The Assassin's Cloak. Группа авторов
and cheerfulness were put to a hard test. Faces had to be long. Only the humble folk were allowed the privilege of passing this day comfortably, but they were regarded with an indulgent and disdainful pity.
Liane de Pougy
1927
Vita [Sackville-West] took me over the 4 acres building, which she loves: too little conscious beauty for my taste: smallish rooms looking on to buildings: no views: yet one or two things remain: Vita stalking in her Turkish dress, attended by small boys, down the gallery, wafting them on like some tall sailing ship – a sort of covey of noble English life: dogs walloping, children crowding, all very free and stately: & [a] cart bringing wood in to be sawn by the great circular saw. How do you see that? I asked Vita. She said she saw it as something that had gone on for hundreds of years. They had brought wood in from the Park to replenish the great fires like this for centuries: & her ancestresses had walked so on the snow with their great dogs bounding beside them. All the centuries seemed lit up, the past expressive, articulate; not dumb & forgotten; but a crowd of people stood behind, not dead at all; not remarkable; fair face, long limbed, affable, & so we reach the days of Elizabeth quite easily. After tea, looking for letters of Dryden’s to show me, she tumbled out a love letter of Lord Dorset’s (17th century) with a lock of his soft gold tinted hair which I held in my hand a moment. One had a sense of links fished up into the light which are usually submerged.
Virginia Woolf
1936
[Stanley] Baldwin spoke for 20 minutes about the late King. It is the sort of thing he does very well, and every word perfectly chosen, and perfectly balanced. He had a trying day as he was pall-bearer in the morning at the funeral of his first cousin Rudyard Kipling. Mr Baldwin’s speech was ‘The Question was–’ that messages of condolence be sent to the King, and to Queen Mary. He was followed by Major Attlee for the Socialists. We on our side thought he would jar, and do badly, but on the contrary he was excellent . . . he, too, held the House. At 3.40 the Speaker left the Chair, preceded by the Serjeant-at-Arms and Mace, etc., and we followed in pairs. Harold Nicolson said ‘Let’s stick together’, and we did. In solemn silent state we progressed into Westminster Hall, lining the East side. Harold and I were at the end of the queue, as befitted ‘new boys’, and thus were nearly on the steps and found ourselves next to the Royal Family; I could have touched the Queen of Spain, fat and smelling slightly of scent, and old Princess Beatrice. Opposite us, were the Peers led by the Lord Chancellor, who, unlike the Speaker, always seems a joke character. In the middle of the Great Hall stood the catafalque draped in purple.
We waited for 10 minutes . . . and I was rather embarrassed as my heavy fur-lined coat has a sable collar, a discordant note among all the black. I had been tempted to come into the hall without one, but that would certainly have meant pneumonia. I was sorry for the aged Princess next to me, shivering in her veil . . . After a little some younger women, heavily-draped, came in, and were escorted to the steps. I recognized the Royal Duchesses. Princess Marina, as ever, managed to look infinitely more elegant than the others; she wore violets under her veil and her stockings, if not flesh-coloured, were of black so thin that they seemed so.
The great door opened . . . the coffin was carried in and placed on the catafalque. It was followed by King Edward, boyish, sad and tired, and the Queen, erect and more magnificent than ever. Behind them were the Royal brothers. There was a short service . . . and all eyes looked first at the coffin, on which lay the Imperial Crown and a wreath from the Queen, and then we turned towards the boyish young King, so young and seemingly frail. Actually he is forty-two, but one can never believe it. After a few moments, the Queen and young King turned, and followed by the Royal Family, they left. The two Houses of Parliament then proceeded in pairs round the catafalque now guarded by four immobile officers and by Gentlemen-at-Arms . . . there was an atmosphere of hushed stillness, of something strangely sacred and awe-inspiring.
This King business is so emotional, it upsets and weakens me, and I am left with the feeling that nothing matters . . . almost an eve-of-war reaction. As we left, we were told that on the way to Westminster hall, the top bit of the Imperial Crown had fallen out during the procession, and had been picked up by a Serjeant-Major.
‘Chips’ Channon
1996
Today there is much fuss about Harriet Harman, of the Shadow Cabinet, sending her 11-year-old son to St Olave’s School in what the media describe as ‘leafy Orpington’. Presumably it is not very leafy at this time of year. Part of the trouble is that the boy has to take an exam and face an interview. Without such things I can’t see how the school would know in what form to place him. Neither do I see why all the emphasis is put on Ms Harman’s decision; presumably her husband should have at least 50 per cent say in the matter, and perhaps Master Joseph may have his views on education.
Alec Guinness
24 January
1684
The frost still continuing more and more severe, the Thames before London was planted with bothes in formal streetes, as in a Citty, or Continual faire, all sorts of Trades and shops furnished, and full of Commodities, even to a Printing presse, where the People and Ladys tooke a fansy to have their names Printed and the day and yeare set downe, when printed on the Thames: This humour tooke so universaly, that ’twas estimated the Printer gained five pound a day, for printing a line onely, at six-pence a Name, besides what he gott by Ballads etc: Coaches now plied from Westminster to the Temple, and from severall other staires too and froo, as in the streetes; also on sleds, sliding with skeetes; There was likewise, Bull-baiting, Horse and Coach races, Pupet-plays and interludes, Cookes and Tipling, and lewder places; so as it seem’d to be a bacchanalia, Triumph or Carnoval on the Water, whilest it was a severe Judgement upon the land: the Trees not only splitting as if lightning-strock, but Men and Cattell perishing in divers places, and the very seas so locked up with yce, that no vessells could stirr out, or come in.
John Evelyn
1856
A journal is a record of experiences and growth, not a preserve of things well done or said. I am occasionally reminded of a statement which I have made in conversation and immediately forgotten, which would read much better than what I put in my journal. It is a ripe, dry fruit of long-past experience which falls from me easily, without giving pain or pleasure. The charm of the journal must consist in a certain greenness, though fresh, and not in maturity. Here I cannot afford to be remembering what I said or did, my scurf cast off, but what I am and aspire to become.
H. D. Thoreau
1938 [Nanking]
We’re all degenerating around here. We’re becoming spineless, losing our respectability. In Indiscreet Letters from Peking, a book about the siege of Peking in 1900, Putnam Wheale reports how he and many other Europeans simply joined in the looting. I don’t think we’re all that far from it ourselves. My houseboy Chang bought an electric table fan worth 38 dollars for $1.20 today, and expects me to be pleased. A couple of genuine Ming vases, costing one dollar each, gaze at me with reproach from my fireplace mantel.
If I felt like it, I could fill the entire house with cheap curios – meaning stolen and then sold for a song on the black market. Only food is expensive these days: A chicken now costs two dollars, the exact same price as those two Ming vases.
John Rabe
1942 [Jersey]
Things are depressing all the time. Almost every night, the Evening Post reports sudden deaths. It is very strange – lack of proper nourishment must be the cause. Then there are lots of ‘foreign’ workmen in the island, brought by the Germans. These are half-starved, and half-clothed, and reported to have strange and dangerous diseases. However, we have all had a ration of a quarter pound of chocolate each this week. It was wonderful – chocolate!
Nan Le Ruez
1953
There are two kinds of men on tubes. Those who blow their noses and then examine