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.