Mr. Samuel Pepys set down the happenings of his days with unique candor
and spirit, and, by so doing, became immortal. Edward Cane also kept a
diary. Like that of Mr. Pepys, it was written in cipher, and it had a
good deal about the author’s wife in it; but in other ways it was very
different.
Edward was passionately concerned with the future. He made prophecies,
and it displeased him that these prophecies were not fulfilled. His was
a just and reasonable mind. He knew--none better--how things ought to
be, and he was displeased that they were not so.
He had, indeed, given up looking through the earlier pages of his diary,
because it hurt too much; but he remembered some of the things. He
remembered, if not the actual words, at least the spirit in which he had
prophesied about this marriage of his. It was going to be different from
all other marriages. Why not, since he and his Mildred were different
from all other persons? It was going to be a splendid adventure.
“We shall never become stodgy,” he had written.
Well, as far as that went, they hadn’t. Quite the contrary!
This evening he began his daily record: