The Journal of a Disappointed Man. W.N.P. Barbellion
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.
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.
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.
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