The Journal of a Disappointed Man. W.N.P. Barbellion
I shall be as successful with the beetle-season.
August 15.
A hot, sultry afternoon, during most of which I was stretched out on the grass beside an upturned stone where a battle royal was fought between Yellow and Black Ants. The victory went to the hardy little Yellows… By the way, I held a Newt by the tail to-day and it emitted a squeak! So that the Newt has a voice after all.
August 26.
In bed with a feverish cold. I am afraid I have very few Nat. His. observations to make. It is hard to observe anything at all when lying in bed in a dull bedroom with one small window. Gulls and Starlings pass, steam engines whistle, horses' feet clatter down the street, and sometimes the voice of a passer-by reaches me, and often the loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind. I can also hear my own cough echoing through my head, and, by the evening, the few pages of Lubbock's Ants, Bees, and Wasps which I struggled to get through during the day rattle through my brain till I am disgusted to find I have them by heart. The clock strikes midnight and I wait for the morning. Oh! what a weary world.
October 13.
Down with another cold. Feeling pretty useless. It's a wonder I don't develop melancholia.
November 6.
By 7 a.m. H – and I were down on the mudflats of the River with field-glasses, watching Waders. Ringed Plover in great numbers.
1906
January 13.
I have always had one ambition to be a great naturalist. That is, I suppose, a child's fancy, and I can see my folly in hoping for such great things. Still, there is no reason why I should not become a learned naturalist if I study hard. I hope that whatever I do I shall do in the hope of increasing knowledge of truth and not for my own fame. This entry may suggest that I am horribly conceited. But really I am as humble as possible. I know I have advanced beyond many others, and I know I shall advance further, but why be conceited?.. What a short life we have, and what heaps of glorious work to be done! Supper bell – so I am off… This reads like Isaac Walton's funny mixtures of the sublime with the ridiculous. He discusses abstract happiness and the best salmon sauce all in one breath.
February 26.
Although it is a grand achievement to have added but one jot or tittle to the sum of human knowledge it is grander still to have added a thought. It is best for a man to try to be both poet and naturalist – not to be too much of a naturalist and so overlook the beauty of things, or too much of a poet and so fail to understand them or even perceive those hidden beauties only revealed by close observation.
March 17.
Woke up this morning covered with spots, chest inflamed, and bad cough. H – carted me down from the Attic to the Lower Bedroom, and when the Dr. came he confirmed the general opinion that I had measles. It is simply disgusting, I have somewhere near 10,000 spots on me.
April 27.
Went to A – Woods, where, strange to say, I again saw Mary. But she had a tribe of friends with her, so did not speak, but watched her from a distance through my field-glasses.
May 8.
On interviewing my old friend Dr. H – , found I had chickenpox. This instead of being a Diary of a Naturalist's observations1 will be one of infectious diseases.
May 28.
[Letter from Editor of Countryside to my brother saying that if the Countryside grew he might be able to offer me a billet. "Meanwhile he will be able to get along with his pen … he will soon make a living and in time too a name."] This is a bit of all right. I shall always be on the look-out for a job on a N.H. Journal.
December 7.
Went to F – Duckponds. Flocks of Wigeon and Teal on the water. Taking advantage of a dip in the land managed to stalk them splendidly, and for quite a long time I lay among the long grass watching them through my field-glasses. But during the day Wild Duck are not particularly lively or interesting birds. They just rest serenely on the water like floating corks on a sheet of glass. Occasionally one will paddle around lazily. But for the most part they show a great ennui and seem so sleepy and tired that one would almost think to be able to approach and feed them out of the hand. But I moved one hand carelessly and the whole flock was up in a minute and whizzing across the river. Afterwards, at dusk, on returning to the ponds, they had come back; but now that the sun was down, those dozy, flapdoodle creatures of the afternoon were transformed into quacking, quarrelsome, blustering birds that squabbled and chivvied each other, every moment seizing the chance of a luxurious dip, flinging the ice-cold water off their backs with a shake of the tail that seemed to indicate the keenest-edged delight.
It was now quite dark. A Snipe rose at my feet and disappeared into the darkness. Coots and Moorhens clekked, and a Little Grebe grew bold and began to dive and fish quite close to me, methodically working its way upstream and so quartering out its feeding area.
A happy half-hour! Alas! I enjoy these moments the more as they recede. Not often do I realise the living present. That is always difficult. It is the mere shades – the ghosts of the dead days – that are dearest to me.
Spent my last day at school. De Quincey says (or was it Johnson?) that whenever we do anything for the last time, provided we have done it regularly for years before, we are a little melancholy, even though it has been distasteful to us… True.
December 14.
Signed my Death Warrant, i. e., my articles apprenticing me to journalism for five years. By Jove! I shall work frantically during the next five years so as to be ready at the end of them to take up a Natural History appointment.
1907
March 1.
As long as he has good health, a man need never despair. Without good health, I might keep a long while in the race, yet as the goal of my ambition grew more and more unattainable I should surely remember the words of Keats and give up: "There is no fiercer Hell than the failure of a great ambition."
March 14.
Have been reading through the Chemistry Course in the Harmsworth Self-Educator and learning all the latest facts and ideas about radium. I would rather have a clear comprehension of the atom as a solar system than a private income of £100 a year. If only I had eyes to go on reading without a stop!
May 1.
Met an old gentleman in E – , a naturalist with a great contempt for the Book of Genesis. He wanted to know how the Kangaroo leapt from Australia to Palestine and how Noah fed the animals in the Ark. He rejects the Old T. theogony and advised me to read "Darwin and J.G. Wood!" Silly old man!
May 22.
To Challacombe and then walked across Exmoor. This is the first time I have been on Exmoor. My first experience of the Moors came bursting in on me with a flood of ideas, impressions, and delights. I cannot write out the history of to-day. It would take too long and my mind is a palpitating tangle. I have so many things to record that I cannot record one of them. Perhaps the best thing to do would be to draw up an inventory of things seen and heard and trust to my memory to fill in the details when in the future I revert to this date. Too much joy, like too much pain, simply makes me prostrate. It wounds the organism. It is too much. I shall try to forget it all as quickly as possible so as to be able to return to egg-collecting and bird-watching the sooner as a calm and dispassionate observer. Yet these dear old hills. How I love them. I cannot leave them without one friendly word. I wish I were a shepherd!
At the "Ring of Bells" had a long yarn with the landlord, who, as he told us the story of his life, was constantly interrupted but never disconcerted by the exuberant loyalty and devotion of his wife – a stout, florid, creamy woman, who capped every story with: "Ees quite honest, sir; no 'arm at all in old Joshua."
June 5.
A half-an-hour of to-day I spent in a punt under a copper beech out of the pouring rain listening to Lady – 's gamekeeper
Up to 1911, the Journal is mainly devoted to records of observations in general Natural History and latterly in Zoology alone.