumb! If only a +man were a magician, could play fast and loose with rigid Nature? what a +multitude of rich experiences he could discover for himself! + +I looked long and steadily this morning at the magnificent torso of a +high forest Beech and tried to project myself into its lithe tiger-like +form, to feel its electric sap vitalising all my frame out to the tip of +every tingling leaf, to possess its splendid erectness in my own bones. +I could have flung my arms around its fascinating body but the austerity +of the great creature forbad it. Then a Hawk fired my ambition!--to be a +Hawk, or a Falcon, to have a Falcon's soul, a Falcon's heart--that +splendid muscle in the cage of the thorax--and the Falcon's pride and +sagacious eye![3] + +When the sun grew too hot we went into the wood where waves of Bluebells +dashed up around the foot of the Oak in front of us.... I never knew +before, the delight of offering oneself up--an oblation of one's whole +being; I even longed for some self-sacrifice, to have to give up +something for her sake. It intoxicated me to think I was making another +happy.... + +After a lunch of scrambled eggs and rhubarb and cream went up into the +Beech Wood again and sat on a rug at the foot of a tree. The sun +filtered in thro' the greenery casting a "dim, religious light." + +"It's like a cathedral," I chattered away, "stained glass windows, +pillars, aisles--all complete." + +"It would be nice to be married in a Cathedral like this," she said. +"At C---- Hall Cathedral, by the Rev. Canon _Beech_...." + +"Sir Henry Wood was the organist." + +"Yes," she said, "and the Rev. Blackbird the precentor." + +We laughed over our silliness! + +Shrew-mice pattered over the dead leaves and one came boldly into view +under a bramble bush--she had never seen one before. Overhead, a ribald +fellow of a Blackbird whistled a jaunty tune. E---- laughed. "I am sure +that Blackbird is laughing at us," she said. "It makes me feel quite +hot." + +This evening we sat on the slope of a big field where by lowering our +eyes we could see the sun setting behind the grass blades--a very pretty +sight which I do not remember ever to have noted before. A large blue +_Carabus_ beetle was stumbling about, Culvers cooed in the woods near +by. It was delightful to be up 600 feet on a grassy field under the +shadow of a large wood at sunset with my darling. + +_May_ 31. + +Sitting at tea in the farm house to-day E---- cried suddenly, pointing +to a sandy cat in the garden: + +"There,--he's the father of the little kittens in the barn and I'll tell +you how we know. P---- noticed the kittens had big feet and later on saw +that old Tom stalking across the garden with big feet of exactly the +same kind." + +"So you impute the paternity of the kittens to the gentleman under the +laurel bushes?" + +I looked at the kittens to-night and found they had extra toes. "Mr. +Sixtoes," as W---- calls him also possesses six toes, so the +circumstantial evidence looks black against him. + +_June_ 1. + +In the Beech Wood all the morning. Heigh-ho! it's grand to lie out as +straight as a line on your back, gaze upwards into the tree above, and +with a caressing eye follow its branches out into their multitudinous +ramifications forward and back--luxurious travel for the tired eye. ... +Then I would shut my eyes and try to guess where her next kiss would +descend. Then I opened my eyes and watched her face in the most +extravagant detail, I counted the little filaments on her precious mole +and saw the sun thro' the golden down of her throat.... + +Sunlight and a fresh wind. A day of tiny cameos, little _coups +d'œil_, fleeting impressions snapshotted on the mind: the glint on +the keeper's gun as he crossed a field a mile away below us, sunlight +all along a silken hawser which some Spider engineer had spun between +the tops of two tall trees spanning the whole width of a bridle path, +the constant patter of Shrew-mice over dead leaves, the pendulum of a +Bumble-bee in a flower, and the just perceptible oscillation of the tree +tops in the wind. While we are at meals the perfume of Lilac and Stocks +pours in thro' the window and when we go to bed it is still pouring in +by the open lattice. + +_June_ 2. + +Each day I drop a specially selected Buttercup in past the little +"Peeler," at the apex of the "V" to lie among the blue ribbons of her +camisoles--those dainty white leaves that wrap around her bosom like the +petals around the heart of a Rose. Then at night when she undresses, it +falls out and she preserves it. + +In the woods, hearing an extra loud patter on the leaves, we turned our +heads and saw a Frog hopping our way. I caught him and gave an +elementary lesson in Anatomy. I described to her the brain, the pineal +organ in Anguis, Sphenodon's pineal eye, etc. Then we fell to kissing +again.... Every now and then she raises her head and listens (like a +Thrush on the lawn) thinking she hears someone approach. We neither of +us speak much ... and at the end of the day, the nerve endings on my +lips are tingling. + + * * * * * + +Farmer Whaley is a funny old man with a soft pious voice. When he feeds +the Fowls, he sucks in a gentle, caressing noise between his lips for +all the world as if he fed them because he loved them, and not because +he wants to fatten them up for killing. His daughter Lucy, aged 22, +loves all the animals of the farm and they all love her; the Cows stand +monumentally still while she strokes them down the blaze or +affectionately waggles their dewlaps. This morning, she walked up to a +little Calf in the farm-yard scarce a fortnight old which started to +"back" in a funny way, spraddling out its legs and lowering its head. +Miss Lucy laughed merrily and cried "Ah! you funny little thing," and +went off on her way to feed the Fowls who all raced to the gate as soon +as they heard her footsteps. She brought in two double-yolked Ducks' +eggs for us to see and marvel at. In the breakfast room stands a stuffed +Collie dog in a glass case. I'd as soon embalm my grandmother and keep +her on the sideboard. + +I asked young George, the farm-boy, what bird went like this: I whistled +it. He looked abashed and said a Chaffinch. I told Miss Lucy who said +George was a silly boy, and Miss Lucy told Farmer Whaley who said George +ought to know better--it was a Mistle-Thrush. + +The letters are brought us each morning by a tramp with a game leg who +secretes his Majesty's Mails in a shabby bowler hat, the small packages +and parcels going to the roomy tail pocket of a dirty morning coat. A +decayed gentleman of much interest to us. + +_June_ 3. + +We have made a little nest in the wood and I lead her into it by the +hand over the briars and undergrowth as if conducting her to the grand +piano on a concert platform. I kissed her.... + +Then in a second we switch back to ordinary conversation. In an ordinary +conversational voice I ask the trees, the birds, the sky. + +"What's become of all the gold?" + +"What's become of Waring?" + +"What is Love? 'Tis not hereafter." + +"Where are the snows of yesteryear?" + +"Who killed Cock Robin?" + +"Who's who?" + +And so on thro' all the great interrogatives that I could think of till +she stopped my mouth with a kiss and we both laughed. + +"Miss Penderkins," I say. "Miss Penderlet, Miss Pender-au-lait, Miss +Pender-filings." + +What do I mean? she cries. "What's the point of the names? Why take my +name in vain? Why? What? How?" + +She does not know that clever young men sometimes trade on their +reputation among simpler folk by pretending that meaningless remarks +conceal some subtlety or cynicism, some little Attic snap. + + * * * * * + +I have been teaching her to distinguish the songs of different birds and +often we sit a long while in the Cathedral Wood while I say, "What's +that?" and "What's that?" and she tells me. It is delightful to watch +her dear serious face as she listens.... This evening I gave a _viva +voce_ examination as per below: + +"What does the Yellow Hammer say?" + +"What colour are the Hedge Sparrow's eggs?" + +"Describe the Nightjar's voice." + +"How many eggs does it lay?" + +"Oh! you never told me about the Nightjar," she cried outraged. + +"No: it's a difficult question put in for candidates taking honours." + +Then we rambled on into Tomfoolery. "Describe the call-note of a motor +omnibus." "Why does the chicken cross the road?" and "What's +that?"--when a railway engine whistled in the distance. + +Measure by this our happiness! + +_June_ 4. + +At a quarter past eight, this morning, the horse and trap were awaiting +me outside, and bidding her "Goodbye" I got in and drove off--she riding +on the step down so far, as the gate. Then we waved till we were out of +sight. Back in London by 10 a.m. She makes slow progress, poor dear--her +nerves are still very much of a jangle. But I am better, my heart is +less wobbly. + +_June_ 5. + +R---- cannot make me out. He says one day I complain bitterly at not +receiving a Portuguese sonnet once a week, and the next all is well and +Love reigneth. "Verily a Sphinx." + +_June_ 7. + +Spent the afternoon at the Royal Army Medical College in consultation +with the Professor of Hygiene. Amid all the paraphernalia of research, +even when discussing a serious problem with a serious Major, I could not +take myself seriously. I am incurably trivial and always feel myself an +irresponsible youth, wondering and futile, among owlish grown-ups. + +At 4 p.m. departed and went down on Vauxhall Bridge and watched a +flour-barge being unloaded before returning to the Museum. I could +readily hang on behind a cart, stare at an accident, pull a face at a +policeman and then run away. + +_June_ 20. + +... It annoys me to find the _laissez-faire_ attitude of our relatives. +Not one with a remonstrance for us and yet all the omens are against our +marriage. In the state of my nervous system and in the state of hers--we +have both had serious nervous break-downs--how impossible it seems! Yet +they say all the old conventional things to us, about our happiness and +so on!... + +... Am I a moral monster? Surely a man who can combine such calculating +callousness with really generous impulses of the heart is--what? + +The truth is I think I am in love with her: but I am also mightily in +love with myself. One or the other has to give. + +_June_ 25. + +If sometimes you saw me in my room by myself, you would say I was a +ridiculous coxcomb. For I walk about, look out of the window then at the +mirror--turning my head sideways perhaps so as to see it in profile. Or +I gaze down into my eyes--my eyes always impress me--and wonder what +effect I produce on others. This, I believe, is not so much vanity as +curiosity. I know I am not prepossessing in appearance--my nose is +crooked and my skin is blotched. Yet my physique--because it is +mine--interests me. I like to see myself walking and talking. I should +like to hold myself in my hand in front of me like a Punchinello and +carefully examine myself at my leisure. + +_June_ 28. + +Saw my brother A---- off at Waterloo en route for Armageddon. Darling +fellow. He shook hands with P---- and H----, and P---- wished him +"Goodbye, and good luck." Then he held my hand a moment, said "Goodbye, +old man," and for a second gave me a queer little nervous look. I could +only say "Goodbye," but we understand each other perfectly.... It is +horrible. I love him tenderly. + +_June_ 29. + +_Sleep_ + +Sleep means unconsciousness: unconsciousness is a solemn state--you get +it for example from a blow on the head with a mallet. It always +weightily impresses me to see someone asleep--especially someone I love +as to-day, stretched out as still as a log--who perhaps a few minutes +ago was alive, even animated. And there is nothing so welcome, unless it +be the sunrise, as the first faint gleam of recognition in the +half-opened eye when consciousness like a mighty river begins to flow in +and restore our love to us again. + +When I go to bed myself, I sometimes jealously guard my faculties from +being filched away by sleep. I almost fear sleep: it makes me +apprehensive--this wonderful and unknowable Thing which is going to +happen to me for which I must lay myself out on a bed and wait, with an +elaborate preparedness. Unlike Sir Thomas Browne, I am not always so +content to take my leave of the sun and sleep, if need be, into the +resurrection. And I sometimes lie awake and wonder when the mysterious +Visitor will come to me and call me away from this thrilling world, and +how He does it, to which end I try to remain conscious of the gradual +process and to understand it: an impossibility of course involving a +contradiction in terms. So I shall never know, nor will anybody else. + +_July_ 2. + +I've had such a successful evening--you've no idea! The pen simply flew +along, automatically easy, page after page in perfect sequence. My style +trilled and bickered and rolled and ululated in an infinite variety; you +will find in it all the subtlest modulations, inflections and suavities. +My afflatus came down from Heaven in a bar of light like the +Shekinah--straight from God, very God of very God. I worked in a golden +halo of light and electric sparks came off my pen nib as I scratched the +paper. + +_July_ 3. + +_The Clever Young Man_ + +Argued with R---- this morning. He is a type specimen of the clever +young man. We both are. Our flowers of speech are often forced hot-house +plants, paradoxes and cynicisms fly as thick as driving rain and Shaw is +our great exemplar. I could write out an exhaustive analysis of the +clever young man, and being one myself can speak from "inspired sources" +as the newspapers say. + +A common habit is to underline and memorise short, sharp, witty remarks +he sees in books and then on future occasions dish them up for his own +self-glorification. If the author be famous he begins, "As ---- says, +etc." If unknown the quotation is quietly purloined. He is always very +self-conscious and at the same time very self-possessed and very +conceited. You tell me with tonic candour that I am insufferably +conceited. In return, I smile, making a sardonic avowal of my good +opinion of myself, my theory being that as conceit is, as a rule, +implicit and, as a rule, blushingly denied, you will mistake my impudent +confession for bluff and conclude there is really something far more +substantial and honest beneath my apparent conceit. If, on the other +hand, I am conceited, why I have admitted it--I agree with you--but tho' +there is no virtue in the confession being quite detached and +unashamed--still you haven't caught me by the tail. It is very difficult +to circumvent a clever young man. He is as agile as a monkey. + +His principal concern of course is to arouse and maintain a reputation +for profundity and wit. This is done by the simple mechanical formula of +antithesis: if you like winkles he proves that cockles are inveterately +better; if you admire Ruskin he tears him to ribbons. If you want to +learn to swim--as it is safer, he shows it is more dangerous to know how +to swim and so on. I know his whole box of tricks. I myself am now +playing the clever young man by writing out this analysis just as if I +were not one myself. + +You doubt my cleverness? Well, some years ago in R----'s presence I +called ----"the Rev. Fastidious Brisk,"--the nickname be it recalled +which Henley gave to Stevenson (without the addition of "Rev."). At the +time I had no intention of appropriating the witticism as I quite +imagined R---- was acquainted with it. His unexpected explosion of +mirth, however, made me uncomfortably uncertain of this, yet for the +life of me I couldn't muster the honesty to assure him that my feather +was a borrowed one. A few weeks later he referred to it again as +"certainly one of my better ones"--but still I remained dumb and the +time for explanations went for once and all. Now see what a pretty +pickle I am in: the name "Brisk" or "F.B." is in constant use by us for +this particular person--he goes by no other name, meanwhile I sit and +wonder how long it will be before R---- finds me out. There are all +sorts of ways in which he might find out: he might read about it for +himself, someone might tell him or--worst of all--one day when we are +dining out somewhere he will announce to the whole company my brilliant +appellation as a little after-dinner diversion: I shall at once observe +that the person opposite me _knows_ and is about to air his knowledge; +then I shall look sternly at him and try to hold him: he will hesitate +and I shall land him with a left and right: "I suppose you've read +Henley's verses on Stevenson?" I remark easily and in a moment or so +later the conversation has moved on. + +_August_ 1. + +Am getting married at ---- Register Office on September 15th. It is +impossible to set down here all the labyrinthine ambages of my will and +feelings in regard to this event. Such incredible vacillations, doubts, +fears. I have been living at a great rate below surface recently. "If +you enjoy only twelve months' happiness," the Doctor said to me, "it is +worth while." But he makes a recommendation.... At his suggestion E---- +went to see him and from his own mouth learnt all the truth about the +state of my health, to prevent possible mutual recriminations in the +future.[4] To marry an introspective dyspeptic--what a prospect for +her!... I exercise my microscopic analysis on her now as well as on +myself.... This power in me is growing daily more automatic and more +repugnant. It is a nasty morbid unhealthy growth that I want to hide if +I cannot destroy. It amounts to being able at will to switch myself in +and out of all my most cherished emotions; it is like the case in Sir +Michael Foster's _Physiology_ of a man who, by pressing a tumour in his +neck could stop or at any rate control the action of his heart. + +_August_ 2. + +House pride in newly-wed folk, for example, H. and D. to-day at Golder's +Green or the Teignmouth folk, is very trying to the bachelor visitor. +They will carry a chair across the room as tenderly as tho' it were a +child and until its safe transit is assured, all conversation goes by +the board. Or the wife suddenly makes a remark to the husband _sotto +voce_, both thereupon start up simultaneously (leaving the fate of +Warsaw undecided) while you, silenced by this unexpected manœuvre, wilt +away in your chair, the pregnant phrase still-born on your lips. +Presently they re-enter the room with the kitten that was heard in the +scullery or with a big stick used to flourish at a little Tomtit on the +rose tree. _She_ apologises and both settle down again, recompose their +countenances into a listening aspect and with a devastating politeness, +pick up the poor, little, frayed-out thread of the conversation where it +left off with: "Europe? you were saying...." I mobilise my scattered +units of ideas but it is all a little chilly for the lady of the house +if she listens with her face and speaks with her lips--her heart is far +from me: she fixes a glassy eye on the tip of my cigarette, waiting to +see if the ash will fall on her carpet. + +_August_ 6. + +The most intimate and extensive journal can only give each day a +relatively small sifting of the almost infinite number of things that +flow thro' the consciousness. However vigilant and artful a diarist may +be, plenty of things escape him and in any event re-collection is not +re-creation.... + +To keep a journal is to have a secret liaison of a very sentimental +kind. A _journal intime_ is a super-confidante to whom everything is +told and confessed. For an engaged or married man to have a secret +super-confidante who knows things which are concealed from his lady +seems to me to be deliberate infidelity. I am as it were engaged to two +women and one of them is being deceived. The word "Deceit" comes up +against me in this double life I lead, and insists I shall name a plain +thing bluntly. There is something very like sheer moral obliquity in +these entries behind her back.... Is this journal habit slowly +corrupting my character? Can an engaged or married man conscientiously +continue to write his _journal intime_? + +This question of giving up my faithful friend after September I must +consider. + +Of course most men have something to conceal from someone. Most married +men are furtive creatures, and married women too. But I have a Gregers +Werle-like passion for life to be lived on a foundation of truth in +every intercourse. I would have my wife know all about me and if I +cannot be loved for what I surely am, I do not want to be loved for what +I am not. If I continue to write therefore she shall read what I have +written.... + +My Journal keeps open house to every kind of happening in my soul. +Provided it is a veritable autochthon--I don't care how much of a +tatterdemalion or how ugly or repulsive--I take him in and--I fear +sponge him down with excuses to make him more creditable in other's +eyes. You may say why trouble whether you do or whether you don't tell +us all the beastly little subterranean atrocities that go on in your +mind. Any eminently "right-minded" _Times_ or _Spectator_ reader will +ask: "Who in Faith's name is interested in your introspective +muck-rakings--in fact, who the Devil are you?" To myself, a person of +vast importance and vast interest, I reply,--as are other men if I could +but understand them as well. And in the firm belief that whatever is +inexorably true however unpleasant and discreditable (in fact true +things can never lack a certain dignity), I would have you know Mr. +_Times_- and Mr. _Spectator-reader_ that actual crimes have many a time +been enacted in the secrecy of my own heart and the only difference +between me and an habitual criminal is that the habitual criminal has +the courage and the nerve and I have not. What, then, may these crimes +be? Nothing much--only murders, theft, rape, etc. None of them, thank +God; fructify in action--or at all events only the lesser ones. My +outward and visible life if I examine it is merely a series of +commonplace, colourless and thoroughly average events. But if I analyse +myself, my inner life, I find I am both incredibly worse and incredibly +better than I appear. I am Christ and the Devil at the same time--or as +my sister once called me--a child, a wise man, and the Devil all in one. +Just as no one knows my crimes so no one knows of my good actions. A +generous impulse seizes me round the heart and I am suddenly moved to +give a poor devil a £5 note. But no one knows this because by the time I +come to the point I find myself handing him a sixpenny-bit and am quite +powerless to intervene. Similarly my murders end merely in a little +phlegm. + +_August_ 7. + +_Two Adventures_ + +On a 'bus the other day a woman with a baby sat opposite, the baby +bawled, and the woman at once began to unlace herself, exposing a large, +red udder, which she swung into the baby's face. The infant, however, +continued to cry and the woman said,-- + +"Come on, there's a good boy--if you don't, I shall give it to the +gentleman opposite." + +Do I look ill-nourished? + +"'Arma virumque cano,'" a beggar said to me this morning in the High +Street, "or as the boy said, 'Arms and the man with a dog,' mistaking +the verb for the noun. Oh! yes, sir, I remember my Latin. Of course, I +feel it's rather invidious my coming to you like this, but everything is +absolutely 'non est' with me," and so on. + +"My dear sir," I answered expansively, "I am as poor as you are. You at +least have seen better days you say--but I never have." + +He changed in a minute his cringeing manner and rejoined: + +"No, I shouldn't think you had," eyeing me critically and slinking off. + +Am I _so_ shabby? + +_August_ 8. + +By Jove! I hope I live! ... Why does an old crock like myself go on +living? It causes me genuine amazement. I feel almost ashamed of myself +because I am not yet dead seeing that so many of my full-blooded +contemporaries have perished in this War. I am so grateful for being +allowed to live so long that nothing that happens to me except death +could upset me much. I should be happy in a coal mine. + +_August_12. + +Suffering from indigestion. The symptoms include: + +Excessive pandiculation, + +Excessive oscitation, + +Excessive eructation, + +Dyspnœa, + +Sphygmic flutters, + +Abnormal porrigo, + +A desiccated epidermis. + +_August_ 16. + +_Lice or "Creeping Ferlies"_[5] + +I probably know more about Lice than was ever before stored together +within the compass of a single human mind! I know the Greek for Louse, +the Latin, the French, the German, the Italian. I can reel off all the +best remedies for Pediculosis: I am acquainted with the measures adopted +for dealing with the nuisance in the field by the German Imperial Board +of Health, by the British R.A.M.C., by the armies of the Russians, the +French, the Austrians, the Italians. I know its life history and +structure, how many eggs it lays and how often, the anatomy of its +brain and stomach and the physiology of all its little parts. I have +even pursued the Louse into ancient literature and have read old medical +treatises about it, as, for example, the _De Phthiriasi_ of Gilbert de +Frankenau. Mucius the lawgiver died of this disease so also did the +Dictator Scylla, Antiochus Epiphanes, the Emperor Maximilian, the +philosopher Pherecydes, Philip II. of Spain, the fugitive Ennius, +Callisthenes, Alcman and many other distinguished people including the +Emperor Arnauld in 899. In 955, the Bishop of Noyon had to be sewn up in +a leather sack before he could be buried. (See _Des Insectes reputés +venimeux_, par M. Amoureux Fils, Doctor of Medicine in the University of +Montpellier, Paris, 1789.) In Mexico and Peru, a poll-tax of Lice was +exacted and bags of these treasures were found in the Palace of +Montezuma (see Bingley, _Animal Biog_., first edition, iii.). In the +_United Service Magazine_ for 1842 (clix., 169) is an account of the +wreck of the _Wager_, a vessel found adrift, the crew in dire straits +and Captain Cheap lying on the deck--"like an ant-hill." + +So that as an ancient writer puts it, "you must own that for the +quelling of human pride and to pull down the high conceits of mortal +man, this most loathesome of all maladies (Pediculosis) has been the +inheritance of the rich, the wise, the noble and the mighty--poets, +philosophers, prelates, princes, Kings and Emperors." + +In his well-known _Bridgewater Treatise_, the Rev. Dr. Kirby, the Father +of English Entomology, asked: "Can we believe that man in his pristine +state of glory and beauty and dignity could be the receptacle of prey so +loathesome as these unclean and disgusting creatures?" (Vol. I., p. 13). +He therefore dated their creation _after_ the Fall. + +The other day a member of the staff of the Lister Institute called to +see me on a lousy matter, and presently drew some live Lice from his +waistcoat pocket for me to see. They were contained in pill boxes with +little bits of muslin stretched across the open end thro' which the +Lice could thrust their little hypodermic needles when placed near the +skin. He feeds them by putting these boxes into a specially constructed +belt and at night ties the belt around his waist and all night sleeps in +Elysium. He is not married. + +In this fashion, he has bred hundreds from the egg upwards and even +hybridised the two different species! + +In the enfranchised mind of the scientific naturalist, the usual +feelings of repugnance simply do not exist. Curiosity conquers +prejudice. + +_August_ 27. + +Am spending my summer holidays in the Lakes at Coniston with G---- and +R----.... I am simply consumed with pride at being among the mountains +at last! It is an enormous personal success to have arrived at Coniston! + +_August_ 29. + +Climbed a windy eminence on the other side of the Lake and had a +splendid view of Helvellyn--like a great hog's back. It is fine to walk +over the elastic turf with the wind bellowing into each ear and swirling +all around me in a mighty sea of air until I was as clean-blown and +resonant as a sea-shell. I moved along as easily as a disembodied spirit +and felt free, almost transparent. The old earth seemed to have soaked +me up into itself, I became dissolved into it, my separate body was +melted away from me, and Nature received me into her deepest +communion--until, UNTIL I got on the lee side of a hedge where the calm +brought me back my gaol of clay. + +_September_ 1. + +Fourteen days hence I shall be a married man. But I feel most dejected +about it. When I fell down the other day, I believe I slightly concussed +my spinal column, with the result that my 1913 trouble has returned, but +this time on the _left_ side! paralysis and horrible vertigo and +presentiments of sudden collapse as I walk. + +_September_ 2. + +I fear I have been overdoing it in this tempting mountain region. +Walking too far, etc. So I am slacking. It was fortunate I did not get +concussion of the brain--I came within an inch of it: the hair of my +head brushed the ground. + +_A Buxom Rogue in Earthenware_ + +I knocked at the door of Sunbeam Cottage the other morning to know if +they had a boat for hire. The door was promptly opened by a plump, +charming little wench of about 17, and I caught a glimpse of the kitchen +with its gunrack holding two fowling pieces, a grandfather clock in one +corner and a dresser full of blueish china. + +"We don't let our boat out for hire," she answered with a smile so +honest and natural and spontaneous that I was already saying to myself I +had never met with anything like it at all when she stretched up her +bare, dairy-maid arm--strong, creamy and soft, just reached a big key +strung to a wooden block and lying on the top shelf of the dresser and +at once handed it to me with: + +"But you are quite welcome to use it and here is the key to the +boathouse." + +I now felt certain that she was one in a million and thanked her most +awfully. I have never met such swiftly-moving generosity. + +"It's very nice on the Lake just now," she said. "I like to lie in the +boat with a book and let her drift." + +I asked her if she would not come too, but this tight little fairy was +too busy in the house. She is Clara Middleton done in earthenware. + +Subsequently R---- and I often visited the cottage and we became great +friends, her mother showing us some letters she received as a girl from +John Ruskin--a great friend of hers. The gamekeeper himself said that +for his part he could never read Ruskin's books--it was like driving a +springless cart over a rocky road. We all laughed and I said he was +prejudiced in view of the letters which began: "My darling," and +finished up "Yr loving J.R." + +But Mrs. ---- said he had never read them, and Madge (ah! that name!) +said her father had never shewn the least interest in them at which we +laughed again, and the gamekeeper laughed too. He is such a jolly +man--they all are delightfully simple, charming folk and we talked of +Beasts and Birds that live on the mountains. + +_September_ 4. + +Bathed in the Lake from the boat. It was brilliantly fine. R---- dipped +her paddles in occasionally just to keep the boat from grounding. Then I +clambered over the bows and stood up to dry myself in the sun like one +of Mr. Tuke's young men. + +_September_ 7. + +My 26th birthday. In London again. Went straight to the Doctor and +reported myself. I quite expected him to forbid the marriage as I could +scarcely hobble to his house. To my amazement, he apparently made light +of my paralysis, said it was a common accident to bruise the _os +coccyx_, etc. + +_September_ 8. + +Am staying at ---- for a few days to rest and try to be better by that +fateful 11th, when I am married. + +_Later_: My first experience of a Zeppelin raid. Bombs dropped only a +quarter of a mile away and shrapnel from the guns fell on our roof. We +got very pannicky and went into a neighbour's house, where we cowered +down in our dressing-gowns in absolute darkness while bombs exploded and +the dogs barked. + +I was scared out of my life and had a fit of uncontrollable trembling. +Later we rang up ---- and ----, and thank Heavens both are safe. A great +fire is burning in London, judging by the red glare. At midnight sat and +drank sherry and smoked a cigar with Mr. ----, my braces depending from +my trousers like a tail and shewing in spite of dressing-gown. Then went +home and had some neat brandy to steady my heart. H---- arrived soon +after midnight. A motor-omnibus in Whitechapel was blown to bits. Great +scenes in the city. + +_September_ 9. + +Very nervy to-day. Hobbled down the road to see the damage done by the +bombs. + +_September_ 10. + +A swingeing cold in the head thro' running about on the night of the +raid. Too feeble to walk far, so Mrs. ---- went into the town for me and +purchased my wedding-ring, which cost £2 5s. 0d. + + + +[1] 1917. I am now editing my own Journal--bowdlerising my own book! + +[2] A method of collecting insects in winter by shaking moss over white +paper. + +[3] 1917. Cf. Sainte-Beuve's Essay on Maurice de Guérin: "Il aimait à se +répandre et presque à se ramifier dans la Nature. Il a exprimé en mainte +occasion cette sensation diffuse, errante; il y avait des jours ou, dans +son amour ou calme, il enviait la vie forte et muette qui règne sons +l'écorce des chênes; il rêvait à je ne sais quelle métamorphose en +arbre...." + +[4] Cf. 1916, November 6. + +[5] Cf. Burns's poem "On a Louse." + + + + +PART III--MARRIAGE + + +_September_ 12. + +This evening we walked thro' the Churchyard reading tombstone +inscriptions. What a lot of men have had wives! + +I can't make out what has come over folk recently: the wit, wisdom and +irony on the old tombstones have given place to maudlin sentiment and +pious Bible references. Then on the anniversary of the death the custom +among poorer classes is to publish such pathetic doggerel as the +following--cuttings I have taken from time to time from the local +newspaper in ----: + + "Her wish: + + "'Farewell dear brother, Mother, sisters, + My life was passed in love for thee. + Mourn not for me nor sorrow take + But love my husband for my sake + Until the call comes home to thee, + Live thou in peace and harmony.'" + +Again: + + "A day of remembrance sad to recall + But still in my heart he is loved best of all + No matter how I think of him--his name I oft recall; + There is nothing left to answer me but his photo on the wall." + +Or: + + "One year has passed since that sad day, + When one we loved was called away. + God took her home; it was His will, + Forget her?--No, we never will." + +These piteous screeds fill me with loving-kindness and with contempt +alternately in a pendulum-like rhythm. What is the truth about them? Is +the grief of these people as mean and ridiculous as their rhymes? Or is +it a pitiful inarticulateness? Or is it merely vulgar advertisement of +their sorrow? Or does it signify a passionate intention never to +forget?--or a fear of forgetting, the rhymes being used as a fillip to +the memory? Or--most miserable of all--is it just a custom, and one +followed in order to appear respectable in others' eyes? Are they poor +souls? or contemptible fools? + +_September_ 14. + +There is a ridiculous Cocker spaniel at the house where we are staying. +He must have had a love affair and been jilted, or else he's a sort of +village idiot. The landlady says he's not so silly as he looks--but he +looks very silly: he languishes sentimentally, and when we laugh at him +he looks "hurt." To-day we took him up on the Down and it seemed to +brighten him up. Really, he is sane enough, with plenty of commonsense +and good manners. But he is kept at home in the garden so much, lolling +about all day, that as E---- said, having nothing to do, he falls in love. + +The _Saturday Review_ writes: The effect of the "Brides and the Bath" +Case on people with any trace of _nice feeling_ is perhaps not +particularly mischievous, tho' the thing is repulsive and hateful to +them.... To gloat over the details of repulsive horrors, simply _from +motives of curiosity_--this is bad and degrading. + +What a lot of repulsive things the nice refined people who read the +_Saturday Review_ must find in the world just now. For example the War. +"Simply from motives of curiosity." Why certainly, no other than these, +concerning one of the most remarkable murders in the annals of crime. +And murders anyhow are damned interesting--which the _Saturday Review_ +isn't. + +_Chipples_ + +I was surprised to discover the other day that when I talked of Chipples +no one understood what I meant! It proves to be a dialect word familiar +to all residents in Devonshire and designating spring onions. Anyway +you won't find it in Murray's Dictionary; yet etymologically it is an +extremely interesting word and a thoroughly good word with a splendid +pedigree. To wit: + +Italian: Cipollo. + +Spanish: Cebolla. + +French: Ciboule. + +Latin: Cæpulla, dim. of cæpa (_cf_. cive, civot). + +Now how did this pretty little alien manage to settle down among simple +Devon folk? What has been the relation between Italy and--say Appledore, +or Plymouth?[1] + +_October_ 6. + +In London once more, living at her flat and using her furniture. + +_The Chalcidoidea_ + +The Chalcidoidea are minute winged insects that parasitise other +insects, and in the _Memoirs of the Queensland Museum_ (Vol. I., 1912) +you shall find an enormous catalogue of them by a person named Girault +who writes the following dedication: + +"I respectfully dedicate this little portion of work to science, common +sense or true knowledge. I am convinced that human welfare is so +dependent upon science that civilisation would not endure without it, +and that what is meant by progress would be impossible. Also I am +convinced that the great majority of mankind are too ignorant, that +education is too archaic and impractical as looked at from the +standpoint of intrinsic knowledge. There is too little known of the +essential unity of the Universe and of things included, for instance, +man himself. Opinions and prejudices rule in the place of what is +true...." + +Part II. is dedicated to: + +"The genius of mankind, especially to that form of it expressed in +monistic philosophy, whose conceived perception is the highest +attainment reached by man." + +I can only echo Whistler's remark one day as he stood before an +execrably bad drawing "God bless my soul"--uttered slowly and +thoughtfully and then repeated. + +The beauty of it is that the Editor adds a serious footnote, +dissociating himself, and a Scarabee to whom I shewed the Work, read it +with a clouded brow and then said: "I think it rather out of place in a +paper of this sort." (Tableau.) + +_October_ 12. + +Down with influenza. + +_October_ 13. + +A Zeppelin raid last night. I am down with a temperature, but our little +household remained quite calm, thank God. We heard guns going off, and I +had a fit of trembling as I lay in bed. Many dead of heart failure owing +to the excitement. + +_October_ 14. + +Still in bed. No raid last night. There were two raids on Wednesday, one +at 9.30, and another at midnight. The first time the caretaker of the +flats came up very alarmed to say "Zeppelins about," so we put out the +lights. Then at midnight when everyone else was asleep I heard a big +voice shout up from the street: "Lights out there. They're about again." +Lay still in bed and waited. Distant gunfire. + +_October_ 17. + +Bad heart attack. + +_October_ 18. + +Heart intermits. Every three or four minutes. M---- said that I ought to +be getting used to it by now! Phew!! Very nervy and pusillanimous. +Taking strychnine in strong doses. I hope dear E---- does not catch the +'flu. She swallows quinine with large hopes. + +_October_ 19. + +Staying at R----. Had a ghastly journey down, changing trains twice at +Clapham Junction and at Croydon, heart intermitting all the time in +every position. Poor E---- with me. To-day surprised to find myself still +alive. + +_October_ 20. + +Better to-day. After much persuasion, I have got E---- to let the flat so +that we can get away into the country outside the Zeppelin zone. + +_October_ 24. + +Back in London again. Am better, bolstered up with arsenic and +strychnine. Too nervously excited to do any work. + +_October_ 25. + +The letting of our flat is now in the hands of an agent, and E----, poor +dear, is quite resigned to abandoning all her precious wallpapers, etc. + +_November_ 7. + +The flat is let and we are now living in rooms at ----, 20 miles out of +London, to the Westward. + +_November_ 8. + +It is a great relief to be down in the country. Zeppelins terrify me. +Have just had a delightful experience in reading Conrad's new book, +_Victory_--a welcome relief from all the tension of the past two months. +To outward view, I have been merely a youth getting married, catching +the 'flu and giving up a London flat. + +Inwardly, I have been whizzing around like a Catherine Wheel. Consider +the items: + +Concussion of the spine. + +Resulting paralysis of left leg ten days before marriage. + +Zeppelin raid (heard a cannon go off for the first time). + +Severe cold in the head day before marriage (and therefore wild +anxiety). + +Successful marriage with abatement of cold. + +Return to our home. + +Ten days later, down with influenza. + +A second Zeppelin raid. + +Bad heart attack. + +Then flat sub-let and London evacuated. + +The record nauseates me. I am nauseated with myself and my +self-centredness.... Suppose I have been "whizzing" as I call it--what +then? They are but subjective trifles--meanwhile other men are seeing +great adventures in Gallipoli and elsewhere. "The _Triumph_ is gone," +exclaimed the Admiral who in a little group of naval officers on board +the flagship had been watching H.M.S. _Triumph_ sink in the Ægean. He +shuts his telescope with a click and returns in great dudgeon to his own +quarters. How I envy all these men who are participating in this +War--soldiers, sailors, war correspondents--all who live and throb and +are not afraid. I am a timid youth, anæmic, wear spectacles, and am +frightened by a Zep raid! How humiliating. I hate myself for a +white-livered craven: I am suffocated for want of more life and courage. +My damnable body is slowly killing off all my spirit and buoyancy. Even +my mind is becoming blurred. My memory is like an old man's exactly. +(Ask ----.) + + * * * * * + +Yet thro' all my nausea, here I remain happy to discuss myself and my +little mishaps. I'm damned sick of myself and all my neurotic +whimperings, and so I hereby and now intend to lead a new life and throw +this Journal to the Devil. I want to mangle it, tear it to shreds. You +smug, hypocritical readers! you'll get no more of me. All you say I know +is true before you say it and I know _now_ all the criticism you are +going to launch. So please spare yourself the trouble. You cannot +enlighten me upon myself. I _know_. I disgust myself--and you, and as +for you, you can go to the Devil with this Journal. + +_Finis_ + +_November_ 27. + +To-day, armed with a certificate from my Doctor in a sealed envelope and +addressed "to the Medical Officer examining Mr. W.N.P. Barbellion," I +got leave to attend the recruiting office and offer my services to my +King and Country. At the time, the fact that the envelope was sealed +caused no suspicion and I had been comfortably carrying the document +about in my pocket for days past. + +Of course I attended merely as a matter of form under pressure of the +authorities, as I knew I was totally unfit--but not quite _how_ unfit. +After receiving this precious certificate, I learnt that K---- was +recruiting Doctor at W----, and he offered to "put me thro' in five +minutes," as he knows the state of my health. So at a time agreed upon, +I went to-day and was immediately rejected as soon as he had +stethoscoped my heart. The certificate therefore was not needed, and +coming home in the train I opened it out of curiosity.... + +I was quite casual and thought it would be merely interesting to see +what M---- said. + +It was. + +"Some 18 months ago," it ran, "Mr. Barbellion shewed the just visible +symptoms of ---- ----" and altho' this fact was at once communicated to +my relatives it was withheld from me and M---- therefore asked the M.O. +to respect this confidence and to reject me without stating on what +grounds. He went on to refer to my patellar and plantar reflexes, by +which time I had had enough, tore the paper up and flung it out of the +railway carriage window. + +I then returned to the Museum intending to find out what ---- ---- was +in Clifford Allbutt's System of Medicine. I wondered whether it was +brain or heart; and the very thought gave me palpitation. I hope it is +heart--something short and sharp rather than lingering. But I believe it +must be ---- of the brain, the opposite process of softening occurring in +old age. I recall M----'s words to me before geting married: that I had +this "nerve weakness," but I was more likely to succumb to pneumonia +than to any nervous trouble, and that only 12 months' happiness would be +worth while. + + * * * * * + +On the whole I am amazed at the calm way in which I take this news. I +was a fool never to have suspected serious nerve trouble before. Does +dear E---- know? What did M---- tell her when he saw her before our +marriage? + +_November_ 28. + +As soon as I woke up in this clear, country air this morning, I thought: +---- ----. I have decided never to find out what it is. I shall find out +in good time by the course of events. + +A few years ago, the news would have scared me. But not so now. It only +interests me. I have been happy, merry, and quite high-spirited to-day. + +_December_ 5. + +I believe it's creeping paralysis. My left leg goes lame after a short +walk. Fortunately E---- does not take alarm. + +_December_ 17. + +Spent the last two days, both of us, in a state of unrelieved gloom. The +clouds never lifted for a moment--it's awful. I scarcely have spoken a +word.... And eugenically, what kind of an infant would even a Mark +Tapley expect of a father with a medical history like mine, and a mother +with a nervous system like hers?... Could anything be more unfortunate? +And the War? What may not have happened by this time next year? My +health is grotesque. + +_December_ 20. + +I wonder if she knows. I believe she does but I am afraid to broach the +matter in case she doesn't. I think she must know something otherwise +she would show more alarm over my leg, and when I went to the Recruiting +Office she seemed to show no fear whatever lest they took me. Several +times a day in the middle of a talk, or a meal, or a kiss, this problem +flashes thro' my mind. I look at her but find no solution. However--for +the present--the matter is not urgent. + + +[1] The English Dialect Dictionary derives the word from Old French +_chiboule_, and gives a reference to Piers Plowman. Why hasn't such an +old and useful word become a part of the English language like others +also brought over at the time of the Norman Conquest? + + + + +1916 + + +_February_ 1. + +Since I last wrote--a month ago--I have recovered my buoyancy after a +blow which kept me under water so long I thought I should never come up +and be happy again.... I was reciting my woes to R----, and gaining +much relief thereby, when we espied another crony on the other side of +the street, crossed over at once, bandied words with him and then walked +on, picking up the thread of my lugubrious story just where I had left +off--secretly staggered at my emotional agility. I've got to this +now,--I simply don't care. + +_February_ 2. + +"And she draiglet all her petticoatie, Coming thro' the rye." These +words have a ridiculous fascination for me; I cannot resist their +saccharine, affectionate, nay amorous jingle and keep repeating them +aloud all over the house--as Lamb once kept reciting "Rose Aylmer." + +_February_ 16. + +We took possession of our country cottage to-day: very charming and +overlooking a beautiful Park. + + * * * * * + +Have just discovered the Journal of the De Goncourts and been reading it +greedily. Life has really been a commodity. I am boiling over with +vitality, chattering amiably to everyone about nothing--argumentative, +sanguine, serious, ridiculous. I called old R---- a Rapscallion, a +Curmudgeon, and a Scaramouche, and E---- a trull, a drab, a trollop, a +callet. "You certainly are a unique husband," said that sweet little +lady, and I.... + +With me, one of the symptoms of delirium is always a melodramatic +truculence! I shake my fist in R----'s face and make him explode with +laughing.... The sun to-day, and the great, whopping white clouds all +bellied out, made me feel inside quite a bright young dog wriggling its +body in ecstatic delight let loose upon the green sward. + +"You must come down for a week end," I said to R---- at lunch. "Come down +as soon as you can. You will find every comfort. It is an enormous +house--I have not succeeded in finding my way about it and--it's +dangerous to lose yourself--makes you late for dinner. When you arrive +our gilded janitor will say: 'I believe Mr. Barbellion is in the +library.'" + +"Black eunuchs wait on you at dinner, I suppose," R---- rejoined. + +"Oh! yes and golden chandeliers and a marble stair-case--all in barbaric +splendour." + +"Yes, I shall certainly be glad to come down," said R----, +phlegmatically. + +And so on and so on. Words, idle words all day in a continuous rush. And +I am sure that the match which fired the gun-powder was the discovery of +the De Goncourts' Journal! It's extraordinary how I have been going on +from week to week quite calmly for all the world as if I had read all +the books and seen all the places and done everything according to the +heart's desire. This book has really jolted me out of my complacency: to +think that all this time, I have been dead to so much! Why I might have +died unconscious that the De Goncourts had ever lived and written their +colossal book and now I am aware of it, I am all in a fever to read it +and take it up into my brain: I might die now before I have finished +it--a thought that makes me wild with desire just as I once endured most +awful pangs when I felt my health going, and believed that I might die +before having ever been in love--to die and never to have been in love! +--for an instant at a time this possibility used to make me writhe. + +_March_ 22. + +R---- has an unpleasant habit of making some scarifying announcement +drawing forth an explosive query from me and then lapsing at once into +an eleusinian silence: he appears to take a sensuous pleasure in the +pause that keeps you expectant. I could forgive a man who keeps you on +tenterhooks for two puffs in order to keep his pipe alight, but +R---- shuts up out of sheer self-indulgence and goes on gazing at the +horizon with the eyes of a seer (he thinks) trying to cod me he sees a +portent there only revealed to God's elect. + +I told him this in the middle of one of his luxurious silences. "I will +tell you," he said deliberately, "when we reach the Oratory." (We were +in Brompton Road.) + +"Which side of it?" I enquired anxiously. "This or that?" + +"That," said he, "will depend on how you behave in the meantime." + +_April_ 3. + +We met a remarkable Bulldog to-day in the street, humbly following +behind a tiny boy to whom it was attached by a piece of string. At the +time we were following in the wake of three magnificent Serbian +Officers, and I was particularly interesting myself in the curious cut +of their top boots. But the Bulldog was the Red Herring in our path. + +"Is that a Dog?" I asked the little boy. + +He assured me that it was, and so it turned out to be, tho' Bull-frog +would have been a better name for it, the forelegs being more bandied, +the back broader and the mouth wider than in any Bulldog I have ever +seen. It was a super-Bulldog. + +We turned and walked on. "There," said R----, "now we have lost our +Serbian Officers." + +_April_ 4. + +"May I use your microscope?" he asked. + +"By all means," I said with a gesture of elaborate politeness. + +He sat down at my table, in my chair, and used my instrument--becoming +at once absorbed and oblivious to my banter as per below: + +"As Scotchmen," I said, "are monuments rather than men, this latest raid +on Edinboro's worthy inhabitants must be called vandalism rather than +murder." + +No answer. I continued to stand by my chair. + +"How pleased Swift, Johnson, Lamb, and other anti-Caledonians would +be...." + +"Hope you don't mind my occupying your chair a little longer," the +Scotchman said, "but this is a larva, has curious maxillæ...." and his +voice faded away in abstraction. + +"Oh! no--go on," I said, "I fear it is a grievous absence of hospitality +on my part in not providing you with a glass of whiskey. Can I offer you +water, Sir?" + +No answer. + +Another enthusiast ushered himself in, was greeted with delight by the +first and invited to sit down. I pulled out a chair for him and said: + +"Shave, sir, or hair cut?" + +"If you follow along to the top of the galea," No. I droned on +imperturbably, "you will...." etc. + +I got tired of standing and talking to an empty house but at last they +got up, apologising and making for the door. + +I entreated them not to mention the matter--my fee should be nominal--I +did it out of sheer love, etc. + +They thanked me again and would have said more but I added blandly: + +"You know your way out?" They assured me they did (having worked in the +place for 30 years and more)--I thanked God--and sat down to my table +once more. + +(These reports of conversations are rather fatuous: yet they give an +idea of the sort of person I have to deal with, and also the sort of +person I am among this sort of person.) + +_April_ 6. + +_The Housefly Problem_--1916 + +For weeks past we have all been in a terrible flutter scarcely +paralleled by the outbreak of Armageddon in August, 1914. The spark +which fired almost the whole building was a letter to the _Times_ +written by Dr. ----, making public an ignominious confession of +ignorance on the part of Entomologists as to how the Housefly passed the +winter. In reply, many correspondents wrote to say they hibernated, and +one man was even so temerarious as to quote to us Entomologists the +exact Latin name of the Housefly: viz., _Musca domestica_. We asked for +specimens and enormous numbers of flies at once began to arrive at the +Museum, alive and dead--and not a Housefly among them! So there was a +terrible howdedo. + +One of the correspondents was named "Masefield." "Not Masefield the +poet?" an excited dipterist asked. I reassured him. + +"I've a good mind," said Dr. ----, "to reply to this chap who's so +emphatic and give him a whigging--only he's climbing down a bit in this +second letter in to-day's issue." I strongly advocated clemency. + +But still the affair goes on. Every morning sees more letters and more +flies sent by all sorts of persons--we seem to have set the whole world +searching for Houseflies--Duchesses, signalmen, farmers, footmen. Every +morning each fresh batch of flies is mounted on pins by experts in the +Setting Room, and an Assistant's whole time is devoted to identifying, +arranging, listing and reporting upon the new arrivals. At the last +meeting of the Trustees a sample collection was displayed to show +indubitably that the insects which hibernate in houses are not _Musca +domestica_ but _Pollenia rudis_. I understand the Trustees were +appreciative. + +An observant eye can now discover state visits to our dipterists from +interested persons carrying their flies with them, animated discussions +in the corridor, knots of excited enthusiasts in the Lavatory, in the +Library, everywhere--and everywhere the subject discussed is the same: +How does the Housefly pass the winter? As one passes one catches: "In +Bakehouses certainly they are to be found but...." or a wistful voice, +"I wish I had caught that one in my bathroom three winters ago--I am +certain it was a Housefly." The Doctor himself--a gallant +Captain--wanders from room to room stimulating his lieutenants to make +suggestions, and examining every answer to the great interrogative on +its merits, no matter how humble or insignificant the person who makes +it. Then of an afternoon he will entirely disappear, and word goes round +that he has set forth to examine a rubbish heap in Soho or Pimlico. As +the afternoon draws to its close someone enquires if he has come back +yet; next morning a second asks if I had seen him, then a third +announces mournfully that he has just been holding conversation with +him, but that nothing at all was found in the rubbish heap. + +The great sensation of all occurred last week when somebody ran along +the corridor crying that Mr. ---- had just found a Housefly in his room. +We were all soon agog with the news, and the excited Captain was +presently espied setting out for the scene of operations with a killing +bottle and net. The insect was promptly impounded and identified as a +veritable _Musca domestica_. A consultation being held to sit on the +body, a lady finally laid information that two "forced Houseflies" +hatched the day before had escaped from her possession. She suggested +Mr. ----'s specimen was one of them. + +"How would it get from your room to Mr. ----'s?" she + +was immediately asked. And breathless, we all heard her answer +deliberately and quite audibly that the fugitive may have gone out of +her window, up the garden and in by Mr. ----'s window, _or_ it may have +gone out of her door, up the corridor and in by his door. I wanted to +know why it should have entered Mr. ----'s room as he is not a dipterist +but a microlepidopterist. They looked at me sternly and we slowly +dispersed. + +This morning, the Dr. came to me with a newspaper cutting in his hand, +saying, "_The Times_ is behindhand." He handed me the slip. It was a +clipping from to-day's _Times_ about a sackful of flies which had been +taken from Wandsworth Clock Tower in a state of hibernation. + +"Behindhand?" I asked timidly, for I felt that all the story was not in +front of me. + +"Why, yes. Don't you know?" + +I knew nothing, but was prepared for anything. + +"_The Star_, two days ago," he informed me, "had a paragraph about +this--headed 'Tempus fugit' "--this last in a resentful tone as tho' the +frivolous reporter were attempting to discredit our mystery. + +There was a long pause. Neither of us spoke. Then he slowly said: + +"I wonder why _The Times_ is so behindhand. This is two days late." + +_May_ 5. + +Hulloa, old friend: how are you? I mean my Diary. I haven't written to +you for ever so long, and my silence as usual indicates happiness. I +have been passing thro' an unbroken succession of calm happy days, +walking in the woods with my darling, or doing a little gentle gardening +on coming home in the evening--and the War has been centuries away. +Later on towards bedtime, E---- reads Richard Jefferies, I play Patience +and Mrs. ---- makes garments for Priscilla. + +The only troubles have been a chimney which smokes and a neighbour's dog +which barks at night. So to be sure, I have made port after storm at +last--and none too soon. To-day my cheerfulness has been rising in a +crescendo till to-night it broke in such a handsome crest of pure +delight that I cannot think of going to bed without recording it. + +_Pachmann_ + +After sitting on the wall around the fountain in the middle of Trafalgar +Square, eating my sandwiches and feeding the Pigeons with the crumbs, I +listened for a moment to the roar of the traffic around three sides of +the Square as I stood in the centre quite alone, what time one fat old +pigeon, all unconcerned, was treading another. It was an extraordinary +experience: motor horns tooted incessantly and it seemed purposelessly, +so that one had the fancy that all London was out for a joy-ride--it was +a great British Victory perhaps, or Peace Day. + +Then walked down Whitehall to Westminster Bridge in time to see the 2 +o'clock boat start upstream for Kew. I loitered by the old fellow with +the telescope who keeps his pitch by Boadicea: I saw a piper of the +Scots Guards standing near gazing across the river but at nothing in +particular--just idling as I was. I saw another man sitting on the stone +steps and reading a dirty fragment of newspaper. I saw the genial, +red-faced sea-faring man in charge of the landing stage strolling up and +down his small domain,--chatting, jesting, spitting, and making fast a +rope or so. Everything was _alive_ to the finger tips, vividly shining, +pulsating. + +Arrived at Queen's Hall in time for Pachmann's Recital at 3.15.... As +usual he kept us waiting for 10 minutes. Then a short, fat, middle-aged +man strolled casually on to the platform and everyone clapped +violently--so it was Pachmann: a dirty greasy looking fellow with long +hair of dirty grey colour, reaching down to his shoulders and an ugly +face. He beamed on us and then shrugged his shoulders and went on +shrugging them until his eye caught the music stool, which seemed to +fill him with amazement. He stalked it carefully, held out one hand to +it caressingly, and finding all was well, went two steps backwards, +clasping his hands before him and always gazing at the little stool in +mute admiration, his eyes sparkling with pleasure, like Mr. Pickwick's +on the discovery of the archeological treasure. He approached once more, +bent down and ever so gently moved it about 7/8ths of an inch nearer +the piano. He then gave it a final pat with his right hand and sat down. + +He played Nocturne No. 2, Prelude No. 20, a Mazurka and two Etudes of +Chopin and Schubert's Impromptu No. 4. + +At the close we all crowded around the platform and gave the queer, +old-world gentleman an ovation, one man thrusting up his hand which +Pachmann generously shook as desired. + +As an encore he gave us a Valse--"Valse, Valse," he exclaimed +ecstatically, jumping up and down in his seat in time to the music. It +was a truly remarkable sight: on his right the clamorous crowd around +the platform; on his left the seat holders of the Orchestra Stalls, +while at the piano bobbed this grubby little fat man playing divine +Chopin divinely well, at the same time rising and falling in his seat, +turning a beaming countenance first to the right and then to the left, +crying, "Valse, Valse." He is as entertaining as a tumbler at a variety +hall. + +As soon as he had finished, we clapped and rattled for more, Pachmann +meanwhile standing surrounded by his idolaters in affected despair at +ever being able to satisfy us. Presently he walked off and a scuffle was +half visible behind the scenes between him and his agent who sent him in +once more. + +The applause was wonderful. As soon as he began again it ceased on the +instant, and as soon as he left off it started again +immediately--nothing boisterous or rapturous but a steady, determined +thunder of applause that came regularly and evenly like the roar from +some machine. + +_May_ 20. + +Spent a quiet day. Sat at my escritoire in the Studio this morning +writing an Essay, with a large 4-fold window on my left, looking on to +woods and fields, with Linnets, Greenfinches, Cuckoos calling. This +afternoon while E---- rested awhile I sat on the veranda in the sun and +read _Antony and Cleopatra_.... Yes, I'm in harbour at last. I'd be the +last to deny it but I cannot believe it will last. It's too good to +last and it's all too good to be even true. E---- is too good to be +true, the home is too good to be true, and this quiet restful existence +is too wonderful to last in the middle of a great war. It's just a +little deceitful April sunshine, that's all....[1] + +Had tea at the ----. A brilliant summer's evening. Afterwards, we +wandered into the garden and shrubbery and sat about on the turf of the +lawn, chatting and smoking. Mr. ---- played with a rogue of a white +Tomcat called Chatham, and E---- talked about our neighbour, "Shamble +legs," about garden topics, etc. Then I strolled into the drawing-room +where Cynthia was playing Chopin on a grand piano. Is it not all +perfectly lovely? + +How delicious to be silent, lolling on the Chesterfield, gazing +abstractedly thro' the lattice window and listening to the lulling +charities of Nocturne No. 2, Op. 37! The melody in the latter part of +this nocturne took me back at once to a cloudless day in an open boat in +the Bay of Combemartin, with oars up and the water quietly and regularly +lapping the gunwales as we rose and fell. A state of the most profound +calm and happiness took possession of me. + +_June_ 2. + +From the local paper: + +"A comrade in the Gloucesters writing to a friend at ---- mentions that +Pte. J---- has been fatally shot in action. J---- was well known here +for years as an especially smart young newsvendor." + +_June_ 3. + +What a bitter disappointment it is to realise that people the most +intimately in love with one another are really separated by such a +distance. A woman is calmly knitting socks or playing Patience while her +husband or sweetheart lies dead in Flanders. However strong the tie that +binds them together yet they are insufficiently _en rapport_ for her to +sense even a catastrophe--and she must wait till the War Office forsooth +sends her word. How humiliating that the War Office must do what Love +cannot. Human love seems then such a superficial thing. Every person is +a distinct egocentric being. Each for himself and the Devil take the +hindmost. "Ah! but she didn't know." "Yes, but she _ought_ to have +known." Mental telepathy and clairvoyance should be common at least to +all lovers. + +This morning in bed I heard a man with a milkcart say in the road to a +villager at about 6.30 a.m., "... battle ... and we lost six cruisers." +This was the first I knew of the Battle of Jutland. At 8 a.m. I read in +the _Daily News_ that the British Navy had been defeated, and thought it +was the end of all things. The news took away our appetites. At the +railway station, the _Morning Post_ was more cheerful, even reassuring, +and now at 6.30 p.m. the Battle has turned into a merely regrettable +indecisive action. We breathe once more. + +_June_ 4. + +It has now become a victory. + +_June_ 11. + +Old systems of Classification: Rafinesc's Theory of Fives, Swainson's +Theory of Sevens, Edward Newman's book called _Sphinx Vespiformis_ +tracing fives throughout the animal world, Sir Thomas Browne's Quincunx, +chasing fives throughout the whole of nature--in the words of Coleridge, +"quincunxes in Heaven above, quincunxes in the Earth below, quincunxes +in the mind of man, in optic nerves, in roots of trees, in leaves, in +everything!" + + * * * * * + +Old false trails: + +The Philosopher's Stone (Balthazar Clæs).[2] + +A universal catholicon (Bishop Berkeley's tar-water). Mystical numbers +(as per above). + + * * * * * + +My father was Sir Thomas Browne and my mother Marie Bashkirtseff. See +what a curious hybrid I am! + + * * * * * + +I toss these pages in the faces of timid, furtive, respectable people +and say: "There! that's me! You may like it or lump it, but it's true. +And I challenge you to follow suit, to flash the searchlight of your +self-consciousness into every remotest corner of your life and invite +everybody's inspection. Be candid, be honest, break down the partitions +of your cubicle, come out of your burrow, little worm." As we are all +such worms we should at least be honest worms. + + * * * * * + +My gratitude to E---- for plucking me out of the hideous miseries of my +life in London is greater than I can express. If I were the cheap hero +of a ladies' novel I should immolate my journals as a token, and you +would have a pretty picture of a pale young man watching his days go up +in smoke by the drawing-room fire. But I have more confidence in her +sterling good sense, and if I cannot be loved for what I am, I do not +wish to be loved for what I am not. + +Since the fateful Nov. 27th, my life has become entirely posthumous. I +live now in the grave and am busy furnishing it with posthumous joys. I +accept my fate with great content, my one-time restless ambition lies +asleep now, my one-time, furious self-assertiveness is anæsthetised by +this great War; the War and the discovery about my health together have +plucked out of me that canker of self-obsession. I sit at home here in +this country cottage in perfect isolation--flattened out by a steam +hammer (tho' it took Armageddon to do it!), yet as cheerful and busy as +a Dormouse laying up store for the winter. For I am almost resigned to +the issue in the knowledge that some day, someone will know, perhaps +somebody will understand and--immortal powers!--even sympathise, "the +quick heart quickening from the heart that's still." + +_July_ 19. + +_Omniscience_ + +An omniscient Caledonian asked me to-day: + +"Where are the Celebes? Are they E. or N.E. of the Sandwich Group?" + +I marked him down at once as my legitimate prey. Sitting back in my +chair, I replied slowly in my most offensive manner: + +"The Island of Celebes is of enormous size and curious shape situated in +the Malay Archipelago." + +The Caledonian made no sign. Instead of grinning at his error and +confessing to a "floater," he endeavoured to carry on by remarking, +"That of course would be N. of Papua," just for all the world as if his +error was a minor one of latitude and longitude. + +Ignoring his comment, I continued: + +"From the Zoogeographical point of view, Celebes is unequalled in +importance, having the strangest fauna almost of any island on the face +of the globe. Then there's 'Wallace's Line,'" I said, being purposely +obscure. + +The Caledonian said nought but "looked hurt." It was so obvious that he +didn't know, and it was so obvious that I knew that he didn't know, that +after my farcical truculence I expected the tension to dissolve in +laughter. Yet it is hard for a Caledonian to say "God be merciful to me, +ignorant devil that I am." So I pursued him with more information about +"Wallace's Line," with an insouciant air, as much as to say, "Wallace's +Line of course you heard discussed before you were breached." + +"Some do say, you know, that the Line is 'all my eye and Betty Martin,' +_e.g._, R----." + +This gave him his first opportunity of finding his feet in this +perilously deep water. So he said promptly, eager to seem knowledgeable +with an intelligent rejoinder: + +"As! yes, R---- is an authority on Fishes." + +I assented. "At the last meeting of the British Ass. he tore the idea to +shreds." + +The drowning Caledonian seized at any straw: + +"Fishes, however, are not of paramount importance in cases of +geographical distribution, are they?" + +I knew he was thinking of _marine_ fishes, but I did not illumine him, +and merely said: + +"Oh! yes, of very great importance," at which he looked still more +"hurt," decamped in silence and left me conqueror of the field but +without the spoils of victory: it was impossible to bring him to say "I +do not know"--four mono-syllables was all I wanted from the man who for +months past has been lecturing me on all things from Music and the Drama +to Philosophy, Painting and--Insects. + +_July_ 20. + +The cradle came a few days ago but I had not seen it until this morning +when I unlocked the cupboard door, looked in and shuddered. + +"That's the skeleton in our cupboard," I said on coming down to +breakfast. She laughed, but I really meant it. + +E---- keeps a blue bowl replenished with flaming Poppies in our room. +The cottage is plagued with Ear-wigs which fly in at night and get among +the clothes and bedlinen. This morning, dressing, she held up her +chemise to the light saying: "I always do this--you can see their little +heathen bodies then against the light...." Isn't she charming? + +_July_ 30. + +The other day R---- and I were sitting on a stile on the uplands in +perfect summer weather and talking of happy days before the War--he was +in khaki and I was resting my "gammy" leg.... As we talked, we let our +eyes roam, resting luxuriously wherever we pleased and occasionally +interrupting the conversation with "Look at that cow scratching herself +against the Oak," or "Do you see the oats waving?" In the distance we +saw a man and a boy walking up towards us along the path thro' the corn, +but the eye having momentarily scrutinised them wandered away and the +conversation never paused. When next I looked, they were much +nearer--crossing the furrows in the potato field in fact, and we both +stopped talking to watch--idly. The boy seemed to be about 10 years old, +and it amused us to see his great difficulty in stepping across the +furrows. + +"Poor little chap," R---- said, and we laughed. + +Then the boy stumbled badly and all at once the man lifted his +walking-stick and beat him, saying ill-naturedly, "Step between the +furrows," and again, "Step between the furrows." Our enchanting little +picture was transfigured in an instant. The "charming little boy" was a +natural idiot--a gross, hefty creature perhaps 30 years of age, very +short and very thick, dressed in a little sailor suit. I said, +"Heavens," and R---- looked positively scared. We stood aside for them +to get over the stile, the "boy" still suffering from his over exertion, +breathing stertorously like a horse pulling uphill and still evidently +fearful of the big stick behind. He scrambled over the stile as best he +could, rolling a wild eye at us as he did so--a large, bulgy eye with +the lower lid swollen and sore, like the eye of a terrified ox on the +way to the slaughter house. So much then for our little picture of +charming childhood! The man followed close at his heels and looked at me +with stern defiant eyes. "Yes, that is my son," his eyes declaimed, "and +I'll thank you to avert your gaze or by the Lord I'll beat you too." + +_A Yellow Cat_ + +Last week, I saw a yellow cat perched up quite high on a window ledge at +the S---- Underground Station in celestial detachment from the crowd of +serious, black-coated gentlemen hustling along to and from the trains. +He had his back turned to us, but as I swept past in the stream, I was +forced to look back a moment, and caught the outline of his whiskers--it +made me smile intensely to myself and secretly I gave the palm to the +cat for wisdom. + +_July_ 31. + +This War is so great and terrible that hyperbole is impossible. And yet +my gorge rises at those fatuous journalists continually prating about +this "Greatest War of all time," this "Great Drama," this "world +catastrophe unparalleled in human history," because it is easy to see +that they are really more thrilled than shocked by the immensity of the +War. They indulge in a vulgar Yankee admiration for the Big Thing. Why +call this shameful Filth by high sounding phrases--as if it were a +tragedy from Euripides? We ought to hush it up, not brag about it, to +mention it with a blush instead of spurting it out brazen-faced. + +Mr. Garvin, for example, positively gloats over the War each week in the +_Observer_: "Last week was one of those pivotal occasions on which +destiny seems to swing"--and so on every week, you can hear him, +historical glutton smacking his lips with an offensive relish. + +For my part, I never seem to be in the same mind about the War twice +following. Sometimes I am wonderstruck and make out a list of all the +amazing events I have lived to see since August, 1914, and sometimes and +more often I am swollen with contempt for its colossal imbecility. And +sometimes I am swept away with admiration for all the heroism of the +War, or by some particularly noble self-sacrifice, and think it is +really all worth while. Then--and more frequently--I remember that this +War has let loose on the world not only barbarities, butcheries and +crimes, but lies, lies, lies--hypocrisies, deceits, ignoble desires for +self-aggrandizement, self-preservation such as no one before ever +dreamed existed in embryo in the heart of human beings. + +The War rings the changes on all the emotions. It twangs all my strings +in turn and occasionally all at once, so that I scarcely know how to +react or what to think. You see, here am I, a compulsory spectator, and +all I can do is to reflect. A Zeppelin brought down in flames that lit +up all London--now that makes me want to write like Mr. Garvin. But a +Foreign Correspondent's eager discussion of "Italy's aspirations in the +Trentino," how Russia insists on a large slice of Turkey, and so forth, +makes me splutter. How insufferably childish to be slicing up the +earth's surface! How immeasureably "above the battle" I am at times. +What a prig you will say I am when I sneer at such contemptible little +devilries as the Bodies' trick of sending over a little note, "Warsaw is +fallen," into our trenches, or as ours in reply: "Gorizia!" + +"There is no difference in principle between the case of a man who loses +a limb in the service of his country and that of the man who loses his +reason, both have an obvious claim to the grateful recognition of the +State."--A morning paper. + +A jejune comment like this makes me grin like a gargoyle! Hark to the +fellow--this leader-writer over his cup of tea. But it is a lesson to +show how easily and quickly we have all adapted ourselves to the War. +The War is everything; it is noble, filthy, great, petty, degrading, +inspiring, ridiculous, glorious, mad, bad, hopeless yet full of hope. I +don't know what to think about it. + +_August_ 13. + +I hate elderly women who mention their legs. It makes me shudder. + + * * * * * + +I had two amusing conversations this morning, one with a jealous old man +of 70 summers who, in spite of his age, is jealous--I can find no other +term--of me in spite of mine, and the other with a social climber. I +always tell the first of any of my little successes and regularly hand +him all my memoirs as they appear, to which he as regularly protests +that he reads very little now. + +"Oh! never mind," I always answer gaily, "you take it and read it going +down in the train--it will amuse you." He submits but is always silent +next time I see him--a little, admonitory silence. Or, I mention I am +giving an address at ----, and he says "Oom," and at once begins his +reminiscences, which I have heard many times before, and am sometimes +tempted to correct him when, his memory failing, he leaves out an +essential portion of his story. Thus do crabbed age and boastful youth +tantalise one another. + +To the social climber I said slyly: + +"You seem to move in a very distinguished entourage during your week +ends." + +He smiled a little self-consciously, hesitated a moment and then said: + +"Oh! I have a few nice friends, you know." + +Now I am sorry, but though I scrutinised this lick-spittle and arch +belly-truck rider very closely, I am quite unable to say whether that +smile and unwonted diffidence meant simple pleasure at the now certain +knowledge that I was duly impressed, or whether it was genuine confusion +at the thought that he had perhaps been overdoing it. + +Curiously enough, all bores of whatever kind make a dead set at me. I am +always a ready listener and my thrusts are always gentle. Hence the +pyramids! I constantly act as phlebotomist to the vanity of the young +and to the anecdotage of the senile and senescent. + +_August_ 13. + +... I stood by his chair and looked down at him, and surveyed carefully +the top of his head, neck, and collar, and with admirable restraint and +calm, considered my most reasonable contempt of him. In perfect silence, +we remained thus, while I looked down at a sore spot in the centre of +his calvarium which he scratches occasionally, and toyed with the fine +flower of my scorn.... But it is a dangerous license to take. One never +knows.... + +_Equilibrium Restored_ + +To clear away the cobwebs and to purge my soul of evil thoughts and +bitter feelings, went for a walk this evening over the uplands. Among +the stubble, I sat down for a while with my back against the corn pook +and listened to the Partridges calling. Then wandered around the edge of +this upland field with the wind in my face and a shower of delicious, +fresh rain pattering down on the leaves and dry earth. Then into a wood +among tall forest Beeches and a few giant Larches where I rested again +and heard a Woodpecker tapping out its message aloft. + +This ramble in beautiful B----shire country restored my mental and +spiritual poise. I came home serene and perfectly balanced--my +equilibrium was something like the just perceptible oscillation of tall +Larch-tree tops on the heights of a cliff and the sea below with a just +perceptible swell on a calm and perfect June day. I felt exquisite +--superb. I could have walked all the way home on a tight rope. + +_September_ 2. + +Just recently, I have been going fairly strong. I get frequent colds and +sometimes show unpleasant nerve symptoms, but I take a course of arsenic +and strychnine every month or so in tabloid form, and this helps me over +bad patches. + +Under the beatific influence of more comfortable health, the rare flower +of my ambition has raised its head once more: my brain has bubbled with +projects. To wit: + +(1) An investigation of the Balancers in Larval Urodeles. + +(2) The Present Parlous State of Systematic Zoology (for "Science +Progress"). + +(3) The Anatomy of the Psocidæ. + +Etc. + +The strength of my ambition at any given moment is the measure of my +state of health. It must really be an extraordinarily tenacious thing to +have hung on thro' all my recent experiences. Considerately enough this +great Crab lets go of my big toe when I am sunk low in health, yet +pinches devilishly hard as now when I am well.[3] + +_A Bad Listener_ + +When I begin to speak, T---- will sometimes interrupt with his loud, +rasping voice. I usually submit to this from sheer lack of lung power or +I may have a sore throat. But occasionally after the fifth or sixth +interruption I lose my equanimity and refuse to give him ground. I keep +straight on with what I intended to say, only in a louder voice; he +assumes a voice louder still, but not to be denied, I pile Pelion on +Ossa and finally overwhelm him in a thunder of sound. For example: + +"The other day"--I begin quietly collecting my thoughts to tell the +story in detail, "I went to the----" + +"Ah! you must come and see my pictures----" he breaks in; but I go on +and he goes on and as I talk, I catch phrases: "St. Peters" or"Michael +Angelo" or "Botticelli" in wondrous antiphon with my own "British +Museum" and "I saw there," "two Syracusan," "tetradrachms," until very +likely I reach the end of my sentence before he does his, or perhaps his +rasp drives my remarks out of my head. But that makes no difference, for +rather than give in I go on improvising in a louder and louder voice +when suddenly, at length made aware of the fact that I am talking too, +he stops! leaving me bellowing nonsense at the top of my voice, thus: +"and I much admired these Syracusan tetradrachms, very charming indeed, +I like them, the Syracusan tetradrachms I mean you know, and it will be +good to go again and see them (louder) if possible and the weather keeps +dry (louder) and the moon and the stars keep in their courses, if the +slugs on the thorn (loudest)----" he stops, hears the last few words of +my remarks, pretends to be appreciative but wonders what in Heaven's +name I can have been talking about. + +_September_ 3. + +This is the sort of remark I like to make: Someone says to me: "You +_are_ a pessimist." + +"Ah! well," I say, looking infernally deep, "pessimism is a good policy; +it's like having your cake and eating it at the same time." + +Chorus: "Why?" + +"Because if the future turns out badly you can say, 'I told you so,' to +your own satisfaction, and if all is well, why you share everyone else's +satisfaction." + +Or I say: "No, I can't swim; and I don't want to!" + +Chorus: "Why?" + +"Because it is so dangerous." + +Chorus: "Why?" + +The Infernally Wise Youth: "For several reasons. If you are a swimmer +you are likely to be oftener near water and oftener in danger than a +non-swimmer. Further, as soon as you can swim even only a little, then +as an honourable man, it behoves you to plunge in at once to save a +drowning person, whereas, if you couldn't swim it would be merely +tempting Providence." + +Isn't it sickening? + +_A Jolt_ + +Yesterday the wind was taken out of my sails. Racing along with +spinnaker and jib, feeling pretty fit and quite excited over some +interesting ectoparasites just collected on some Tinamous, I suddenly +shot into a menacing dead calm: that stiflingly still atmosphere which +precedes a Typhoon. That is to say, my eye caught the title of an +enormous quarto memoir in the _Trans. Roy. Soc._, Edinburgh: The +Histology of ---- ----. + +I was browsing in the library at the time when this hit me like a +carelessly handled gaff straight in the face. I almost ran away to my +room. + + * * * * * + +My Pink Form just received amazes me! To be a soldier? C'est incroyable, +ma foi! The possibility even is distracting! To send me a notice +requesting me to prepare myself for killing men! Why I should feel no +more astonished to receive a War Office injunction under dire penalties +to perform miracles, to move mountains, to raise from the dead: My reply +would be: "I cannot." I should sit still and watch the whole universe +pass to its destruction rather than raise a hand to knife a fellow. This +may be poor, anæmic; but there it is, a positive fact. + + * * * * * + +There are moments when I have awful misgivings: Is this blessed Journal +worth while? I really don't know, and that's the harassing fact of the +matter. If only I were sure of myself, if only I were capable of an +impartial view! But I am too fond of myself to be able to see myself +objectively. I wish I knew for certain what I am and how much I am +worth. There are such possibilities about the situation; it may turn out +tremendously, or else explode in a soap bubble. It is the torture of +Tantalus to be so uncertain. I should be relieved to know even the +worst. I would almost gladly burn my MSS. in the pleasure of having my +curiosity satisfied. I go from the nadir of disappointment to the zenith +of hope and back several times a week, and all the time I am +additionally harassed by the perfect consciousness that it is all petty +and pusillanimous to desire to be known and appreciated, that my +ambition is a morbid diathesis of the mind. I am not such a fool either +as not to see that there is but little satisfaction in posthumous fame, +and I am not such a fool as not to realise that all fame is fleeting, +and that the whole world itself is passing away. + + * * * * * + +I smile with sardonic amusement when I reflect how the War has changed +my status. Before the War I was an interesting invalid. Now I am a lucky +dog. Then, I was a star turn in tragedy; now I am drowned and ignored in +an overcrowded chorus. No valetudinarian was ever more unpleasantly +jostled out of his self-compassion. It is difficult to accustom myself +to the new role all at once: I had begun to lose the faculty for +sympathising in others' griefs. It is hard to have to realise that in +all this slaughter, my own superfluous life has become negligible and +scarcely anyone's concern but my own. In this colossal _sauve-qui-peut_ +which is developing, who can stay to consider a useless mouth? Am I not +a comfortable parasite? And, God forgive me, an Egotist to boot? + +The War is searching out everyone, concentrating a beam of inquisitive +light upon everyone's mind and character and publishing it for all the +world to see. And the consequence to many honest folk has been a keen +personal disappointment. We ignoble persons had thought we were better +than we really are. We scarcely anticipated that the War was going to +discover for us our emotions so despicably small by comparison, or our +hearts so riddled with selfish motives. In the wild race for security +during these dangerous times, men and women have all been sailing so +closehauled to the wind that their eyes have been glued to their own +forepeaks with never a thought for others: fathers have vied with one +another in procuring safe jobs for their sons, wives have been bitter +and recriminating at the security of other wives' husbands. The men +themselves plot constantly for staff appointments, and everyone is +pulling strings who can. Bereavement has brought bitterness and immunity +indifference. + +And how pathetically some of us cling still to fragments of the old +regime that has already passed--like ship-wrecked mariners to floating +wreckage, to the manner of the conservatoire amid the thunder of all +Europe being broken up; to our newspaper gossip and parish teas, to our +cherished aims--wealth, fame, success--in spite of all, _ruat coelum!_ +Mr. A.C. Benson and his trickling, comfortable Essays, Mr. Shaw and his +Scintillations--they are all there as before, revolving like haggard +windmills in a devastated landscape! A little while ago, I read in the +local newspaper which I get up from the country two columns concerning +the accidental death of an old woman, while two lines were used to +record the death of a townsman at the front from an aerial dart. Behold +this poor rag! staggering along under the burden of the War in a +passionate endeavour to preserve the old-time interest in an old woman's +decease. Yet more or less we are all in the same case: I still write my +Journal and play Patience of an evening, and an old lady I know still +reads as before the short items of gossip in the papers, neglecting +articles and leaders.... We are like a nest of frightened ants when +someone lifts the stone. That is the world just now. + +_September_ 5. + +... I was so ashamed of having to fall back upon such ignominious +publications for my literary efforts that on presenting him with two +copies, I told the following lie to save my face: + +"They were two essays of mine left over at the beginning of the War, you +know. My usual channel became blocked so I had to have recourse to +these." + +"Where do you publish as a rule?" he innocently asked. + +"Oh! several in the _Manchester Guardian_," I told him out of vanity. +"But of course every respectable journal now has closed down to +extra-war topics." + +I lie out of vanity. And then I confess to lying--out of vanity too. So +that one way or another I am determined to make kudos out of myself. +Even this last reflection is written down with an excessive appreciation +of its wit and the intention that it shall raise a smile. + +_September_ 9. + +Still nothing to report. The anxiety is telling on us all. The nurse has +another case on the 22nd. + + * * * * * + +I looked at myself in the mirror this morning--nude, a most revolting +picture. An emaciated human being is the most unlovely thing in +creation. Some time ago a smart errand boy called out "Bovril" after me +in the street. + +On my way to the Station met two robust, brawny curates on the way to +the daily weekday service--which is attended only by two decrepit old +women in black, each with her prayer-book caught up to her breast as if +she were afraid it might gallop off. That means a parson apiece--and in +war time too. + +_September_ 10. + +My sympathy with myself is so unfailing that I don't deserve anybody +else's. In many respects, however, this Journal I believe gives the +impression that I behave myself in the public gaze much worse than I +actually do. You must remember that herein I let myself go at a stretch +gallop: in life I rein in, I am almost another person. Would you believe +it, E---- says I am full of quick sympathy with others and +extraordinarily cheerful, nay gay. Verily I lead a curious double +existence: among most people, I pass for a complaisant, amiable, +mealy-mouthed, furry if conceited creature. Here I stand revealed as a +contemptuous, arrogant malcontent. My life has embittered me _an fond_, +I have the crabbed temper of the disappointed man insufficiently +developed yet to be very plainly visible beneath my innate affable, +unassuming, humble, diffident, cheerful characteristics. With fools on +every hand I am becoming insolent, aggressive, self-declamatory. Last +evening came home and got down Robert Buchanan's sonnet, "When He +returns and finds the world so drear," and felt constrained to read it +out to E----. I poured out its acid sentiment with the base revenge of a +vitriol thrower, and then became quiescent. + +It is a helpless feeling, sitting still and watching circumstances +pounding away at my malleable character and moulding it wrongly. + +_September_ 14. + +_An American Neighbour_ + +We have a delightful American neighbour here whose life revolves like +the fly-wheel of an engine. Even when not in eruption his volcanic +energy is always rumbling and can be heard. Seeing he is a globe +trotter, I was surprised to observe his most elaborate precautions for +catching the train and getting a seat when he takes his wife and family +to town. He first of all plants himself and all his property down at a +certain carefully selected point along the platform as if he were in the +wild west lying in wait for a Buffalo. Then as the train comes in, his +eye fixes on an empty compartment as it passes and he dashes off after +it in furious pursuit up the platform, shouting to his family to follow +him. Having lassooed the compartment, squaw and piccaninnies are hustled +in as if there was not a moment to lose, what time the black-coated, +suburban Englishmen look on in pain and silence, and then slowly with +offensive deliberation enter their respective carriages. + +_The Stockbroker_ + +Another neighbour who interests me is mainly notable for his +extraordinary gait. He is a man with a large, round head, a large round, +dissolute looking face and fairly broad shoulders, below which +everything tapers away to a pair of tiny feet neatly booted. These two +little feet are excessively sensitive to road surface--one would say he +had special sense organs on his toes, to judge by the manner in which he +picks out his path along the country road in short, quick, fussy steps: +his feet seem to dissect out the road as if boning a herring. A big +bunion is as good as a sense organ, but his feet are too small and +elegant. + +_September_ 24. + +The second nurse arrived to-day. Great air raid last night of which we +heard nothing, thank God! + +My nerves are giving way under the strain.... One leg (the left) drags +abominably.... We shall want a bath-chair as well as a perambulator. + +Crawled up thro' the path-fields to the uplands and sat in a field in +the sun with my back against a haystack. I was so immobile in my +dejection that Flies and Grass-hoppers came and perched about me. This +made me furious. "I am not dead yet," I said, "get away," and I would +suddenly drive them off.... In horrible dejection.... + +Even my mental powers are disintegrating--that's the rub. Some quite +recent incidents I cannot remember even when reminded of them: they seem +to have passed clean out of my mind--a remarkable sensation this. + +My sensibility is dulled too. It chagrins me to find that my present +plight by no means overwhelms me with anguish as it would have done +once. It only worries me. I am just a worried ox. + +_September_ 26. + +The numbness in my right hand is getting very trying. ... The Baby puts +the lid on it all. Can't you see the sordid picture? I can, and it +haunts me. To be paralysed with a wife and child and no money--ugh! + +Retribution proceeds with an almost mathematical accuracy of measure. It +would necessitate a vernier rather than a chain. There is no mercy in +Cause and Effect. It is inhuman clockwork. Every single act expended +brings one its precise equivalent in return.... + +_September_ 28. + +Still nothing to report. + +I am astonished at the false impression these entries give of myself. +The picture is incomplete anyhow. It represents the cloud of forebodings +over my inner self but does not show the outward front I present to +others. This is one of almost constant gaiety--unforced and quite +natural. Ask E----, who said yesterday I was like a schoolboy. + + "Camerade, I give you my hand! + I give you my love more precious than money, + I give you myself before preaching or law; + Will you give me yourself? Will you come, travel with me? + Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?" + +She cut this out of her copy of Walt Whitman and gave it me soon after +our engagement. It is very precious to me. + +(On Sept. 29th, on the Doctor's advice I went away by the sea alone, my +nerves being all unstrung. For an account of the miseries of this +journey, see Dec. 12th _infra_). + +_October_ 3. + +A wire to say Susan arrived 2.15 p.m. All well. + +_October_ 5. + +Home again with my darling. She is the most wonderful darling woman. Our +love is for always. The Baby is a monster. + +_October_ 23. + +The fact that I can't write, finally bottles me up.[4] Damn! Damn! Damn! +If only I can get my Essay on Journal Writers done. E---- goes on well. +I have a thousand things to say. + +_October_ 27. + +Still awaiting a reprieve. I hate alarming the Doctor--he's such a +cheerful man so I conceal my symptoms, quite a collection by now. + +The prospect of breaking the news to her makes me miserable. I hide away +as much as possible lest she should see. I _must_ speak when she is well +again. + +_October_ 28. + +Life has been very treacherous to me--this, the greatest treachery of +all. But I don't care. I exult over it. Last night I lay awake and +listened to the wind in the trees and was full of exultation. + +Now I can only talk, but nobody to talk to. Shall hire a row of +broomsticks. More and more, the War appears to me a tragic hoax. + +_November_ 1. + +E---- has had a set-back and is in bed again. However sclerotic my nerve +tissue, I feel as flaccid as a jelly. + +My God! how I loathe the prospect of death. + +_November_ 3. + +I must have some music or I shall hear the paralysis creeping. That is +why I lie in bed and whistle. + +"My dear Brown, what am I to do?"[5] (I like to dramatise myself like +that--it is an anodyne). + +I feel as if I were living alone on Ascension Island with the tide +coming up continuously, up and up and up. + +_November_ 6. + +She has known _all_ from the beginning! M---- warned her _not_ to marry +me. How brave and loyal of her! What an ass I have been. I am +overwhelmed with feelings of shame and self-contempt and sorrow for her. +She is quite cheerful and an enormous help. + +_November_ 12. + +What a wreck my existence has become and--dragging down others with me. + +If only I could rest assured that after I am dead these Journals will be +tenderly cared for--as tenderly as this blessed infant! It would be +cruel if even after I have paid the last penalty, my efforts and +sufferings should continue to remain unknown or disregarded. What I +would give to know the effect I shall produce when published! I am +tortured by two doubts--whether these MSS. (the labour and hope of many +years) will survive accidental loss and whether they really are of any +value. I have no faith in either. + +_November_ 14. + +In fits of panic, I keep saying to myself: "My dear Brown, what am I to +do?" But where is Brown? Brown, you devil! where are you? + +... To think how I have acted the Prince to her when really I am only a +beggar! + +_November_ 16. + +A little better and more cheerful: altho' my impregnable colon still +holds out. + +It would be nice if a physician from London one of these days were to +gallop up hotspur, tether his horse to the gate post and dash in waving +a reprieve--the discovery of a cure! + +... I was in an impish mood and said: "Oh! dear, I'm full of misery." + +"Don't be silly," she said, "so am I." + +_November_ 17. + +E---- has been telling me some of her emotions during and after her +fateful visit to my Doctor just before our marriage. He did not spare +her and even estimated the length of my life after I had once taken to +my bed--about 12 months. I remember his consulting room so well--all its +furniture and the photograph of Madam Blavatsky over the door, and I +picture her to myself sitting opposite to him in a sullen silence +listening to the whole lugubrious story. Then she said at last: "All +this won't make any difference to me." She went home to her mother in a +dream, along the streets I have followed so often. I can follow all her +footsteps in imagination and keep on retracing them. It hurts, but I do +so because it seems to make her some amends for my being childishly +unconscious at the time. Poor darling woman--if only I had known! My +instinct was right--I felt in my bones it was wrong to marry, yet here +was M---- urging me on. "You marry," her mother said to her, "I'll stand +by you," which was right royal of her. There followed some trying months +of married life with this white hot secret in her bosom as a barricade +to perfect intimacy; me she saw always under this cloud of crude +disgusting pathos making her say a hundred times to herself: "He doesn't +know;" then Zeppelin raids and a few symptoms began to grow obvious, +until what before she had to take on trust from the Doctor came +diabolically true before her eyes. Thank God that's all over at last. I +know her now for all she is worth--her loyalty and devotion, her courage +and strength. If only I had something to give her in return! something +more than the dregs of a life and a constitutional pessimism. I greatly +desire to make some sacrifice, but I am so poor these days, so very much +a pauper on her charity, there is no sacrifice I can make. Even my life +would scarcely be a sacrifice in the circumstances--it is hard not to be +able to give when one _wants_ to give. + +_November_ 20. + +In the doldrums. Tired of this damnable _far niente_,--I am being gently +smothered under a mountain of feathers. I should like to engage upon +some cold, hard, glittering intellectualism. + +"I want to read Kant," I said. The Baby slept, E---- was sewing and +N---- writing letters. I leaned back in my armchair beside the bookshelf +and began to read out the titles of my books in a loud voice. + +"My dear!" E---- said. + +"I am caressing my past," I answered. "Wiedersheim's _Comparative +Anatomy of Vertebrates_, Smith Woodward's _Vertebrate Palæontology_--why +it's like visiting old prospects and seeing how the moss has grown over +the stones." + +I hummed a comic song and then said: "As I can't burn the house down, I +shall go to bed." + +N----: "You can talk if you like, it won't interfere." + +E----: "He's talking to his besoms." + +"Certainly," I said to N----, absent-mindedly. + +E----: "You ought to have said 'Thank you.'" + +I blew out my cheeks and E---- laughed. + +N----: "How do you spell 'regimental'?" + +I told her--wrongly, and E---- said I was in a devilish mood. + +"If we say that we have no sin" I chanted in reply, "we deceive +ourselves and the truth is not in us." I next gave a bit out of a +speech by Disraeli with exaggerated rhetorical gestures. + +E---- (with pity): "Poor young man." + +Presently she came over and in a tired way put her arms around my neck +so I immediately began to sing "Rock of Ages, cleft for me," in the +bass, which immediately reminded me of dear old Dad, whose favourite +hymn it was.... Then I imitated the Baby. And then to bed fretful and +very bitter. + +_November_ 27. + +... I wish I could die of heart failure--and at once! What a luxury that +would be as compared with my present prospect! + +A Tomtit on the fence this morning made me dissolve in tears:--self-pity +I believe. I remember Tomtits in ----shire. Put on a gramophone record +and--ugh! but I'm too sick to write. + +_November_ 28. + +The shock I gave my spinal column in 1915 up in the Lakes undoubtedly +re-awakened activity among the bacteria. Luck for you! I, of all persons +to concuss my spine!! + +... I listen to the kettle singing, I look at the pictures in the fire, +read a bit, ask what time it is, see the Baby "topped and tailed," yawn, +blow my nose, put on a gramophone record--I have the idea of passing on +the midnight with no pain to the tune of some healing ragtime. + +_November_ 29. + +The anniversary of our engagement day two years ago. How mad the idea of +marriage seemed to me--and my instinct was right: if only I had known! +Yet she says she does not regret anything. + + * * * * * + +This morning I turned to read with avidity accounts of the last hours of +Keats, Gibbon, Oscar Wilde and Baudelaire. I gained astonishing comfort +out of this, especially in the last ... who died of G.P.I. in a Brussels +Hospital. + + * * * * * + +E---- is awfully courageous and,--as usual ready to do everything in her +power. How can I ever express sufficient gratitude to these two dear +women (and my wife, above all) for casting in their lot knowingly with +mine? + +_December_ 1. + +I believe I am good for another 12 months without abnormal worries. Just +now, of course, the Slug ain't exactly on the thorn--on the cabbage in +fact as E---- suggested. The Grasshopper is much of a burden and the +voice of the Turtle has gone from my land (where did all these Bible +phrases come from?). The first bark of the Wolf (God save us, 'tis all +the Animal Kingdom sliding down my penholder) was heard with the +reduction in her work to-day, and I suspect there's worse to come with a +sovereign already only worth 12s. 6d. + +_December_ 4. + +The Baby touch is the most harrowing of all. If we were childless we +should be merely unfortunate, but an infant.... + +_December_ 11. + +Am receiving ionisation treatment from an electrical therapeutist--a +quack! He is a sort of electrician--still, if he mends my bells I'll +kiss his boots. As for ----, he is no better than a byreman, and I call +him Hodge. This is not the first time I have felt driven to act behind +the back of the Profession. In 1912, being desperate, and M---- worse +than a headache, I greedily and credulously sucked in the advice of my +boarding-house proprietor and went to see a homœopathist in Finsbury +Circus. He proved to be a charlatan at 10s. 6d. a time, and tho' I +realised it at once, I religiously travelled about for a month or more +with tinctures and drop-bottle. I could write a book on the Doctors I +have known and the blunders they have made about me.... The therapeutist +took me for 33. I feel 63. I am 27. What a wreck I am, and.... + +_December_ 12. + +It is so agreeable to be able to write again that I write now for the +sheer physical pleasure of being able to use a pen and form letters. + +_An Adventure in Search of Health_ + +About the end of September, I began to feel so ill that Nurse went for +the Doctor who assured me that E---- was all right--I need not +worry--"You go away at once and get some fresh air," and so forth. "I +feel quite ill," I said, struggling to break the news. + +"Sort of nervous?" he enquired good-naturedly, "run down? I should get +right away at once." + +I began tentatively. "Well, I have a rather long medical history and +perhaps ... you ... might care to read the certificate of my London +Doctor?" + +I went to my escritoire and returned with M----'s letter addressed to +"The M.O. examining Mr. B." + +Hodge pulled out the missive, studied the brief note carefully and long, +at the same time drawing in his breath--deeply, and gnawing the back of +his hand. + +"I know all about it," I said to relieve him. + +"Is it quite certain? about this disease?" he said presently. "You are +very young for it." + +"I think there is no doubt," and he began to put me thro' the usual +tricks. + +"I should go right away at once," he said, "and go on with your arsenic. +And whatever you do--don't worry--your wife is all right." + +After beseeching him to keep silence about it as I thought she did not +know, I shewed him out and locked up the certificate again. + +Next morning I felt thoroughly cornered: I was not really fit enough to +travel; my hand and leg were daily growing more and more paralysed and +J---- wired to say she could not put me up as they were going away for +the week end. So I wired back engaging rooms, as with the nurse in the +house and E---- as she was, I simply could not stay at home.... + +On the way to the Station I was still in two minds whether or not to +pull the taxi up at the Nursing Home and go inside, but harassing debate +as it was, our rapidly diminishing bank balance finally drove me on. + +---- came up to London with me and sought out a comfortable corner seat, +but by the time the train left, a mother and a crying child had got in +and everywhere else was full. A girl opposite who saw ---- hand me a +brandy flask and knew I was ill, looked at me compassionately. + +At Reading, another woman with a baby got in and both babies cried in +chorus, jangling my nerves to bits!--until I got out into the corridor, +by a miracle not falling down, with one leg very feeble and treacherous. +All seats were taken, excepting a first-class compartment where I looked +in enviously at a lucky youth stretched out asleep full length along the +empty seat. + +All the people and the noise of the train began to make me fret, so I +sought out the repose of a lavatory where I remained eating sandwiches +and an apple for the best part of an hour. It was good to be alone. + +Later on, I discovered an empty seat in a compartment occupied by +persons whose questionable appearance my short sight entirely failed to +make me aware of until I got inside with them. They were a family of +Sheenies, father, mother and three children, whose joint emanations in a +closed-up railway carriage made an effluvium like to kill a regiment of +guards. They were E. end pawnbrokers or dealers in second-hand clothes. + +I was too nervous to appear rude by immediately with-drawing, so I said +politely to the man clad in second-hand furs: "Is that seat taken?" + +He affected to be almost asleep. So I repeated. He stared at me and then +said: + +"Oh! yes ... but you can have it for a bit if you like." + +I sat down timorously on the extreme edge of the seat and stared at, but +could not read, my newspaper out of sheer nervous apprehension. My sole +idea was to get out as soon as I decorously could. Out of the corner of +my eye, I observed the three children--two girls and a boy--all garbed +in black clothes and wearing large clumsy boots with nails and scutes on +the soles. The girls had large inflorescences of bushy hair which they +swung about as they turned their heads and made me shudder. The mother's +face was like a brown, shrivelled apple, topped with a black bonnet and +festooned on each side with ringlets of curly dark hair. Around her neck +a fur tippet: as I live--second-hand clothes dealers from Whitechapel. + +The man I dare not look at: I sat beside him and merely imagined. + +At ----, I got a decent seat and arrived at T---- jaded, but still +alive, with no one to meet me. Decent rooms on the sea-front. + +Next morning J---- went away for the week end and I could not possibly +explain how ill I was: she might have stayed at home. + +To preserve my sanity, Saturday afternoon, took a desperate remedy by +hiring a motor-car and travelling to Torquay and back _via_ +Babbacombe.... + +On the Sunday, feeling suddenly ill, I sent for the local medico whom I +received in the drab little room by lamplight after dinner. "I've a +tingling in my right hand," I said, "that drives me nearly silly." + +"And on the soles of your feet?" he asked at once. + +I assented, and he ran thro' at once all the symptoms in series. + +"I see you know what my trouble is," I said shyly. And we chatted a +little about the War, about disease, and I told him of the recent memoir +on the histology of the disease ---- in the _Trans. Roy. Soc_, Edin. +which interested him. Then he went away again--very amiable, very polite +--an obvious _non possumus_.... + +On Monday at 4 went up to ---- to tea as previously arranged, but found +the house shut up so returned to my rooms in a rage. + +After tea, having read the newspapers inside out, sat by the open window +looking out on to the Marine Parade. It was dusk, a fine rain was +falling, and the parade and sea-front were deserted save for an +occasional figure hurrying past with mackintosh and umbrella. Suddenly +as I sat looking out on this doleful scene, a dirge from nowhere in +particular sounded on my ears which I soon recognised as "Robin Adair," +sung very _lento_ and very _maestoso_ by a woman, with a flute obligato +played by some second person. The tide was right up, and the little +waves murmured listlessly at long intervals: never before I think have I +been plunged into such an abyss of acute misery. + +Next day the wire came. But it was too late. The day after that, I was +worse, a single ray of sunshine being the rediscovery of the +second-hand-clothes family from Whitechapel taking the air together on +the front. This dreary party was traipsing along, the parents in their +furs giving an occasional glance at the sea uncomfortably, as if they +only noticed it was wet, and the children still in black and still +wearing their scuted boots, obviously a little uncomfortable in a place +so clean and windswept. I think they all came to the seaside out of +decorum and for the satisfaction of feeling that they could afford it +like other folk, and that old-clothes was as profitable a business as +another. + +On Thursday, returned home as I was afraid of being taken ill and having +to go into the public hospital. Arrived home and went to bed and here we +are till Jan. 1st on 3 months' sick leave. However, the swingeing +urtication in my hands and feet has now almost entirely abated and +to-day I went out with E---- and the perambulator, _which I pushed_. + +_December_ 13. + +_A Baby-Girl_ + +Walked down the bottom of the road and hung over some wooden railings. A +little village baby-girl aged not more than 3 was hovering about near +me while I gazed abstractedly across the Park at the trees. Presently, +she crawled through the railings into the field and picked up a few dead +leaves--a baby picking up dead leaves! Then she threw them down, and +kicked them. Then moved on again--rustling about intermittently like a +winter Thrush in the shrubbery. At last, she had stumbled around to +where I was leaning over the railings. She stood immediately in front of +me and silently looked up with a steady reproachful gaze: "Ain't you +'shamed, you lazy-bones?" till I could bear her inquisitorial gaze no +longer, and so went and hung over some more railings further on. + +_Service_ + +He asked for a Tennyson. She immediately went upstairs in the dark, lit +a match and got it for him. + +He asked for a Shakespeare. And without a moment's hesitation, she went +upstairs again, lit another match and got that for him. + +And I believe if he had said "Rats," she would have shot out silently +into the dark and tried to catch one for him. Only a woman is capable of +such service. + +_Hardy's Poetry_ + + + "You did not come, + And marching time drew on and wore me numb-- + Yet less for loss of your dear presence there + Than that I thus found lacking in your make + That high compassion which can overbear + Reluctance for pure loving-kindness' sake + Grieved I, _when, as the hope-hour stroked its sum_, + You did not come." + +I thoroughly enjoy Hardy's poetry for its masterfulness, for his sheer +muscular compulsion over the words and sentences. In his rough-hewn +lines he yokes the recalcitrant words together and drives them along +mercilessly with something that looks like simple brute strength. +Witness the triumphant last line in the above where the words are +absolute bondslaves to his exact meaning, his indomitable will. All +this pleases me the more for I know to my cost what stubborn, sullen, +hephæstian beasts words and clauses can sometimes be. It is nice to see +them punished. Hardy's poetry is Michael Angelo rather than Greek, +Browning not Tennyson. + +_December_ 14. + +What a day! After a night of fog signals, I awoke this morning to find +it still foggy and the ground covered with a grey rime. All day the fog +has remained: I look out now thro' the yellowish atmosphere across a +field which is frosted over, the grass and brambles stiff and glassy. My +back is aching and the cold is so intense that unless I crouch over the +fire hands and feet become immediately stone-cold. All day I have +crouched over the fire, reading newspapers, listening to fog signals and +the screaming of the baby.... I have been in a torpor, like a Bat in a +cavern--really dead yet automatically hanging on to life by my hind +legs. + +_December_ 15. + +"To stand upon one's guard against Death exasperates her malice and +protracts our sufferings." W.S. Landor. + +_December_ 19. + +The Parson called, over the christening of the baby. I told him I was an +agnostic. "There are several interesting lines of thought down here," he +said wearily, passing his hand over his eyes. I know several men more +enthusiastic over Fleas and Worms than this phlegmatic priest, over +Jesus Christ. + +_December_ 20. + +The reason why I do not spend my days in despair and my nights in +hopeless weeping simply is that I am in love with my own ruin. I +therefore deserve no sympathy, and probably shan't get it: my own +profound self-compassion is enough. I am so abominably self-conscious +that no smallest detail in this tragedy eludes me. Day after day I sit +in the theatre of my own life and watch the drama of my own history +proceeding to its close. Pray God the curtain falls at the right moment +lest the play drag on into some long and tedious anticlimax. + +We all like to dramatise ourselves. Byron was dramatising himself when, +in a fit of rhetorical self-compassion, he wrote: + +"Oh! could I feel as I have felt or be what I have been, Or weep as I +could once have wept o'er many a vanished scene." + +Shelley, too, being an artist could not stand insensible to his own +tragedy and Francis Thompson suggests that he even anticipated his own +end from a passage in _Julian and Maddalo_, "... if you can't swim, +Beware of Providence." "Did no earthly _dixisti_," Thompson asks, "sound +in his ears as he wrote it?" + +In any event, it was an admirable ending from the dramatic point of +view; Destiny is often a superb dramatist. What more perfect than the +death of Rupert Brooke at Scyros in the Ægean?[6] The lives of some men +are works of art, perfect in form, in development and in climax. Yet how +frequently a life eminently successful or even eminently ruinous is also +an unlovely, sordid, ridiculous or vulgar affair! Every one will concede +that it must be a hard thing to be commonplace and vulgar even in +misfortune, to discover that the tragedy of your own precious life has +been dramatically bad, that your life even in its ruins is but a poor +thing, and your own miseries pathetic from their very insignificance; +that you are only Jones with chronic indigestion rather than Guy de +Maupassant mad, or Coleridge with a great intellect being slowly +dismantled by opium. + +If only I could order my life by line and level, if I could control or +create my own destiny and mould it into some marble perfection! In +short, if life were an art and not a lottery! In the lives of all of us, +how many wasted efforts, how many wasted opportunities, false starts, +blind--how many lost days--and man's life is but a paltry three score +years and ten: pitiful short commons indeed. + +Sometimes, as I lean over a five-barred gate or gaze stupidly into the +fire, I garner a bitter-sweet contentment in making ideal +reconstructions of my life, selecting my parents, the date and place of +my birth, my gifts, my education, my mentors and what portions out of +the infinity of knowledge shall gain a place within my mind--that sacred +glebe-land to be zealously preserved and enthusiastically cultivated. +Whereas, my mind is now a wilderness in which all kinds of useless +growths have found an ineradicable foothold. I am exasperated to find I +have by heart the long addresses of a lot of dismal business +correspondents and yet can't remember the last chapters of Ecclesiastes: +what a waste of mind-stuff there! It irks me to be acquainted even to +nausea with the spot in which I live, I whose feet have never traversed +even so much as this little island much less carried me in triumph to +Timbuctoo, Honolulu, Rio, Rome. + +_December_ 21. + +This continuous preoccupation with self sickens me--as I look back over +these entries. It is inconceivable that I should be here steadily +writing up my ego day by day in the middle of this disastrous war.... +Yesterday I had a move on. To-day life wearies me. I am sick of myself +and life. This beastly world with its beastly war and hate makes me +restless, dissatisfied, and full of a longing to be quit of it. I am as +full of unrest as an autumn Swallow. "My soul," I said to them at +breakfast with a sardonic grin, "is like a greyhound in the slips. I +shall have to wear heavy boots to prevent myself from soaring. I have +such an uplift on me that I could carry a horse, a dog, a cat, if you +tied them on to my homing spirit and so transformed my Ascension into an +adventure out of Baron Munchausen." With a gasconnade of contempt, I +should like to turn on my heel and march straight out of this wretched +world at once. + +_December_ 22. + +_Gibbon's Autobiography_ + +This book makes me of all people (and especially just now) groan +inwardly. "I am at a loss," he says, referring to the _Decline and +Fall_, "how to describe the success of the work without betraying the +vanity of the writer.... My book was on every table and almost on every +toilette." It makes me bite my lips. Rousseau and his criticism of "I +sighed as a lover; I obeyed as a son," and Gibbon on his dignity in +reply make one of the most ludicrous incidents in literary history. "... +that extraordinary man whom I admire and pity, should have been less +precipitate in condemning the moral character and conduct of a +stranger!" Oh my giddy Aunt! Isn't this _rich_? Still, I am glad you did +not marry her: we could ill spare Madam de Staël, Madam Necker's +daughter, that wonderful, vivacious and warmhearted woman. + +"After the morning has been occupied with the labours of the library, I +wish to unbend rather than exercise my mind; and in the interval between +tea and supper, I am far from disdaining the innocent amusement of a +game of cards." How Jane Austen would have laughed at him! The passage +reminds me of the Rev. Mr. Collins saying: + +"Had I been able I should have been only too pleased to give you a song, +for I regard music as a harmless diversion and perfectly compatible with +the profession of a clergyman." + +"When I contemplate the common lot of mortality," Gibbon writes, "I must +acknowledge I have drawn a high prize in the lottery of life," and he +goes on to count up all his blessings with the most offensive +delight--his wealth, the good fortune of his birth, his ripe years, a +cheerful temper, a moderate sensibility, health, sound and peaceful +slumbers from infancy, his valuable friendship with Lord Sheffield, his +rank, fame, etc., etc., _ad nauseam_. He rakes over his whole life for +things to be grateful for. He intones his happiness in a long recitative +of thanksgiving that his lot was not that of a savage, of a slave, or a +peasant; he washes his hands with imaginary soap on reflecting on the +bounty of Nature which cast his birth in a free and civilised country, +in an age of science and philosophy, in a family of honourable rank and +decently endowed with the gifts of fortune--sleek, complacent, +oleaginous and salacious old gentleman, how I would love to have bombed +you out of your self-satisfaction! + +_Masefield's "Gallipoli"_ + +It amused me to discover the evident relish with which the author of _In +the Daffodil Fields_ emphasises the blood and the flowers in the attack +on Achi Baba. It's all blood and beautiful flowers mixed up together to +Masefield's great excitement. + + "A swear word in a city slum + A simple swear word is to some-- + To Masefield something more." + + MAX BEERBOHM. + +Still, to call Gallipoli "bloody Hell" is, after all, only a +pedantically exact description. You understand, tho', a very remarkable +book--a work of genius. + +_December_ 23. + +To be cheerful this Xmas would require a _coup de théâtre_--some sort of +psychological sleight of hand. + +I get downstairs at 10 and spend the day reading and writing, without a +soul to converse with. Everything comes to me second-hand--thro' the +newspapers, the world of life thro' the halfpenny _Daily News_, and the +world of books thro' the _Times Literary Supplement_. For the rest I +listen to the kettle singing and make symphonies out of it, or I look +into the fire to see the pictures there.... + +_December_ 24. + +Everyone I suppose engaged in this irony of Xmas. What a solemn lunatic +the world is. + +Walked awhile in a beautiful lane close by, washed hard and clean and +deeply channelled by the recent rain. On the hill-top, I could look +right across the valley to the uplands, where on the sky line a few Firs +stood in stately sequestration from common English Oaks, like a group of +ambassadors in full dress. In the distance a hen clucked, I saw a few +Peewits wheeling and watched the smoke rising from our cottage +perpendicularly into the motionless air. There was a clement quiet and a +clement warmth, and in my heart a burst of real happiness that made me +rich even beside less unfortunate beings and beyond what I had ever +expected to be again. + +_December_ 26. + +"In thus describing and illustrating my intellectual torpor, I use terms +that apply more or less to every part of the years during which I was +under the Circean spells of opium. But for misery--" + +(Why do I waste my energy with this damned Journal? I stop. I hate it. I +am going out for a walk in the fog.) + +_December_ 31. + +_Reminiscences_ + +For the past few days I have been living in a quiet hermitage of +retrospect. My memories have gone back to the times--remote, +inaccessible, prehistoric--before ever this Journal was begun, when I +myself was but a jelly without form and void--that is, before I had +developed any characteristic qualities and above all the dominant one, a +passion for Natural History. + +One day a school friend, being covetous of certain stamps in my +collection, induced me to "swop" them for his collection of birds' eggs +which he showed me nestling in the bran at the bottom of a box. He was a +cunning boy and thought he had the better of the bargain. He little +realised--nor did I--the priceless gift he bestowed when his little fat +dirty hands decorated, I remember, with innumerable warts, picked out +the eggs and gave them to me. In fact, a smile momentarily crossed his +face, he turned his head aside, he spat in happy contemplation of the +deal. + +I continued eagerly to add to the little collection of Birds' eggs, but +for a long time it never occurred to me to go out into the country +myself and collect them,--I just _swopped,_ until one day our errand +boy, who stuttered, had bandy legs, and walked on the outside of his +feet with the gait of an Anthropoid, said to me, "I will sh-how you how +to find Birds' n-nests if you like to come out to the w-woods." So one +Saturday, when the backyard was cleaned down and the coal boxes filled, +he and I started off together to a wood some way down the river bank, +where he--my good and beneficent angel--presently showed me a Thrush's +nest in the fork of a young Oak tree. Never-to-be-forgotten moment! The +sight of those blue speckled eggs lying so unexpectedly, as I climbed up +the tree, on the other side of an untidy tangle of dried moss and grass, +in a neat little earthenware cup, caused probably the first tremor of +real emotion at a beautiful object. The emotion did not last long! In a +moment I had stolen the eggs and soon after smashed them--in trying to +blow them, schoolboy fashion. + +Then, I rapidly became an ardent field naturalist. My delight in Birds +and Birds' eggs spread in a benignant infection to every branch of +Natural History. I collected Beetles, Butterflies, plants, Birds' wings, +Birds' claws, etc. Dr. Gordon Staples in the _Boy's Own Paper_, taught +me how to make a skin, and I got hold of a Mole and then a Squirrel (the +latter falling to my prowess with a catapult), stuffed them and set them +up in cases which I glazed myself. I even painted in suitable +backgrounds, in the one case a mole-hill, looking, I fear, more like a +mountain, and in the other, a Fir tree standing at an impossible angle +of 45°. Then I read a book on trapping, and tried to catch Hares. Then I +read Sir John Lubbock's _Ants, Bees and Wasps_, and constructed an +observation Ants' nest (though the Ants escaped). + +In looking back to these days, I am chiefly struck by my extraordinary +ignorance of the common objects of the countryside, for although we +lived in the far west country, the house, without a garden, was in the +middle of the town, and all my seniors were as ignorant as I. Nature +Study in the schools did not then exist, I had no benevolent +paterfamilias to take me by the hand and point out the common British +Birds; for my father's only interest was in politics. I can remember +coming home once all agog with a wonderful Bird I had seen--like a tiny +Magpie, I said. No one could tell me that it was, of course, only a +little Pied Wagtail. + +The absence of sympathy or of congenial companionship, however, had +absolutely no effect in damping my ardour. As I grew older my +egg-collecting companions fell away, some took up the law, or tailoring, +or clerking, some entered the Church, while I became yearly more +engrossed. In my childhood my enthusiasm lay like a watch-spring, coiled +up and hidden inside me, until that Thrush's nest and eggs seized hold +of it by the end and pulled it out by degrees in a long silver ribbon. I +kept live Bats in our upstairs little-used drawing-room, and Newts and +Frogs in pans in the backyard. My mother tolerated these things because +I had sufficiently impressed her with the importance to science of the +observations which I was making and about to publish. Those on Bats +indeed were thought fit to be included in a standard work +--Barrett-Hamilton's _Mammals of Great Britain and Ireland_. The +published articles served to bring me into correspondence with other +naturalists, and I shall never forget my excitement on receiving for the +first time a letter of appreciation. It was from the author of several +natural history books, to + + "W.N.P. BARBELLION, ESQ., + Naturalist, + Downstable," + +and illustrated with a delightful sketch of Ring Plovers feeding on the +saltings. This letter was carefully pasted into my diary, where it still +remains. + +After all, it is perhaps unfair to say that I had no kindred spirit with +me in my investigations. Martha, the servant girl who had been with us +for 30 years, loved animals of all sorts and--what was strange in a +country girl--she had no fear of handling even such things as Newts and +Frogs. My Batrachia often used to escape from their pans in the yard +into Martha's kitchen, and, not a bit scandalised, she would sometimes +catch one marching across the rug or squeezing underneath a cupboard. +"Lor'!" would be her comment as she picked the vagrant up and took it +back to its aquarium, "can't 'em travel?" Martha had an eye for +character in animals. In the long dynasty of cats we possessed one at +length who by association of opposite ideas we called Marmaduke because +he ought to have been called Jan Stewer. "A chuff old feller, 'idden +'ee?" Martha used to ask me with pride and love in her eyes. "He purrs +in broad Devon," I used to answer. Marmaduke need only wave the tip of +his tail to indicate to her his imperative desire to promenade. Martha +knew if no one else did that every spring "Pore 'Duke," underneath his +fur, used to come out in spots. "'Tiz jus' like a cheel 'e gets a bit +spotty as the warm weather cums along." Starlings on the washhouse roof, +regularly fed with scraps, were ever her wonder and delight. "Don' 'em +let it down, I zay?" In later years, when I was occupied in the top +attic, making dissections of various animals that I collected, she would +sometimes leave her scrubbing and cleaning in the room below to thrust +her head up the attic stairs and enquire, "'Ow be 'ee gettin' on then?" +Her unfeigned interest in my anatomical researches gave me real +pleasure, and I took delight in arousing her wonder by pointing out and +explaining the brain of a Pigeon or the nervous system of a Dog-fish, or +a Frog's heart taken out and still beating in the dissecting dish. She, +in reply, would add reflections upon her own experiences in preparing +meat for dinner--anecdotes about the "maw" of an old Fowl, or the great +"pipe" of a Goose. Then, suddenly scurrying downstairs, she would say, +"I must be off or I shall be all be'ind like the cow's tail." Now the +dignified interest of the average educated man would have chilled me. + +By the way, years later, when he was a miner in S. Wales, that historic +errand-boy displayed his consciousness of the important role he once +played by sending me on a postcard congratulations on my success in the +B.M. appointment. It touched me to think he had not forgotten after +years of separation. + + +[1] So it proved. See September 26 _et seq._ + +[2] In "La Recherche de l'Absolu" (Balzac). + +[3] See September 3 (next entry), "_A Jolt_," and September 24 +(_infra_). + +[4] The handwriting is painfully laboured, very large across a page and +so crooked as to be almost undecipherable in places. + +[5] This is from a letter written by the dying Keats in Naples to his +friend Brown. + +[6] Contrast with it Wordsworth rotting at Rydal Mount or Swinburne at +Putney. + + + + +1917 + + +_January_ 1. + +The New Year came in like a thief in the night--noiselessly; no bells, +no syrens, no songs by order of the Government. Nothing could have been +more appropriate than a burglarious entry like this--seeing what the +year has come to filch from us all in the next 12 months. + +_January_ 20. + +I am over 6 feet high and as thin as a skeleton; every bone in my body, +even the neck vertebrae, creak at odd intervals when I move. So that I +am not only a skeleton but a badly articulated one to boot. If to this +is coupled the fact of the creeping paralysis, you have the complete +horror. Even as I sit and write, millions of bacteria are gnawing away +my precious spinal cord, and if you put your ear to my back the sound of +the gnawing I dare say could be heard. The other day a man came and set +up a post in the garden for the clothes' line. As soon as I saw the post +I said "gibbet"--it looks exactly like one, and I, for sure, must be the +malefactor. Last night while E---- was nursing the baby I most +delightfully remarked: "What a little parasite--why you are Cleopatra +affixing the aspic--'Tarry, good lady, the bright day is done, and we +are for the dark.'" + +The fact that such images arise spontaneously in my mind, show how +rotten to the core I am. + +... The advent of the Baby was my _coup de grâce._ The little creature +seems to focus under one head all my personal disasters and more than +once a senseless rage has clutched me at the thought of a baby in +exchange for my ambition, a nursery for the study. Yet, on the whole, I +find it a good and satisfying thing to see her, healthy, new, intact on +the threshold: I grow tired of my own dismal life just as one does of a +suit of dirty clothes. My life and person are patched and greasy; hers +is new and without a single blemish or misfortune.... Moreover, she +makes her mother happy and consoles her grandmother too. + +_January_ 21. + +_Death_ + +What a delightful thing the state of Death would be if the dead passed +their time haunting the places they loved in life and living over again +the dear delightful past--if death were one long indulgence in the +pleasures of memory! if the disembodied spirit forgot all the pains of +its previous existence and remembered only the happiness! Think of me +flitting about the orchards and farm-yards in ---- birdsnesting, walking +along the coast among the seabirds, climbing Exmoor, bathing in streams +and in the sea, haunting all my old loves and passions, cutting open +with devouring curiosity Rabbits, Pigeons, Frogs, Dogfish, Amphioxus; +think of me, too, at length unwillingly deflected from these cherished +pursuits in the raptures of first love, cutting her initials on trees +and fences instead of watching birds, day-dreaming over _Parker and +Haswell_ and then bitterly reproaching myself later for much loss of +precious time. How happy I shall be if Death is like this: to be living +over again and again all my ecstasies, over first times--the first time +I found a Bottle Tit's nest, the first time I succeeded in penetrating +into the fastnesses of my El Dorado--Exmoor, the first time I gazed upon +the internal anatomy of a Snail, the first time I read Berkeley's +_Principles of Human Understanding_ (what a soul-shaking epoch that +was!), and the first time I kissed her! My hope is that I may haunt +these times again, that I may haunt the places, the books, the bathes, +the walks, the desires, the hopes, the first (and last) loves of my life +all transfigured and beatified by sovereign Memory. + +_January_ 26. + +Out of doors to-day it's like the roaring forties! Every tree I passed +in the lane was a great wind instrument, bellowing out a passionate +song, and the sky was torn to ribbons. It is cold enough to freeze the +nose off a brass Monkey, but very exhilarating. I stood on the hill and +squared my fists to the wind and bade everything come on. I sit writing +this by the fire and am thoroughly scourged and purified by this great +castigating wind.... I think I will stick it out--I will sit quite still +in my chair and defy this sculking footpad--let the paralysis creep into +every bone, I will hang on to the last and watch it skulking with my +most hideous grimace. + +_January_ 27. + +Still freezing and blowing. Coming back from the village, tho' I was +tired and hobbling badly, decided to walk up the lane even if it meant +crawling home on hands and knees. + +The sky was a quick-change artist to-day. Every time you looked you saw +a different picture. From the bottom of the hill I looked up and saw +above me--it seemed at an immense and windy height--a piece of blue, +framed in an irregular edge of white woolly cloud seen thro' the crooked +branches of an Oak. It was a narrow crooked lane, sunk deep in the soil +with large smooth surfaces of stone like skulls bulging up in places +where the rain had washed away the soil. + +Further on, the sun was lying low almost in the centre of a +semi-circular bend in the near horizon. It frosted the wool of a few +sheep seen in silhouette, and then slowly disappeared in mist. On the +right-hand side was a cottage with the smoke being wrenched away from +the chimney top, and on the left a group of stately Firs, chanting a +requiem like a cathedral choir. + +_January_ 28. + +Still blowing and bitterly cold. Along the path fields in the Park I +stopped to look at a thick clump of Firs standing aloof on some high +ground and guarded by an outside ring of honest English Oaks, Ashes and +Elms. They were a sombre mysterious little crowd intent, I fancied, on +some secret ritual of the trees. The high ground on which they stood +looked higher and more inaccessible than it really was, the clump was +dark green, almost black, and in between their trunks where all was +obscurity, some hardy adventurer might well have discovered a Grand Lama +sitting within his Penetralia. But I had no taste for any such +profanity, and even as I looked the sun came out from behind a cloud +very slowly, bringing the picture into clearer focus, chasing away +shadows and bringing out all the colours. The landscape resumed its +homely aspect: an English park with Firs in it. + +_January_ 29. + +Last night, I pulled aside the window curtain of our front door and +peeped out. Just below the densely black projecting gable of the house I +saw the crescent moon lying on her back in a bed of purple sky, and I +saw our little white frosted garden path curving up towards the garden +gate. It was a delicious _coup d'œil_, and I shewed it to E----. + +_January_ 31. + +Showers of snow at intervals, the little flakes rocking about lazily or +spiralling down, while the few that eventually reached the ground would +in a moment or so be caught up in a sudden furious puff of wind, and +sent driving along the road with the dust. + +My usual little jaunt up the lane past the mossy farm-house. Home to +toasted tea-cakes and a pinewood fire, with my wife chattering prettily +to the baby. After tea, enchanted by the reading of a new book--_Le +Journal de Maurice de Guérin_--or rather the introduction to it by +Sainte-Beuve. I devoured it! I have spent a devouring day; under a calm +exterior I have burnt up the hours; all of me has been athrob; every +little cell in my brain has danced to its own little tune. For to-day, +Death has been an impossibility. I have felt that anyhow to-day I could +not die--I have laughed at the mere thought of it. If only this mood +would last! If I could feel thus always, then I could fend off Death for +an immortality of life. + +But suddenly, as now, the real horror of my life and future comes on me +in a flash. For a second I am terrified by the menace of the future, but +fortunately only for a second. For I've learnt a trick which I fear to +reveal; it is so valuable and necessary to me that if I talked of it or +vulgarised it my secret might be stolen away. Not a word then! + +_Later_. I have just heard on the gramophone, some Grieg, and it has +charged my happiness with disrupting voltage of desire. Oh! if only I +had health, I could make the welkin ring! I shall leave so little behind +me, such a few paltry pages beside what I have it in me to do. It +shatters me. + +_February_ 1. + +Looking back, I must say I like the splendid gusto with which I lived +thro' yesterday: that mettlesome fashion in which I took the lane, and +at the top, how I swung around to sweep my gaze across to the uplands +opposite with snow falling all the time. Then in the evening, the almost +complete absorption in the new book when I forgot everything _pro tem_. +It was quite like the old days. + +_February_ 2. + +_Crowd Fever_ + +After four months' sick leave, returned to work and London. + +An illness like mine rejuvenates one--for the time being! A pony and +jingle from the old "Fox and Hounds Inn" took me to the Station, and I +enjoyed the feel of the wheels rolling beneath me over the hard road. In +the train, I looked out of the window as interested as any schoolboy. On +the Underground I was delighted with the smooth, quiet way with which +the "Metro" trains glide into the Station. I had quite forgotten this. +Then, when my hand began to get better, I rediscovered the pleasures of +penmanship and kept on writing, with my tongue out. And I re-enjoyed the +child's satisfaction in coaxing a button to slip into its hole: all +grown-up people have forgotten how difficult and complex such operations +are. + +This morning how desirable everything seemed to me! The world +intoxicated me. Moving again among so many human beings gave me the +crowd-fever, and started again all the pangs of the old familiar hunger +for a fuller life, that centrifugal elan in which I feared for the +disruption and scattering of my parts in all directions. Temporarily I +lost the hegemony of my own soul. Every man and woman I met was my +enemy, threatening me with the secession of some inward part. I was +alarmed to discover how many women I could passionately love and with +how many men I could form a lasting friendship. Within, all was anarchy +and commotion, a cold fright seized me lest some extraordinary event was +about to happen: some general histolysis of my body, some sudden +disintegration of my personality, some madness, some strange death.... +I wanted to crush out the life of all these men and women in a great +Bear's hug, my God! this sea of human faces whom I can never recognise, +all of us alive together beneath this yellow catafalque of fog on the +morning of the announcement of world famine and world war!... + + * * * * * + +To-night, I have lost this paroxysm. For I am home again by the +fireside. All the multitude have disappeared from my view. I have lost +them, every one. I have lost another day of my life and so have they, +and we have lost each other. Meanwhile the great world spins on +unrelentingly, frittering away lightly my precious hours (surely a small +stock now?) while I sit discomfited by the evening fire and nurse my +scraped hands that tingle because the spinning world has wrenched itself +out of my feeble grasp. + +_February_ 3. + +This morning on arriving at S. Kensington, went straight to a Chemist's +shop, but finding someone inside, I drew back, and went on to another. + +"Have you any morphia tabloids?" I asked a curly-haired, nice-looking, +smiling youth, who leaned with both hands on the counter and looked at +me knowingly, as if he had had unlimited experience of would-be morphi +nomaniacs. + +"Yes, plenty of them," he said, fencing. And then waited. + +"Can you supply me?" I asked, feeling very conscious of myself. + +He smiled once more, shook his head and said it was contrary to the +Defence of the Realm Act. + +I made a sorry effort to appear ingenuous, and he said: + +"Of course, it is only a palliative." + +With a solemn countenance intended to indicate pain I answered: + +"Yes, but palliatives are very necessary sometimes," and I walked out of +the hateful shop discomfited. + +_February_ 6. + +Am busy re-writing,[1] editing and bowdlerising my journals for +publication against the time when I shall have gone the way of all +flesh. No one else would prepare it for publication if I don't. Reading +it through again, I see what a remarkable book I have written. If only +they will publish it! + +_February_ 7. + +_Chinese Lanterns_ + +The other morning as I dressed, I could see the sun like a large yellow +moon rising on a world, stiff, stark, its contours merely indicated +beneath a winding-sheet of snow. Further around the horizon was another +moon--the full moon itself--yellow likewise, but setting. It was the +strangest picture I ever saw. I might well have been upon another +planet; I could not have been more surprised even at a whole ring of +yellow satellites arranged at regular intervals all around the horizon. + +In the evening of the same day, I drove home from the Station in a +little governess-cart, over a snow-clogged road. The cautious little +pony picked out her way so carefully in little +strides--pat-pat-pat--wherever it was slippery, and the Landlord of the +Inn sat opposite me extolling all the clever little creature's merits. +It was dusk, and for some reason of the atmosphere the scraps of cloud +appeared as blue sky and the blue sky as cloud, beneath which the full +moon like a great Chinese lantern hung suspended so low down it seemed +to touch the trees and hills. How have folk been able to "carry on" in a +world so utterly strange as this one during the past few days! I marvel +that beneath such moons and suns, the peoples of the world have not +ceased for a while from the petty business of war during at least a few +of our dancing revolutions around this furnace of a star. One of these +days I should not be surprised if this fascinated earth did not fall +into it like a moth into a candle. And where would our Great War be +then? + +_February_ 28. + +_The Strangeness of my Life_ + +Consider the War: and the current adventures of millions of men on land, +sea and air; and the incessant labours of millions of men in factory and +workshop and in the field; think of the hospitals and all they hold, of +everyone hoping, fearing, suffering, waiting--of the concentration of +all humanity on the one subject--the War. And then think of me, poor +little me, deserted and forgotten, a tiny fragment sunk so deep and +helplessly between the sheer granite walls of my environment that scarce +an echo reaches me of the thunder among the mountains above. I read +about the War in a ha'penny paper, and see it in the pictures of the +_Daily Mirror_. For the rest, I live by counting the joints on insects' +legs and even that much effort is almost beyond my strength. + +That is strange enough. But my life is stranger still by comparison. And +this is the marvel: that every day I spend by the waters of Babylon, +weeping and neglected among enthusiasts, enthusiastically counting +joints, while every evening I return to Zion to my books, to Hardy's +poems, to Maurice de Guérin's Journals, to my own memoirs. Mine is a +life of consummate isolation, and I frequently marvel at it. + +The men I meet accept me as an entomologist and _ipso facto_, an +enthusiast in the science. That is all they know of me, and all they +want to know of me, or of any man. Surely no man's existence was ever +quite such a duplicity as mine. I smile bitterly to myself ten times a +day, as I engage in all the dreary technical jargon of professional talk +with them. How they would gossip over the facts of my life if they knew! +How scandalised they would be over my inner life's activities, how +resentful of enthusiasm other than entomological! + +I find it very irksome to keep up this farce of concealment. I would +love to declare myself. I loathe, hate and detest the secrecy of my real +self: the continuous restraint enforced on me ulcerates my heart and +makes harmonious social existence impossible with those who do not know +me thoroughly. "On dit qu'au jugement dernier le secret des consciences +sera révélé à tout l'univers; je voudrais qu'il en fut ainsi de moi dès +aujourd'hui et que la vue de mon âme fut ouvert à tous venants." Maurice +de Guérin. + +_March_ 1. + +It is curious for me to look at my tubes and microscope and realise that +I shall never require them again for serious use. Life is a dreadful +burden to me at the Museum. I am too ill for any scientific work so I +write labels and put things away. I am simply marking time on the edge +of a precipice awaiting the order, "Forward." + +It is excoriating to be thus wasting the last few precious days of my +life in such mummery merely to get bread to eat. They might at least let +me die in peace, and with fitting decorum. It is so ignoble to be +tinkering about in a Museum among Scarabees and insects when I ought to +be reflecting on life and death. + +I ask myself what ought to be my most appropriate reaction in such +circumstances as the present? Why, of course, to carry on as if all were +normal, and the future unknown: why, so I do, to outward view, for the +sake of the others. Yet that is no reason why in my own inward parts I +should not at times indulge in a little relaxation. It is a relief to +put off the mailed coat, to sit awhile by the green-room fire and have +life as it really is, all to myself. But the necessity of living will +not let me alone. I must be always mumming. + +My life has been all isolation and restriction. And it now appears even +my death is to be hedged around with prohibitions. Drugs for +example--how beneficent a little laudanum at times in a case like mine! +and how happy I could be if I knew that in my waistcoat pocket I carried +a kindly, easy means of shuffling off this coil when the time comes as +come it must. It horrifies me to consider how I might break the life of +E---- clean in two, and sap her courage by a lingering, dawdling dying. +But there is the Defence of the Realm Act. It is a case of a Scorpion in +a ring of fire but without any sting in its tail. + +_March_ 2. + +I ask myself: what are my views on death, the next world, God? I look +into my mind and discover I am too much of a mannikin to have any. As +for death, I am a little bit of trembling jelly of anticipation. I am +prepared for anything, but I am the complete agnostic; I simply don't +know. To have views, faith, beliefs, one needs a backbone. This great +bully of a universe overwhelms me. The stars make me cower. I am +intimidated by the immensity surrounding my own littleness. It is futile +and presumptuous for me to opine anything about the next world. But I +_hope_ for something much freer and more satisfying after death, for +emancipation of the spirit and above all for the obliteration of this +puny self, this little, skulking, sharp-witted ferret. + +_A Potted Novel_ + +(1) + +He was an imaginative youth, and she a tragedy queen. So he fell in love +with her because she was melancholy and her past tragic. "She is +_capable_ of tragedy, too," he said, which was a high encomium. + +But he was also an ambitious youth and all for dalliance in love. +"Marriage," said he sententiously, "is an economic trap." And then, a +little wistfully: "If she were a bit more melancholy and a bit more +beautiful she would be quite irresistible." + +(2) + +But he was a miserable youth, too, and in the anguish of loneliness and +lovelessness a home tempted him sorely. Still, he dallied. _She_ waited. +Ill-health after all made marriage impossible. + +(3) + +Yet love and misery drove him towards it. So one day he closed his eyes +and offered himself up with sacrificial hands.... "Too late," she said. +"Once perhaps ... but now...." His eyes opened again, and in a second +Love entered his Temple once more and finally ejected the money +changers. + +(4) + +So they married after all, and he was under the impression she had made +a good match. He had ill-health perhaps, yet who could doubt his +ultimate fame? + +Then the War came, and he had the hardihood to open a sealed letter from +his Doctor to the M.O. examining recruits.... Stars and staggers!! So +it was she who was the victim in marriage! That harassing question: Did +she know? What an ass he had been all through, what superlative egoism +and superlative conceit! + +(5) + +Then a baby came. He broke under the strain and daily the symptoms grew +more obvious. Did she know?... The question dazed him. + +Well, she _did_ know, and had married him for love, nevertheless, +against every friendly counsel, the Doctor's included. + +(6) + +And now the invalid's gratitude is almost cringeing, his admiration +boundless and his love for always. It is the perfect _rapprochement_ +between two souls, one that was honeycombed with self-love and lost in +the labyrinthine ways of his own motives and the other straight, direct, +almost imperious in love and altogether adorable. + +_Finis_ + +_March_ 5. + +At home ill again. Yesterday was a day of utter dreariness. All my +nerves were frozen, my heart congealed. I had no love for anyone ... no +emotion of any sort. It was a catalepsy of the spirit harder to bear +than fever or pain.... To-day, life is once more stirring in me, I am +slowly awaking to the consciousness of acute but almost welcome misery. + +_March_ 6. + +An affectionate letter from H---- that warmed the cockles of my +heart--poor frozen molluscs. A---- has written only once since August. + +_March_ 7. + +I am, I suppose, a whey-faced, lily-livered creature ... yet even an +infantry subaltern has a chance.... + +My dear friend ---- has died and a _Memorial_ Exhibition of his pictures +is being held at the Goupil Gallery. The most fascinating man I ever +met. I was attracted by him almost as one is attracted by a charming +woman: by little ways, by laughing eyes, by the manner of speech. And +now he is dead, of a lingering and painful disease. + +_March_ 8. + +_Death_ + +Have been reading Sir Oliver Lodge's _Raymond_. I do not deny that I am +curious about the next world, or about the condition of death. I am and +always have been. In my early youth, I reflected continually on death +and hated it bitterly. But now that my end is near and certain, I +consider it less and am content to wait and see. As, for all practical +purposes, I have done with life, and my own existence is often a burden +to me and is like to become a burden also to others, I wish I possessed +the wherewithal to end it at my will. With two or three tabloids in my +waistcoat pocket, and my secret locked in my heart, how serenely I would +move about among my friends and fellows, conscious that at some +specially selected moment--at midnight or high noon--just when the +spirit moved me, I could quietly slip out to sea on this Great +Adventure. It would be well to be able to control this: the time, the +place, and the manner of one's exit. For what disturbs me in particular +is how I shall conduct myself; I am afraid lest I become afraid, it is a +fear of fear. By means of my tabloids, I could arrange my death in an +artistic setting, say underneath a big tree on a summer's day, with an +open Homer in my hand, or more appropriately, a magnifying glass and +Miall and Denny's _Cockroach._ It would be stage-managing my own demise +and surely the last thing in self-conscious elegance! + +I think it was De Quincey who said Death to him seemed most awful in the +summer. On the contrary the earth is warm then, and would welcome my old +bones. It is on a cold night by the winter fire that the churchyard +seems to me the least inviting: especially horrible it is the first +evening after the funeral. + +_March_ 10. + +Have had a relapse. My hand I fear is going. Food prices are leaping up. +Woe to the unfit and the old and the poor in these coming days! We shall +soon have nothing left in our pantries, and a piece of Wrigley's chewing +gum will be our only comfort. + + * * * * * + +When I come to quit this world I scarcely know which will be the greater +regret: the people I have never met, or the places I have never seen. In +the world of books, I rest fairly content: I have read my fair share. + +To-day I read down the column of to-morrow's preachers with the most +ludicrous avidity, ticking off the Churches I have visited: St. Paul's +and the Abbey, the Ethical Church in Bayswater and Westminster +Cathedral. But the Unitarians, the Christadelphians, the Theosophists, +the Church of Christ Scientist, the Buddhist Society, the Brompton +Oratory, the Church of Humanity, the New Life Centre; all these +adventures I intended one day to make.... It is not much fun ticking off +things you have done from a list if you have done very little. I get +more satisfaction out of a list of books. But Iona and the Hebrides, +Edinburgh, Brussels, Buenos Ayres, Spitzbergen (when the flowers are +out), the Niagara Falls (by moonlight), the Grindelwald, Cairo--these +names make me growl and occasionally yelp like a hurt puppy, although to +outward view I am sitting in an armchair blowing smoke-rings. + +_March_ 11. + +_The Graph of Temperament_ + +In this Journal, my pen is a delicate needle point, tracing out a graph +of temperament so as to show its daily fluctuations: grave and gay, up +and down, lamentation and revelry, self-love and self-disgust. You get +here all my thoughts and opinions, always irresponsible and often +contradictory or mutually exclusive, all my moods and vapours, all the +varying reactions to environment of this jelly which is I. I snap at +any idea that comes floating down, particularly if it is gaudy or +quixotic, no matter if it is wholly incompatible with what I said the +day before. People unpleasantly refer me back, and to escape I have to +invent some sophistry. I unconsciously imitate the mannerisms of folk I +am particularly taken with. Other people never fail to tell me of my +simulations. If I read a book and like it very much, by a process of +peaceful penetration, the author takes possession of my whole +personality just as if I were a medium giving a sitting, and for some +time subsequently his ideas come spurting up like a fountain making a +pretty display which I take to be my own. Other people say of me, "Oh! I +expect he read it in a book." + +I am something between a Monkey, a Chameleon, and a Jellyfish. To any +bully with an intellect like a blunderbuss, I have always timidly held +up my hands and afterwards gnashed my teeth for my cowardice. In +conversation with men of alien sentiment I am self-effacing to my +intense chagrin, often from mere shyness. I say, "Yes ... yes ... yes," +to nausea, when it ought to be "No ... no ... no." I become my own +renegade, an amiable dissembler, an ass in short. It is a torture to +have a sprightly mind blanketed by personal timidity and a feeble +presence. The humiliating thing is that almost any strong character +hynotises me into complacency, especially if he is a stranger; I find +myself for the time being in really sincere agreement with him, and only +later, discover to myself his abominable doctrines. Then I lie in bed +and have imaginary conversations in which I get my own back. + +But, by Jove, I wreak vengeance on my familiars, and on those brethren +even weaker than myself. They get my concentrated gall, my sulphurous +fulminations, and would wonder to read this confession. + +_Cynicism_ + +For an unusually long time after I grew up, I maintained a beautiful +confidence in the goodness of mankind. Rumours did reach me, but I +brushed them aside as slanders. I was an ingénu, unsuspecting, +credulous. I thoroughly believed that men and women and I were much +better than we actually are. I have not come to the end of my +disillusions even now. I still rub my eyes on occasion. I simply can't +believe that we are such humbugs, hypocrites, self-deceivers. And +strange to say it is the "good" people above all who most bitterly +disappoint me. Give me a healthy liar, or a thief, or a vagabond, and he +arouses no expectations, and so I get no heart-burning. It is the good, +the honest, the true, who cheat me of my boyhood's beliefs.... I am a +cynic then, but not a reckless cynic--a careworn unhappy cynic without +the cynic's pride. "It is easy to be cynical," someone admonished me. +"Unfortunately it is," I said. + +We are so cold, so aloof, so self-centred even the warmest friends. Men +of piety love God, but their love for each other is so commonly but a +poor thing. My own affections are always frosted over with the +Englishman's reserve. I hesitate as if I were not sure of them. I am +afraid of self-deception, I hate to find out either myself or others. +And yet I am always doing so. Mine is a restlessly analytical brain. I +dissect everyone, even those I love, and my discoveries frequently sting +me to the quick. "To the pure all things are pure," whence I should +conclude I suppose that it is the beam in my own eye. But I would not +tolerate being deceived concerning either my own beam or other people's +motes. + +_March_ 12. + +_Archæopteryx and Mudflats_ + +Yesterday I collected two distinct and several twinges and hereby save +them up. They were more than that--they were pangs, and pangs that +twanged. + +(Why do I make fun of my suffering?) + +One was when I saw the well-known figure of the _Archæopteryx_ remains +in the slab of Lithographic sandstone of Bavaria: a reproduction in an +illustrated encyclopædia. The other was when someone mentioned mud, and +I thought of the wide estuary of the T----, its stretches of mudflats +and its wild-fowl. We were turning over some pages and she said: + +"What's that?" + +"_Archæopteryx_," said I. + +"Whatever is _Archæopteryx_?" + +"An extinct bird," I answered mournfully. + +Like an old amour, my love of palæontology and anatomy, and all the high +hopes I entertained of them, came smarting to life again, so I turned +over the page quickly. + +But why need I explain to you, O my Journal? To others, I could not +explain. I was tongue-tied. + +"I used to get very muddy," I remarked lamentably, "in the old days when +stalking birds on the mudflats." + +And they rather jeered at such an occupation in such a place, just as +those beautiful sights and sounds of zostera-covered mud-banks, +twinkling runnels, swiftly running thin-legged waders, their whistles +and cries began to steal over my memory like a delicate pain. + +To my infinite regret, I have no description, no photograph or sketch, +no token of any sort to remember them by. And their doom is certain. +Heavens! how I wasted my impressions and experiences then! Swinburne has +some lines about saltings which console me a little, but I know of no +other descriptions by either pen or brush. + +_March_ 15. + +How revolting it is to see some barren old woman love-sick over a baby, +bestowing voluptuous kisses on its nose, eyes, hands, feet, utterly +intoxicated and chattering incessantly in the "little language," and +hopping about like an infatuated cock grouse. + +_May_ 5. + +The nurse has been here now for over five weeks. One day has been pretty +much the same as another. I get out of bed usually about tea-time and +sit by the window and churn over past, present, and future. However, the +Swallows have arrived at last, though they were very late, and there +are also Cuckoos, Green Wood-peckers, Moorhens, calling from across the +park. At night, when the moon is up, I get a great deal of fun out of an +extremely self-inflated Brown Owl, who hoots up through the breadth and +length of the valley, and then I am sure, listens with satisfaction to +his echo. Still, I have much sympathy with that Brown Owl and his +hooting. + +What I do (goodness knows what E---- does), is to drug my mind with +print. I am just a rag-bag of Smollett, H.G. Wells, Samuel Butler, the +_Daily News_, the Bible, the _Labour Leader, Joseph Vance_, etc., etc. +Except for an occasional geyser of malediction when some particularly +acrid memory comes uppermost in my mind, I find myself submitting with a +surprising calm and even cheerfulness. That agony of frustration which +gnawed my vitals so much in 1913 has disappeared, and I, who expected to +go down in the smoke and sulphur of my own fulminations, am quite as +likely to fold my hands across my chest with a truly Christian +resignation. Joubert said, "Patience and misfortune, courage and death, +resignation and the inevitable, generally come together. Indifference to +life generally arises with the impossibility of preserving it"--how +cynical that sounds. + +_May_ 8. + +This and another volume of my Journal are temporarily lodged in a drawer +in my bedroom. It appears to me that as I become more static and +moribund, they become more active and aggressive. All day they make a +perfect uproar in their solitary confinement--although no one hears it. +And at night they become phosphorescent, though nobody sees it. One of +these days, with continued neglect they will blow up from spontaneous +combustion like diseased gunpowder, the dismembered diarist being thus +hoist upon his own petard. + +_June_ 1. + +We discuss post mortem affairs quite genially and without restraint. It +is the contempt bred of familiarity I suppose. E---- says widows' weeds +have been so vulgarised by the war widows that she won't go into deep +mourning. "But you'll wear just one weed or two for me?" I plead, and +then we laugh. She has promised me that should a suitable chance arise, +she will marry again. Personally, I wish I could place my hand on the +young fellow at once, so as to put him thro' his paces--shew him where +the water main runs and where the gas meter is, and so on. + +You will observe what a relish I have for my own _macabre_, and how +keenly I appreciate the present situation. Nobody can say I am not +making the best of it. One might call it pulling the hangman's beard. +Yet I ought, I fancy, to be bewailing my poor wife and fatherless child. + +_June_ 15. + +I sit all day in my chair, moving 8 feet to my bed at night, and 8 feet +from it to my chair in the morning--and wait. The assignation is +certain. "Life is a coquetry with Death that wearies me, Too sure of the +amour." + +_July_ 5. + +It is odd that at this time of the breaking of nations, Destiny, with +her hands so full, should spare the time to pursue a non-combatant atom +like me down such a labyrinthine side-track. It is odd to find her +determined to destroy me with such tremendous thoroughness--one would +have thought it sufficient merely to brush the dust off my wings. Why +this deliberate, slow-moving malignity? Perhaps it is a punishment for +the impudence of my desires. I wanted everything so I get nothing. I +gave nothing so I receive nothing. I am not offering up my life +willingly--it is being taken from me piece by piece, while I watch the +pilfering with lamentable eyes. + +I have tendered my resignation and retire on a small gratuity. + +_July_ 7. + +My hand gets a little better. But it's a cat and mouse game, and so +humiliating to be the mouse. + +... Parental affection comes to me only in spasms, and if they hurt, +they do not last long. Curiously enough, as in the case of very old +people, my consciousness reverts more easily to conditions long past. I +seem unable to apprehend all the significance of having a nine-months +old daughter, but some Bullfinches or Swallows seen thro' the window +rouse me more. No one can deny I have loved Birds to intoxication. In my +youth, birds' eggs, and little nestlings and chickens sent me into such +raptures I could never tell it to you adequately.... I am too tired to +write more. + +_July_ 23. + +Reading Pascal again. If Shelley was "gold dusty from tumbling among the +stars," Pascal was bruised and shaken. The one was delighted, and the +other frightened. I like Pascal's prostration before the infinities of +Time, Space and the Unknown. Somehow, he conveys this more vividly than +the uplift afforded him by religion. + +_July_ 25. + +I don't believe in the twin-soul theory of marriage. There are plenty of +men any one of whom she might have married and lived with happily, and +simpler men than I am. Methinks there are large tracts could be sliced +off my character and she would scarcely feel the want of them. To think +that she of all women, with a past such as hers, should be swept into my +vicious orbit! Yet she seems to bear Destiny no resentment, so I bear it +for her and enough for two. At our engagement I gave her my own ring to +wear as a pledge--we thought it nicer than buying a new one. It was a +signet ring with a dark smooth stone. Strange to say it never once +occurred to me till now that it was a mourning ring in memory of a +great-uncle of mine, actually with an inscription on the inside. + +_July_ 26. + +As long as I can hold a pen, I shall, I suppose, go on trickling ink +into this diary! + +I am amusing myself by reading the _Harmsworth Encyclopædia_ in 15 +volumes, _i.e._, I turn over the pages and read everything of interest +that catches my eye. + +I get out of bed about ten, wash and sit by the window in my blue +striped pyjama suit. It is so hot I need no additional clothing. +E---- comes in, brushes my hair, sprinkles me with lavender water, lights +my cigarette, and gives me my book-rest and books. She forgets nothing. + +From my window I look out on a field with Beech hedge down one side and +beyond, tall trees--one showing in outline exactly like the profile of a +Beefeater's head, more especially at sunset each evening when the tree +next behind is in shadow. The field is full of blue Scabious plants, +Wild Parsley and tall grass--getting brown now in the sun. Great numbers +of White Butterflies are continually rocking themselves across--they go +over in coveys of four or five at a time--I counted 50 in five minutes, +which bodes ill for the cabbages. Not even the heaviest thunder showers +seem to debilitate their kinetic ardour. They rock on like white +aeroplanes in a hail of machine-gun bullets. + +Then there are the Swallows and Martins cutting such beautiful figures +thro' the air that one wishes they carried a pencil in their bills as +they fly and traced the lines of flight on a Bristol board. How I hanker +after the Swallows! so free and gay and vigorous. This autumn, as they +prepare to start, I shall hang on every twitter they make, and on every +wing-beat; and when they have gone, begin sadly to set my house in +order, as when some much loved visitors have taken their departure. I am +appreciating things a little more the last few days. + +_August_ 1. + +_A Jeremiad_ + +When I resigned my appointment last month, no one knows what I had to +give up. But I know. Tho' if I say what I know no one is compelled to +believe me excepting out of charity. It will never be discovered whether +what I am going to state is not simply despairing bombast. My few +intimate friends and relatives are entirely innocent of science, not to +say zoology, and all they realise is the significant fact that I am +prone to go extravagant lengths in conversation. But you may take it or +leave it: I was the ablest junior on the staff and one of the ablest +zoologists in the place--but my ability was always muffled by the +inferior work they gave me to do. My last memoir published last December +was the best of its kind in treatment, method and technique that ever +issued from the institution--I do not say the most important. It was +trivial--my work always was trivial because they put me in a mouldy +department where all the work was trivial and the methods used as +primitive, slipshod and easy as those of Fabricius, the idea being that +as I had enjoyed no academic career I was unsuited to fill other posts +then vacant--one, work on the Cœlenterates and another on _Vermes_, +both rarely favoured by amateurs and requiring laboratory training. +Later, I had the mortification of seeing these posts filled by men whose +powers I by no means felt inclined to estimate as greater than my own. +Meanwhile, I who had been dissecting for dear life up and down the whole +Animal Kingdom in a poorly equipped attic laboratory at home, with no +adequate instruments, was bitterly disappointed to find still less +provision made even in a so-called Scientific Institution so grandly +styled the British Museum (N.H.). On my first arrival I was presented +with a pen, ink, paper, ruler, and an enormous instrument of steel which +on enquiry I found to be a paper cutter. I asked for my microscope and +microtome. I ought to have asked what Form I was in. + +So I had to continue my struggle against odds, and only within the last +year or so began to squeeze the authorities with any success. In time I +should have revolutionised the study of Systematic Zoology, and the +anonymous paper I wrote in conjunction with R---- in the _American +Naturalist_ was a rare _jeu d'esprit_, and my most important scientific +work. + + * * * * * + +In the literary world I have fared no better. My first published article +appeared at the age of 15 over my father's name, my motive being not so +much modesty as cunning--if the literary world (!) ragged it +unmercifully, there was still a chance left for me to make good. + +My next achievement of any magnitude was the unexpected printing of a +story in the _Academy_ after I had unsuccessfully badgered almost every +other newspaper. This was when I was 19. No proof had been sent me and +no intimation of its acceptance. Moreover, there were two ugly printer's +errors. I at once wrote off to correct them in the next issue. My letter +was neither published nor acknowledged. I submitted, but presently wrote +again, politely hinting that my cheque was overdue. But--screams of +silence, and I thought it wise not to complain in view of future +printing favours. I soon discovered that the journal had changed hands +and was probably on its last legs at the time of my success. As soon as +it grew financially sound again no more of my stories were accepted. + +A more recent affair I had with the American _Forum,_ which delighted me +by publishing my article, but did not pay--tho' the Editor went out of +his way to write that "payment was on publication." I did not venture to +remonstrate as I had another article on the stocks which they also +printed without paying me. In spite of uniform failure, my literary +ambition has never flagged.[2] I have for years past received my +rejected MSS. back from every conceivable kind of periodical, from +_Punch_ to the _Hibbert Journal_. At one time I used to file their +rejection forms and meditated writing a facetious essay on them. But I +decided they were too monotonously similar. My custom was when the +ordinary avenues to literary fame had failed me--the half-crown Reviews +and the sixpenny Weeklies--to seek out at a library some obscure +publication--a Parish Magazine or the local paper--anything was grabbed +as a last chance. On one of these occasions I discovered the +_Westminster Review_ and immediately plied them with a manuscript and +the usual polite note. After six weeks, having no reply, I wrote again +and waited for another six weeks. My second remonstrance met with a +similar fate, so I went into the city to interview the publishers, and +to demand my manuscript back. The manager was out, and I was asked to +call again. After waiting about for some time, I left my card, took my +departure and decided I would write. The same evening I told the +publishers that the anonymous editor would neither print my article nor +return it. Would they kindly give me his name and address so that I +could write personally. After some delay they replied that although it +was not the custom to disclose the editor's name, the following address +would find her. She was a lady living in Richmond Row, Shepherd's Bush. +I wrote to her at once and received no answer. Meanwhile, I had observed +that no further issues of the review had appeared on the bookstalls, and +the book-sellers were unable to give me any information. I wrote again +to the address--this time a playful and facetious letter in which I said +I did not propose to take the matter into court, but if it would save +her any trouble I would call for the MS. as I lived only a few minutes' +walk distant. I received no answer. I was busy at the time and kept +putting off executing my firm purpose of visiting the good lady until +one evening as I was casually reading the _Star_ coming home in the +'bus, I read an account of how some charitably disposed woman had +recently visited the Hammersmith Workhouse and removed to her own home a +poor soul who was once the friend of George Eliot, George Henry Lewes, +and other well-known literary persons of the sixties and had, until it +ceased publication a few months before, edited the once notable +_Westminster Review_. + +Recently, however, there has been evidence of a more benevolent attitude +towards me on the part of London editors. A certain magnificent +quarterly has published one or two of my essays, and one of these called +forth two pages of quotation and flattering comment in _Public Opinion_, +which thrill me to the marrow. I fear, however, the flood-tide has come +too late. + + * * * * * + +If this achievement impressed me it did not seem to impress anyone else. +A---- regarded it as a joke and laughed incredulously when someone told +him of "P.O.'s" eulogy. You see I am still his foolish little brother. I +am secretly very nettled too because E---- treated the whole matter very +indifferently. She did not even take the trouble to read the paper's +critique, and tho' she volunteered to buy several copies to send to +friends, she never remembered to do so, and the whole affair has passed +out of her mind. + +Now a pleasant paragraph that appeared in the press noticing some +drawings of a friend of her friend, she read twice and marched off to +Francesca with it in great glee. Another successful young person got his +photo into the picture papers--a man we know only by hearsay, and yet it +impressed her until I recalled, what strange to say she had quite +forgotten, how the photographers wished to publish her own photograph in +the picture papers at the time of our marriage. But she scornfully +refused. (And so did I.) + +But what a queer woman!... [And I, too, a queer man, drunken with +wormwood and gall.] + +_August_ 6. + +E---- and I were very modern in our courtship. Our candour was mutual +and complete--parents and relatives would be shocked and staggered if +they knew.... You see I am a biologist and we are both freethinkers. +_Voilà_!... I hate all reticence and concealment.... There is a good +deal of that ass, Gregers Werle, in my nature. + +_August_ 7. + +_My Gastrocnemius_ + +I become dreadfully emaciated. This morning, before getting off the bed +I lifted my leg and gazed wistfully along all its length. My flabby +_gastrocnemius_ swung suspended from the _tibia_ like a gondola from a +Zeppelin. I touched it gently with the tip of my index finger and it +oscillated. + +_August_ 17. + +My beloved wife comes home this evening after a short, much needed +holiday. + +_August_ 27. + +My gratuity has turned out to be unexpectedly small. I hoped at least +for one year's salary. And the horrible thing is I might live for +several years longer! No one was ever more enthusiastic for death than I +am at this moment. I hate this world with its war, and I bitterly regret +I never managed to buy laudanum in time. There are only E---- and dear +R---- and one or two others--the rest of the people I know I hate _en +bloc_. If only I could get at them. I hate to have to leave them to +themselves without getting my own back. + +_August_ 31. + +My darling sweetheart, you ask me why I love you. I do not know. All I +know is that I _do_ love you, and beyond measure. Why do _you_ love +me--surely a more inscrutable problem. You do not know. No one ever +knows. "The heart has its reasons which the reason knows not of." We +love in obedience to a powerful gravitation of our beings, and then try +to explain it by recapitulating one another's characters just as a man +forms his opinions first and then thinks out reasons in support. + +What delights me is to recall that our love has _evolved._ It did not +suddenly spring into existence like some beautiful sprite. It developed +slowly to perfection--it was forged in the white heat of our +experiences. That is why it will always remain. + +_September_ 1. + +Your love, darling, impregnates my heart, touches it into calm, strongly +beating life so that when I am with you, I forget I am a dying man. It +is too difficult to believe that when we die true love like ours +disappears with our bodies. My own experience makes me feel that human +love is the earnest after death of a great reunion of souls in God who +is love. When as a boy I was bending the knee to Haeckel, the saying, +"God is Love," scarcely interested me. I am wiser now. You must not +think I am still anything but an infidel (as the churchmen say),--I +should hate not to be taken for an infidel--and you must not be +surprised that an embittered, angry, hateful person like myself should +believe in a Gospel of Love. I am embittered because an intense desire +to love has in many instances[3] been baulked by my own idealising yet +also analytical mind. I have wanted to love men blindly, yet I am always +finding them out, and the disappointment chills the heart. Hence my +malice and venom: which, dear, do not misconstrue. I am as greedy as an +Octopus, ready out of love to take the whole world into my inside--that +seat of the affections!--but I am also as sensitive as an Octopus, and +quickly retract my arms into the rocky, impregnable recess where I live. + +_September_ 2. + +But am I dying? I have no presentiments--no conviction--like the people +you read of in books. Am I, after all, in love? "I dote yet doubt; +suspect yet strongly love." It is all a matter of degree. Beside Abélard +and Héloïse, our love may be just glassy affection. It is a great and +difficult question to decide. I love no one else but E----, that, at +least, is a certainty, and I have never loved anyone more. + +_September_ 3. + +My bedroom is on the ground floor as I cannot mount the stairs. But the +other day when they were all out, I determined to clamber upstairs if +possible, and search in the bedrooms for a half bottle of laudanum, +which Mrs. ---- told me she found the other day in a box--a relic of the +time when ---- had to take it to relieve pain. + +I got off the bed on to the floor and crawled around on hands and knees +to the door, where I knelt up straight, reached the handle and turned +it. Then I crawled across the hall to the foot of the stairs, where I +sat down on the bottom step and rested. It is a short flight of only 12 +steps and I soon reached the top by sitting down on each and raising +myself up to the next one with my hands. + +Arrived at the top, I quickly decided on the most likely room to search +first, and painfully crawled along the passage and thro' the bathroom by +the easiest route to the small door--there are two. The handles of all +the doors in the house are fixed some way up above the middle, so that +only by kneeling with a straight back could I reach them from the floor. +This door in addition was at the top of a high but narrow step, and I +had to climb on to this, balance myself carefully, and then carefully +pull myself up towards the handle by means of a towel hung on the +handle. After three attempts I reached the handle and found the door +locked on the inside. + +I collapsed on the floor and could have cried. I lay on the floor of the +bathroom resting with head on my arm, then set my teeth and crawled +around the passage along two sides of a square, up three more steps to +the other door which I opened and then entered. I had only examined two +drawers containing only clothes, when a key turned in the front door +lock and E---- entered with ---- and gave her usual whistle. + +I closed the drawers and crawled out of the room in time to hear +E---- say in a startled voice to her mother: "Who's that upstairs?" I +whistled, and said that being bored I had come up to see the cot: which +passed at that time all right. + +Next morning my darling asked me why I went upstairs. I did not answer, +and I think she knows. + +_September_ 4. + +I am getting ill again, and can scarcely hold the pen. So good-bye +Journal--only for a time perhaps. + + * * * * * + +Have read this blessed old Journal out to E----. It required some +courage, and I boggled at one or two bits and left them out. + +_September_ 5. + +_Leap-frog_ + +Some girls up the road spent a very wet Sunday morning playing leap-frog +in their pyjamas around the tennis lawn. It makes me envious. To think I +never thought of doing that! and now it is too late. They wore purple +pyjamas too. I once hugged myself with pride for undressing in a cave by +the sea and bathing in the pouring rain, but that seems tame in +comparison. + +_Liebestod_ + +A perfect autumn morning--cool, fine and still. What sweet music a horse +and cart make trundling slowly along a country road on a quiet morning! +I listened to it in a happy mood of abstraction as it rolled on further +and further away. I put my head out of the window so as to hear it up to +the very last, until a Robin's notes relieved the nervous tension and +helped me to resign myself to my loss. The incident reminded me of the +Liebestod in "Tristan," with the Robin taking the part of the harp. + +For days past my emotions have been undergoing kaleidoscopic changes, +not only from day to day but from hour to hour. For ten minutes at a +time I am happy or miserable, or revengeful, venomous, loving, generous, +noble, angry, or murderous--you could measure them with a stop-watch. +Hell's phantoms course across my chest. If I could lie on this bed as +quiet and stony as an effigy on a tomb! But a moment ago I had a sharp +spasm at the sudden thought that never, never, never again should I walk +thro' the path-fields to the uplands. + +_September_ 7. + +My 28th birthday. + +Dear old R---- (the man I love above all others) has been in a military +hospital for months. It is a great hardship to have our intercourse +almost completely cut off. + +Dear old Journal, I love you! Good-bye. + +_September_ 29. + +I could never have believed so great misery compatible with sanity. Yet +I am quite sane. How long I or any man can remain sane in this condition +God knows.... It is a consummate vengeance this inability to write.[4] I +cannot help but smile grimly at the astuteness of the thrust. To be +sure, how cunning to deprive me of my one secret consolation! How +amusing that in this agony of isolation such an aggressive egotist as I +should have his last means of self-expression cut off. I am being slowly +stifled. + +_Later. (In E.'s handwriting.)_ + +Yesterday we shifted into a tiny cottage at half the rental of the other +one, and situated about two miles further out from the village.... A +wholly ideal and beautiful little cottage you may say. But a +"camouflaged" cottage. For in spite of the happiness of its exterior it +contains just now two of the most dejected mortals even in this present +sorrow-laden world. + +_September_ 30. + +Last night, E---- sitting on the bed by me, burst into tears. It was my +fault. "I can stand a good deal but there must come a breaking point." +Poor, poor girl, my heart aches for you. + +I wept too, and it relieved us to cry. We blew our noses. "People who +cry in novels," E---- observed with detachment, "never blow their noses. +They just weep." ... But the thunder clouds soon come up again. + +_October_ 1. + +The immediate future horrifies me. + +_October_ 2. + +Poushkin (as we have named the cat) is coiled up on my bed, purring and +quite happy. It does me good to see him. + +But consider: A paralytic, a screaming infant, two women, a cat and a +canary, shut up in a tiny cottage with no money, the war still on, and +food always scarcer day by day. "Give us this day, our daily bread." + +I want to be loved--above all, I want to love. My great danger is lest I +grow maudlin and say petulantly, "Nobody loves me, nobody cares." I must +have more courage and more confidence in other people's good-nature. +Then I can love more freely. + +_October_ 3. + +I am grateful to-day for some happy hours plucked triumphantly from +under the very nose of Fate, and spent in the warm sun in the garden. +They carried me out at 12, and I stayed till after tea-time. A Lark +sang, but the Swallows--dear things--have gone. E---- picked two +Primroses. I sat by some Michaelmas Daisies and watched the Bees, Flies, +and Butterflies. + +_October_ 6. + +In fits of maudlin self-compassion I try to visualise Belgium, Armenia, +Serbia, etc., and usually cure myself thereby. + +_October_ 12. + +It is winter--no autumn this year. Of an evening we sit by the fire and +enjoy the beautiful sweet-smelling wood-smoke, and the open hearth with +its big iron bar carrying pot-hook and hanger. E---- knits warm garments +for the Baby, and I play Chopin, César-Franck hymns, Three Blind Mice +(with variations) on a mouth-organ, called "The Angels' Choir," and made +in Germany.... You would pity me would you? I am lonely, penniless, +paralysed, and just turned twenty-eight. But I snap my fingers in your +face and with equal arrogance I pity you. I pity you your smooth-running +good luck and the stagnant serenity of your mind. I prefer my own +torment. I am dying, but you are already a corpse. You have never really +lived. Your body has never been flayed into tingling life by hopeless +desire to love, to know, to act, to achieve. I do not envy you your +absorption in the petty cares of a commonplace existence. + +Do you think I would exchange the communion with my own heart for the +toy balloons of your silly conversation? Or my curiosity for your +flickering interests? Or my despair for your comfortable Hope? Or my +present tawdry life for yours as polished and neat as a new three-penny +bit? I would not. I gather my mantle around me and I solemnly thank God +that I am not as some other men are. + +I am only twenty-eight, but I have telescoped into those few years a +tolerably long life: I have loved and married, and have a family; I have +wept and enjoyed; struggled and overcome, and when the hour comes I +shall be content to die. + +_ October_ 14 _to_ 20. + +Miserable. + +_October_ 21. + +Self-disgust. + +FINIS. + +[Barbellion died on December 31.] + + +[1] John Wesley _rewrote_ his journals from entries in rough draft. + +[2] I once received from an editor a very encouraging letter which gave +me a great deal of pleasure and made me hope he was going to open the +pages of his magazine to me. But three weeks after he committed suicide +by jumping out of his bedroom window. + +[3] The Egoist explains himself again. + +[4] Writing difficult to decipher. + + + + +SYNOPSIS + +PART I: AT HOME + + Rambles and bathes, 2, 3, 4, 9, 11, 20, 37, 45, 46, 48, 49 + Natural History and Zoology, 9, 12, 13, 20, 29 + Leaves school, 10 + Newspaper reporting, 17, 19 + Ambition, 8, 10, 13, 26, 29 + Calf-love, 8, 12, 23, 28 + The Wesleyan Minister Microscopist, 18 + Conversation with Prof. Herdman, 46 + Ill-health, 10, 24, 25, 35, 42, 48 (Jul. 31) + Heart attacks, 33, 36 + On Death, 33, 38, 43, 44 + Sits for British Museum exam., 29 + Failure, 30, 31, 32 + Appointment to Laboratory at Plymouth, 32 + Everything "ghostly, unreal, enigmatic," 29, 33 + Self-consciousness, 27, 40 + The Poppy, 43 + Appointment resigned and his father's illness, 34 + His father's death, 50, 51 + Success and appointment to B.M., 55 + A youthful Passion, 56, 57 + +PART II: IN LONDON + + Disillusionment, 59, 61, 93, 94, 132, 178, 185 + Life in a boarding-house, 63, 78, 79, 94, 99, 107 + Ambition, 71, 73, 109 + An affair in a taxicab, 75 + Self-disgust, 77 + In love, 78, 96, 107 + Conversations: (a) with E., 65, 69, 70, 75, 76, 79, 95, 96, 99, + 104, 151, 152 + (b) with H., 82, 83 + (c) with R., 131, 140, 141, 142, 154, 155, 165, + Ill-health, 59, 62, 69, 72, 74, 100, 107, 110, 114, 134-5, 153, 156 + On Death, 62, 63, 84, 88 + Heart attacks, 71, 72, 120, 122 + Nervous breakdown, 80, 81, 82 + Meets an old love, 86, 87 + Holidays: (_a_) at C----, by the sea in North ----, 65, 66, 67 + (_b_) at home, 82 + (_c_) in Brittany and on Dartmoor (_riding a pony_), 97 + Life in rooms, 102, 107, 108, 114, 138, 148, 149, 153 + His brother, 121, 206 + Discussions on marriage, 123, 124 + In his sitting-room, 162 + The fascination of London, 74, 142-145 + (_a_) Petticoat Lane, 163 + (_b_) Rotten Row, 176 + Goes to concerts, 127, 161, 172 + A lovers' quarrel, 126 + He struggles with himself, 135, 137, 138 + Engaged, 150, 158 + Fears his inconstancy, 159, 185 + Self-analysis, 167 _et seq_., 182, 183 + Day-dreams: Life a dream, 178, 179, 188 + The War, 182 + Holidays: (_a_) on a Buckinghamshire farm, 191-205 + (_b_) at the Lakes, 215-217 + Should a husband keep a private journal? 210 + Marriage, 205, 209, 215 + +PART III: MARRIAGE + + Zeppelin raid and influenza, 222 + Living in the country, 223, 227, 228 + Reads his doctor's certificate after visit to recruiting-office, 225, 238 + Self-disgust, 223, 224, 225, 247, 250 (_nude_), 267 + Mental agony, 226, 227 + Conversations: with R., 229 + with Scarabees, 230, 239, 243 + Halcyon days, 233, 235, 238 + A natural idiot climbs a stile on uplands, 240 + Tension, 250, 252 + The War, 237 (_Jutland_), 242, 247, 248, 249 + Another nervous breakdown, 253 + How E. knew all the time, 255, 256 + Self-compassion, 251, 304 + Home ill, 257 ("_in the doldrums_"), 259, 265 + Returns to work, 278 + Ill again, 285 + From an invalid's view-point, 292, 293 (_by his bedroom window_) + Post-mortem affairs, 291 + Resigns appointment, 294, 299 + Self-consciousness and self-dramatization, 255, 265, 267 + A badly articulated skeleton, 274 + Cold weather in January, 276, 277, 278 + On Death, 275, 283, 286, 291 + His phosphorescent Journals, 291 + Morphia and laudanum, 280, 300 + Great misery, 303, 305 + + + + +INDEX OF NAMES + + A----, 21, 51, 82, 97, 98, 121, 158, 206, 285, 298 + _"Academy," The_, 23, 24, 106, 296 + _Adventure in Search of Health, An_, 260 + A Kempis, Thomas, 28 + _Albert Hall, Hag, The_, 147 + _Ambition_, 29 + "_American Naturalist_," 295 + _American Neighbour, An_, 251 + _Apologia pro mea vita_, 145 + _Archæopteryx and Mudflats_, 289 + _Aristotle's Lantern_, 19 + _At a Public Dinner_, 175 + _At C----, a tiny little village by the Sea in N_----, 65 + _At Home_, 82 + _At the Albert Hall_, 127 + Austen, Jane, 268 + _Average Day, An_, 172 + + B----, 102, 107, 114, 118, 119 + _Baby-Girl, A_, 263 + _Bad Listener, A_, 246 + Baring, Maurice, 188 + _Bathing_, 60 + Baudelaire, 60, 62, 173, 183, 197, 198, 258 + Beerbohm, Max, 269 + _Beethoven's Fifth Symphony_, 161, 186 + Benson, A.C., 249 + Bergson, 47, 55, 78, 183, 198 + Berkeley, 275 + Blind Mathilde, 139 + Boeltzig, R., 103 + Bradford, Sir John Rose, 54 + Brieux, 162 + _"Brilliant Career," A_, 62 + British Museum, 26, 29, 49, 57, 59, 61, 79, 94, 132, 174, 178, + 225, 274, 282, 283, 295 + _British Museum Reading Room, The_, 100 + Brooke, Rupert, 266 + Browne, Sir Thomas, 146, 183, 238 + Buchanan, Robert, 251 + Bunyan, 166 + Burke, 2 + Burlington House, 29 + Burton, 125 + Butler, Samuel, 143, 171, 185, 291 + _Buxom Rogue in Earthenware, A_, 216 + _By the Sea_, 61 + Byron, 266 + + _Camping out at S---- Sands_, 91 + Carlyle, 120, 171 + Cassell's _Natural History_, 13 + _Chalcidoidea, The_, 221 + _Character, A_, 39 + _Chinese Lanterns_, 280 + _Chipples_, 220 + _Chopin_, 157 + _Clever Young Man, The_, 207 + Coleridge, 266 + _Confession, A_, 74 + Conrad, 50, 223 + _Crowd Fever_, 278 + _Cynicism_, 288 + + D----, 69, 180 + Darwin, 6, 55 + _Day in Autumn, A_, 51 + _Death_, 33, 84, 275, 286 + Debussy, 161, 162, 167 + De Goncourt, 227, 228 + De Guérin, 200, 277, 282 + De Maupassant, Guy, 63, 266 + _Depression_, 89 + De Quincey, 10, 42, 126, 187, 196, 286 + Devonshire Club, 32 + _Dinosaurs_, 129 + Disraeli, 258 + _Dr. Spurgeon_, 90 + Dostoieffsky, 132, 163, 167, 187 + Duke, Mr., K.C., 17 + + E----, 68, 78, 79, 107, 171, 191, 192, 193, 194, 201, 209, 220, 223, 226, + 228, 233, 235, 236, 238, 240, 251, 253, 254, 255, 256, 257, 259, 260, + 261, 263, 274, 277, 283, 291, 292, 294, 298, 299, 300, 301, 302, 303, + 304 + _Early Boughies_, 66 + _Empress of Ireland_, 127 + _English Review_, 101, 105, 142 + _Equilibrium Restored_, 245 + _Entomological Society, The_, 110 + + Father, 34, 50, 51, 137 + _Finis_, 225, 285 + _Fire Bogey, The_, 170 + _Foolish Bird, A_, 118 + "_Fortnightly_," 61 + "_Forum_," 296 + Foster, Sir Michael, 209 + _From one Maiden Lady to another (authentic)_, 37 + + G----, 78, 197, 215 + _Gardening_,83 + Gaskel, 23, 55 + Gibbon, 129, 258 + _Gibbon's Autobiography_, 268 + Gissing, George, 32 + Goethe, 146 + _Graph of Temperament, The,_ 287 + + H----, 7, 8, 13, 38, 51, 60, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 82, 83, 89, 92, + 94, 114, 180, 196, 206, 218, 285 + Haeckel, 23, 300 + _Harmsworth Encyclopædia_, 294 + Harmsworth _Self-Educator_, 10 + Hardy, 24, 282 + _Hardy's Poetry_, 264 + _Hearing Beethoven_, 172 + Hegel, 146 + Henley, 208, 209 + Herdman, Prof., 46 + Hervey, 170 + Horton, Max Kennedy, 141 + _Housefly Problem, The_--1916, 231 + _Humble Confession, A_, 115 + Huxley, 37, 163 + + "_Illustrated London News_," 53 + _In a Crowd_, 184 + _In London_, 59 + _In London again_, 93, 99 + + J----, 78, 263 + James, 163, 166 + Jefferies, Richard, 44, 233 + _Jeremiad, A_, 294 + Johnson, 2, 10, 180, 181, 196, 230 + _Johnson_ v. _Yves Delage_, 181 + _Jolt, A_, 247 + Jonson, Ben, 171 + Joubert, 291 + _Justifiable Mendacity_, 52 + + K----, 80, 99, 138, 225 + Kant, 257 + Keats, 10, 145, 146, 258 + + L----, 1, 3, 4, 43, 98 + Lacépède, 146 + Lamb, Charles, 13, 120, 227, 230 + Landor, W.S., 265 + La Rochefoucauld, 31 + _Leap-frog_, 302 + Lodge, Sir Oliver, 286 + _Liebestod_, 302 + _Lice or "Creeping Ferlies_," 213 + _Looking for Lice at the Zoo_, 177 + Lubbock, 7 + _Ludo_, 104 + _Lupus_, 125 + _Luxury of Lunacy, The_, 195 + + M----, 12, 20, 62, 69, 70, 80, 81, 96, 105, 106, 134, 140, 156, + 222, 225, 226, 255, 250, 259, 260 + Macaulay, 30 + Maeterlinck, 42 + Malpighi, 171 + _Marie Bashkirtseff_, 139, 163, 175, 238 + Mary, 8, 23, 28 + _Masefield's "Gallipoli,"_ 269 + _Measuring Lice_, 125 + Moffat, 161 + Moore, Tom, 173 + _More Irony_, 105 + Mosenthal, 13 + Mother, 34, 50, 51, 59, 93, 95, 97, 137 + Mozart, 161 + _My Gastrocnemius_, 208 + _My Nightmare_, 105 + _My Sense of Touch_, 91 + + N----, 29, 78, 121, 122, 257, 261 + _Naming Cockroaches_, 184 + Natural History Museum, 6, 54 + _New Pile in the Pier, A_, 88 + Newton, 171 + Nietzsche, 137, 156 + + _Old Diaries_, 44 + _Omniscience_, 239 + _On Lighting Chloe's Cigarette,_ 119 + _On Lundy Island_, 21 + _On the N. Downs_, 68 + _Our Simian Ancestry_, 27 + + P----, 76, 78, 79, 80 + _Pachmann_, 234 + Pascal, 293 + _Petticoat Lane_, 163 + Piers Plowman, 221 + Plymouth Marine Laboratory, 29, 32,47, 79 + _Pool: a Retrospect, The_, 189 + _Potted Novel, A_, 284 + _Prawning_, 17 + _Preparing a Snake's Skull_, 50 + "_Punch_," 296 + _Punch and Judy Show, The,_ 180 + + R----, 81, 99, 101, 104, 107, 115, 119, 120, 122, 123, 124, + 127, 128, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 140, 141, 148, + 151, 154, 166, 167, 169, 172, 173, 174, 175, 182, 197, 205, + 207, 208, 209, 215, 2l6, 217, 227, 228, 229, 230, 239, 240, + 241, 295, 299, 303 + _Raemakers_, 186 + _Railway Travel_, 41 + _Raleigh, Sir Walter_, 129, 196 + _Reading Nietzsche_, 156 + _Reminiscences_, 270 + _Renunciation_, 85 + _Resignation_, 141 + _Restlessness of the Sea, The,_ 90 + Richepin, 57 + Richelieu, Cardinal, 155 + _Rigor Bordis_, 148 + _Rodin_, 103, 157, 160 + Romney, 169 + Rousseau, 63, 181, 268 + Ruskin, 30, 190, 208, 216 + + S----, 1, 3 + Saintsbury, Prof. Geo., 126 + Sainte-Beuve, 200, 277 + Schäfer, 110 + Schopenhauer, 34 + Schubert, 173, 174 + _Scots Fir, A_, 111 + Scott, 75, 153 + _Service_, 264 + Shakespeare, 264 + Shaw, Bernard, 59, 150, 166, 249 + Shelley, 196, 266, 293 + _Sir Henry Wood conducting_, 159 + _Sleep_, 206 + _Small Red Viper, A_, 16 + Smiles, Samuel, 14 + Smollett, 291 + _Sollas's "Ancient Hunters,"_ 72 + Southey, 16 + Spallanzani, 47, 71, 112 + Spinoza, 16 + _Spring in the Woods_, 15 + _Staying by the Sea_, 43 + _Stagnancy_, 84 + _Stagnant Day, A_, 111 + Stevenson, 63, 106, 161, 208, 209 + _Stockbroker, The_, 252 + _Strangeness of my Life, The,_ 281 + Strindberg, 139 + Susan, 254 + _Sunset in Kensington Gardens_, 130 + Swift, 230 + Swinburne, 61, 290 + + T----, 14, 171, 246 + + "_T.P.'s Weekly_," 41 + Tennyson, 154, 264 + _Test for True Love, The_, 157 + _Test of Happiness, A_, 185 + Thompson, Francis, 266 + Thoreau, 181 + _Too Late_, 144 + _Tschaikovsky_, 161, 162 + Turner, J.M.W., 154, 167 + _Two Adventures_, 212 + _Two Months' Sick Leave_, 80 + _Two People I hate in particular,_ 186 + _Two Young Men Talking_, 60 + + _Une Caractère_, 53 + + Verlaine, 60 + Villon, Francois, 173 + Voltaire, 63, 163 + + Wagner, 166 + Wallace, 23, 37 + Walton, Isaac, 8 + Wasmann, Father, 47 + Waterton, 159 + Wells, H.G., 291 + Whistler, 222 + White, Gilbert, 159 + Whitman, Walt, 189, 253 + Wilde, Oscar, 76, 143, 152, 175, 258 + _Windy Ash_,35 + _Wiedersheim_, 106, 145, 159, 257 + _Woman and a Child, A_, 146 + Wood, Sir Henry, 157, 159, 172, 201 + Woodward, Dr. Smith, 145 + + _Yellow Cat, A_, 241 + + Zola, 17 + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JOURNAL OF A DISAPPOINTED MAN *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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