<|entry|>
13 January 1901.
I of womankind and of nineteen years, will now begin to set down as full and frank a Portrayal as I am able of myself, Mary MacLane, for whom the world contains not a parallel.

I am convinced of this, for I am odd.

I am distinctly original innately and in development.

I have in me a quite unusual intensity of life.

I can feel.

I have a marvelous capacity for misery and for happiness.

I am broad-minded.

I am a genius.

I am a philosopher of my own good peripatetic school.

I care neither for right nor for wrong--my conscience is nil.

My brain is a conglomeration of aggressive versatility.

I have reached a truly wonderful state of miserable morbid unhappiness.

I know myself, oh, very well.

I have attained an egotism that is rare indeed.

I have gone into the deep shadows.

All this constitutes oddity. I find, therefore, that I am quite, quite odd.

I have hunted for even the suggestion of a parallel among the several hundred persons that I call acquaintances. But in vain. There are people and people of varying depths and intricacies of character, but there is none to compare with me. The young ones of my own age--if I chance to give them but a glimpse of the real workings of my mind--can only stare at me in dazed stupidity, uncomprehending; and the old ones of forty and fifty--for forty and fifty are always old to nineteen--can but either stare also in stupidity, or else, their own narrowness asserting itself, smile their little devilish smile of superiority which they reserve indiscriminately for all foolish young things. The utter idiocy of forty and fifty at times!

These, to be sure, are extreme instances. There are among my young acquaintances some who do not stare in stupidity, and yes, even at forty and fifty there are some who understand some phases of my complicated character, though none to comprehend it in its entirety.

But, as I said, even the suggestion of a parallel is not to be found among them.

I think at this moment, however, of two minds famous in the world of letters between which and mine there are certain fine points of similarity. These are the minds of Lord Byron and of Marie Bashkirtseff. It is the Byron of “Don Juan” in whom I find suggestions of myself. In this sublime outpouring there are few to admire the character of Don Juan, but all must admire Byron. He is truly admirable. He uncovered and exposed his soul of mingled good and bad--as the terms are--for the world to gaze upon. He knew the human race, and he knew himself.

As for that strange notable, Marie Bashkirtseff, yes, I am rather like her in many points, as I’ve been told. But in most things I go beyond her.

Where she is deep, I am deeper.

Where she is wonderful in her intensity, I am still more wonderful in my intensity.

Where she had philosophy, I am a philosopher.

Where she had astonishing vanity and conceit, I have yet more astonishing vanity and conceit.

But she, forsooth, could paint good pictures,--and I--what can I do?

She had a beautiful face, and I am a plain-featured, insignificant little animal.

She was surrounded by admiring, sympathetic friends, and I am alone--alone, though there are people and people.

She was a genius, and still more am I a genius.

She suffered with the pain of a woman, young; and I suffer with the pain of a woman, young and all alone.

And so it is.

Along some lines I have gotten to the edge of the world. A step more and I fall off. I do not take the step. I stand on the edge, and I suffer.

Nothing, oh, nothing on the earth can suffer like a woman young and all alone!

--Before proceeding farther with the Portraying of Mary MacLane, I will write out some of her uninteresting history.

I was born in 1881 at Winnepeg, in Canada. Whether Winnepeg will yet live to be proud of this fact is a matter for some conjecture and anxiety on my part. When I was four years old I was taken with my family to a little town in western Minnesota, where I lived a more or less vapid and lonely life until I was ten. We came then to Montana.

Whereat the aforesaid life was continued.

My father died when I was eight.

Apart from feeding and clothing me comfortably and sending me to school--which is no more than was due me--and transmitting to me the MacLane blood and character, I can not see that he ever gave me a single thought.

Certainly he did not love me, for he was quite incapable of loving any one but himself. And since nothing is of any moment in this world without the love of human beings for each other, it is a matter of supreme indifference to me whether my father, Jim MacLane of selfish memory, lived or died.

He is nothing to me.

There are with me still a mother, a sister, and two brothers.

They also are nothing to me.

They do not understand me any more than if I were some strange live curiosity, as which I dare say they regard me.

I am peculiarly of the MacLane blood, which is Highland Scotch. My sister and brothers inherit the traits of their mother’s family, which is of Scotch Lowland descent. This alone makes no small degree of difference. Apart from this the MacLanes--these particular MacLanes--are just a little bit different from every family in Canada, and from every other that I’ve known. It contains and has contained fanatics of many minds--religious, social, whatnot, and I am a true MacLane.

There is absolutely no sympathy between my immediate family and me. There can never be. My mother, having been with me during the whole of my nineteen years, has an utterly distorted idea of my nature and its desires, if indeed she has any idea of it.

When I think of the exquisite love and sympathy which might be between a mother and daughter, I feel myself defrauded of a beautiful thing rightfully mine, in a world where for me such things are pitiably few.

It will always be so.

My sister and brothers are not interested in me and my analyses and philosophy, and my wants. Their own are strictly practical and material. The love and sympathy between human beings is to them, it seems, a thing only for people in books.

In short, they are Lowland Scotch, and I am a MacLane.

And so, as I’ve said, I carried my uninteresting existence into Montana. The existence became less uninteresting, however, as my versatile mind began to develop and grow and know the glittering things that are. But I realized as the years were passing that my own life was at best a vapid, negative thing.

A thousand treasures that I wanted were lacking.

I graduated from the high school with these things: very good Latin; good French and Greek; indifferent geometry and other mathematics; a broad conception of history and literature; peripatetic philosophy that I acquired without any aid from the high school; genius of a kind, that has always been with me; an empty heart that has taken on a certain wooden quality; an excellent strong young woman’s-body; a pitiably starved soul.

With this equipment I have gone my way through the last two years. But my life, though unsatisfying and warped, is no longer insipid. It is fraught with a poignant misery--the misery of nothingness.

I have no particular thing to occupy me. I write every day. Writing is a necessity--like eating. I do a little housework, and on the whole I am rather fond of it--some parts of it. I dislike dusting chairs, but I have no aversion to scrubbing floors. Indeed, I have gained much of my strength and gracefulness of body from scrubbing the kitchen floor--to say nothing of some fine points of philosophy. It brings a certain energy to one’s body and to one’s brain.

But mostly I take walks far away in the open country. Butte and its immediate vicinity present as ugly an outlook as one could wish to see. It is so ugly indeed that it is near the perfection of ugliness. And anything perfect, or nearly so, is not to be despised. I have reached some astonishing subtleties of conception as I have walked for miles over the sand and barrenness among the little hills and gulches. Their utter desolateness is an inspiration to the long, long thoughts and to the nameless wanting. Every day I walk over the sand and barrenness.

And so, then, my daily life seems an ordinary life enough, and possibly, to an ordinary person, a comfortable life.

That’s as may be.

To me it is an empty, damned weariness.

I rise in the morning; eat three meals; and walk; and work a little, read a little, write; see some uninteresting people; go to bed.

Next day, I rise in the morning; eat three meals; and walk; and work a little, read a little, write; see some uninteresting people; go to bed.

Again I rise in the morning; eat three meals; and walk; and work a little, read a little, write; see some uninteresting people; go to bed.

Truly an exalted, soulful life!

What it does for me, how it affects me, I am now trying to portray.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
14 January 1921.
" To be happy with you seems such an impossibility ! It requires a luckier star than mine ! It will never be. . . . The world is too brutal for me."

[February ?~] Le travail, même mauvais, vaut mieux que la rêverie.

" But I can't see why you should mind, so much," she said for the hundredth time. " I can't see what it is you object to. It isn't as though people would notice you even. Goodness me! I'm always meeting them since . . . since . . ." She broke off. " And it seems such a waste, too. There it is, standing in the hall, doing nothing. It seems so ungrateful, after it's been lent to you, not to give it a trial at least. Why don't you say something? "

She was pinning on her hat in front of the mirror in Mentone, 1921 the sitting room. Her outdoor jacket and gloves lay across a chair. And when he still didn't answer her she made a little weary hopeless face at the mirror which meant : " Oh dear, we're in one of our moods again ! " " If it's me you're thinking of by any chance," she said quickly, snatching at the jacket

Here is Marie with the supper. And I shall have to endure her until it is over. But that is not important : what is, is that I have not written anything to-day worth a sou. I have passed the day in a kind of idleness. Why? Does it take so long to begin again? Is it my old weakness of will ?
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
23 January 1922.
Paris? To remember the sound of wind — the peculiar wretchedness one can feel while the wind blows. Then the warm soft wind of spring searching out the heart. The wind I call the Ancient of Days which blows here at night. The wind that shakes the garden at night when one runs out into it. Dust. Turning one's back on a high, heavy wind. Walking along the Esplanade when the wind carries the sea over. The wind of summer, so playful, that rocked and swung in the trees here. And wind moving through grass so that the grass quivers. This moves me with an emotion I don't ever understand. I always see a field, a young horse — and there is a very fair Danish girl telling me something about her stepfather. The girl's name is Elsa Bagge.

"Grandma"

Wellington
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
[Prompt: What is on your mind today?]
7 March 1667.
So up, and to the office, my head full of Carcasse’s business; then hearing that Knipp is at my house, I home, and it was about a ticket for a friend of hers. I do love the humour of the jade very well. So to the office again, not being able to stay, and there about noon my Lord Bruncker did begin to talk of Carcasse’s business. Only Commissioner Pett, my Lord, and I there, and it was pretty to see how Pett hugged the occasion of having anything against Sir W. Batten, which I am not much troubled at, for I love him not neither. Though I did really endeavour to quash it all I could, because I would prevent their malice taking effect. My Lord I see is fully resolved to vindicate Carcasse, though to the undoing of Sir W. Batten, but I believe he will find himself in a mistake, and do himself no good, and that I shall be glad of, for though I love the treason I hate the traitor. But he is vexed at my moving it to the Duke of York yesterday, which I answered well, so as I think he could not answer. But, Lord! it is pretty to see how Pett hugs this business, and how he favours my Lord Bruncker; who to my knowledge hates him, and has said more to his disadvantage, in my presence, to the King and Duke of York than any man in England, and so let them thrive one with another by cheating one another, for that is all I observe among them. Thence home late, and find my wife hath dined, and she and Mrs. Hewer going to a play. Here was Creed, and he and I to Devonshire House, to a burial of a kinsman of Sir R. Viner’s; and there I received a ring, and so away presently to Creed, who staid for me at an alehouse hard by, and thence to the Duke’s playhouse, where he parted, and I in and find my wife and Mrs. Hewer, and sat by them and saw “The English Princesse, or Richard the Third;” a most sad, melancholy play, and pretty good; but nothing eminent in it, as some tragedys are; only little Mis. Davis did dance a jig after the end of the play, and there telling the next day’s play; so that it come in by force only to please the company to see her dance in boy’s ‘clothes; and, the truth is, there is no comparison between Nell’s dancing the other day at the King’s house in boy’s clothes and this, this being infinitely beyond the other. Mere was Mr. Clerke and Pierce, to whom one word only of “How do you,” and so away home, Mrs. Hewer with us, and I to the office and so to W. Batten’s, and there talked privately with him and W. Pen about business of Carcasse against tomorrow, wherein I think I did give them proof enough of my ability as well as friendship to W. Batten, and the honour of the office, in my sense of the rogue’s business. So back to finish my office business, and then home to supper, and to bed. This day, Commissioner Taylor come to me for advice, and would force me to take ten pieces in gold of him, which I had no mind to, he being become one of our number at the Board. This day was reckoned by all people the coldest day that ever was remembered in England; and, God knows! coals at a very great price.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|maclane|>
[Prompt: What do you keep returning to?]
19 January 1917.
Everyday and to-morrow
Aloofly I live in this Butte in the outward rôle of a family daughter with no responsibilities.

This Butte is an incongruous living-place for me.

And I have not one human friend in it--no kindliness. And Nature in her perplexingest mood would not of herself have cast me as a family daughter. Three things have kept me thus for four years past: that nothing has called me out of it: a slight family pressure like a tiny needle-point which pierces only if one moves: and to stay thus is presently the line of least resistance.

Unless impelled to violent action by a violent reason--like love or hatred or jealousy or a baby or humiliated pride or rowelling ambition--a woman follows the physical line of least resistance. I have followed it these years with outward acquiescence and inward rages--languid rages which lay me waste.

The years and acquiescences and rages have built up a mood which compasses me, drives me, damns me and lifts me up.

It is a forceful mood, though I am not myself forceful.

This mood is this book.--

I live an immoral life. It is immoral because it is deadly futile. All my Tissues of body, soul, mind and heart are wasting, decaying, wearing down, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day: with no return to me or to my life, nor to anything human or divine.

It makes me dread my life and myself.

I do not quite know why.

But to be an ardent pickpocket or an eager harlot would feel honester.

My Everyday goes like this: I waken in the morning and lie listless some minutes with drooping eyelids. I look at a gilt-and-blue bar of morning light which slants palely in at one window and at a melting-gold triangle of sun which shows at the other window on the red brick wall of the house next to this. Then I say ‘another day,’ and I kick off bed-covers with one foot and slide out of my narrow bed, and into blue slippers, and out of a thin nightgown, and into peignoir or bathrobe. I twist and flatten and gather up my tangled hair and push some amber pins through it. And I go into a respectable green-and-gray bathroom and draw a bath and get into it. I splash in brief swift soapsuds, and go under a sudden heroic icy cold shower, and dry me with a scourging towel. Then I go back into the blue-white bed-room and get into clothes, feminine thin under-garments and a nunlike frock.

I look in my mirror. Some days I’m a delicately beautiful girl. Other days I’m a very plain woman.

One’s physical attractiveness is a matter of one’s mental chemistry.

I say to Me in the mirror, ‘It’s you-and-me, Mary MacLane, and another wasting damning To-morrow.

“To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow Creeps in this petty pace from day to day.”’

A haunting decadence is in that To-morrow thought. And always the To-morrow thought comes out of my morning mirror. I dwell on it awhile, till my gray eyes and my lips and my teeth and my forehead are tired of it, and make nothing new of it.

I jerk the flat scollop of hair at one side of my forehead and turn away. I open door and windows wider for the blowing-through of breezes. And I wander down-stairs. It is half-after nine or half-after ten. I go into the clean empty clock-ticking kitchen and cook my breakfast. It is a task full of hungry plaisance and pleasantness. I make a British-feeling breakfast of tea and marmalade and little squares of toast and pink-and-tan rashers of bacon and two delightful eggs. Up to the moment of broaching the eggs the morning has an ancient sameness with other mornings. But eggs, though I’ve eaten them every day for quite five-and-twenty years, are always a fascinating novelty.

They are delicious in my breakfast. So are the squares of toast and the bacon-rashers and the tea and marmalade. When I’ve done with them I lay down my napkin by my cup, light a cigarette, breathe a puff or two from it and feel contentedly aware that my brain has gone to rest in sweet tranquillity with my breakfast. When my brain is in my head it analyzes the soul out of my body, the gleam out of my gray eyes, the savor out of my life, the human taste off my tongue. That post-breakfast moment is the only peace-moment I know in my day and in my life.

Having puffed away the cigarette and read bits of a morning paper I then prove me arrantly middle-class by contemplating washing my breakfast dishes.

I am middle-class, quite, from the Soul outward. But it is not specially apparent--one’s tastes and aspirations flit garbledly far and wide. But a tendency to wash one’s dishes after eating one’s breakfast feels conclusively and pleasantly middle-class. Not that I do always wash them, but always I think of it with the inclination to do it.

I sit on the shaded front veranda in the summer noon-day and look away south at the blue Highlands, ever snow-peaked: or east at the near towering splendid grim wall of the arid Rockies which separates this Butte from New York, from London,--the Spain-castles--the Pyramids--the Isle of Lesbos: or south-west beyond house-tops at some foothills above which hangs a fairy veil made by melting together a Lump of Gold and an Apricot and spreading it thin.

Then restlessly I go into the house and up to my room. I put it in order--in prim, prim immaculate order. One marked phase of mine is of some wanton creature--a mænad, a mental Amazon, a she-imp. But playing opposite to that is another--that of a New-England spinster steel-riveted to certain neat ferociously-orderly habits. A stray thread on my blue rug hurts, hurts me until I pick it up. Dust around my room gives me a nervous pain, a piteous gnawing grief-of-the-senses, until I’ve removed it. And my chastened-looking bed--after I’ve turned over its tufted mattress and ‘made’ it, smooth and white and crisp and soft--how the fibers of me would writhe should anyone sit on it. But no one sits on it. And I myself sooner than press one finger-tip down into its perfectness would sell my body to a Balkan soldier for four dimes: it is that way I feel about it. My bed must be kept perfect till the moment I slip into it at night to float under the dream-worlds.

Then maybe I pull a soft black hat down over my hair and draw on gloves and go out into the gray-paved streets for a longish walk. Or maybe the day is humidly hot. Then I don’t go but stay in the blue-white room and mend a bit of torn lingerie or a handkerchief or a silk stocking or a petticoat. Or I take books and dig out some Greek--Homer or a Sapphic fragment--very laboriously but marvelling that I can do it at all: the first things one forgets being the last things one learned at school. Or I read an English or a French philosopher, or a translated Tolstoi, or a bit of Balzac novel, or some bits of Dickens-books with which latter I am long familiar and long enamored for the restful falseness of their sentiment and the pungent appetizing charm of their villains.

And betweenwhiles I think and think.

Then it’s dinnertime and I perhaps change into the other nunlike dress, and nibble some dinner with no appetite, and talk with the assembled small family in a vein and tone of life-long insincerity. When in family-circle-ness I’ve had to hide my true self as if behind a hundred black veils since the age of two years. It would be a poignant effort now to show any of it at the family dinners, which is the only meeting-time. The one easy way is to be comprehensively insincere at the dinners where with no appetite I nibble. None there wants my sincerity, and so in my Soul’s accounting now it is eternally and determinedly No Matter. It is a little bell which stopped ringing long and long ago. If it rang now it would ring only No-Matter, No-Matter.

Then it’s night and I go to take the walk I didn’t take in the afternoon. I walk down long lonely streets. Long lonely thoughts pile into me and through me and wrap me in a nebula that I can feel around me like a mantle. I walk two or three miles of paved streets till I’m very tired. I am lithe but fragile from constant involuntary self-analysis. One may analyze one’s life-experience and life-emotion till physical tissues at times grow frail, gossamer-thin. It is then as if--at a word, a whispered thought, a beat of the heart--one’s Soul might flutter through the Veil, join light hands with the death-angel and flee away.

--but I love my life even while I analyze it bit by bit and so hate it. I love it in its grating monotones and its moments of glow and its days of shadow and storm and bitterish lowering passion--

I walk back beneath a night sky of dusky velvet-blue decked with jewels of moon and star and flying bright-edged cloud. The night has a subdued preciousness, like an illicitly pregnant woman’s. It is big with the bastard-exquisite To-morrow. The night air kisses my lips and throat. I pull off my gloves to feel it on my hands. It gives me a charmed and unexciting feeling of being caressed without being loved.

I come back to my blue-white room, take off my hat, ruffle my fingers through my hair, look at Me in the mirror and smile the melancholy wicked smile which I keep for Me-alone. It’s an intimate moment of greeting--a recognition of my Familiar on coming back to her. Often when I walk I go without Me, and wander far from Me, and forget Me.

Then I sit at my flat black desk and write desultorily for two or three or four hours. Sometimes a letter, sometimes some verses or a hectic fancy in staid prose. But now mostly this.

Then I go downstairs to a refrigerator or a cellar-way to find food--a slice off an affable cold joint, some chaste-looking slices of bread, a slim innocent onion. And I eat them, not relishingly but voraciously, reminding myself of a lean foraging furtive coyote. It is two or three or four in the morning. I smoke a quiet cigarette in a cool night doorway and count the nervous gray-velvet moths outside the screen.

And all the while I think and think.

Then I come up to my room and sit on the floor by my low bookcase and read some last-century English poets--the Brownings and Shelley and the unspeakable John Keats. The Poets make me a space of incalescent magic and loveliness. They are the beings blest of a flaming Heaven. In the midst of soddenest earthiness their fiery wings ‘pierce the night.’

Then I’m thrilledly tired. I close the books and make ready for my bed in a lyric-feeling languor. A soft soothing unsnapping of whalebone stays: a muffled rhythmic undoing of metal-and-silk-rubber garters: a pushing down and sliding out of daytime clothes and into a thin pale cool silk nightgown: a hurried brushing of hair: an anointing of hands and throat with faint-scented cream: a goodnight to Me in the mirror: a last wave of a fateful thing--my life-essence--casual and determined and contemptuous and menacing--sweeping down over me in an invisible shower: and I’m betwixt smooth linen sheets.

In twenty seconds blest, blest sleep.

Of such wide littleness is my day made. One day will differ from another in this or that volcanic molehill. And some days I not only wash a great many dishes but do a deal of housework neatly and self-satisfactorily and like a devilish scullery maid.

And some days as I move in the petty pace thoughts and feelings sweet or barbarous come and change my world’s face in a moment.

Also a casual human being of rabbitish brain and chipmunkish sensibility may stray across my path and gently bore me and accentuate my own paganness.

But always the same days in restless dubious To-morrowness.

Always immorally futile.

And eerily alone.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
14 October 1915.
Now the day was divine — warm soft sunshine lay upon her arms and breast like velvet — tiny clouds, silver ones shone upon the dazzling blue — the garden trees were full of gold light — and a strange brightness came from the houses — from the open windows with their fairy curtains and flower pots . . . the white steps and the narrow spiked railings.

Inconsequence

"Did M. wear a grey dressing gown with a dark red piping," she asked.

"No, he was dressed."

"Oh ! Then I suppose he was very dressed, he always is."

That made her think suddenly, of another friend of his — a young fattish man who wore spectacles and was extremely serious with a kind of special fatness that she had noticed went with just that kind of seriousness. She saw him standing by a washtable drying his neck — and she saw his hair right to the neck-band of his shirt. His hair was, as usual, too long.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
June 1910.
It is at last over, this wearisome day, and dusk is beginning to sift in among the branches of the drenched chestnut tree. I think I must have caught cold in my beautiful exultant walk yesterday, for today I am ill. I began to work but could not. Fancy wearing two pairs of stockings and two coats and a hot-water bottle in June, and shivering. ... I think it is the pain that makes me shiver and feel dizzy. To be alone all day, in a house whose every sound seems foreign to you, and to feel a terrible confusion in your body which affects you mentally, suddenly pictures for you detestable incidents, revolving personalities, which you only shake off to find recurring again as the pain seems to grow worse again. Alas! I shall not walk with bare feet in wild woods again. Not until I have grown accustomed to the climate. . . .

The only adorable thing I can imagine is for my Grandmother to put me to bed and bring me a bowl

of hot bread and milk, and standing with her hands folded, the left thumb over the right, say in her adorable voice: "There, darling, isn't that nice?" Oh, what a miracle of happiness that would be. To wake later to find her turning down the bedclothes to see if my feet were cold, and wrapping them up in a little pink singlet, softer than cat's fur. . . . Alas!
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
22 September 1919.
Escape

She was sure I would be cold and as usual tried to make of my departure une petite affaire serieuse. I always try to thieve out, steal out. I should like to let myself down from a window, or just withdraw like a ray of light.

"Are you sure you won't have your cape . . . etc. etc. etc. ?"

Her attitude made me quite sure. I went out. At the corner the flying, gay, eager wind ran at me. It was too much to bear. I went on for a yard or two, shivering — then I came home. I slipped the Yale key into the lock like a thief, shut the door dead quiet. Up she came, up the stairs.

"So it was too cold, after all !"

I couldn't answer or even look at her. I had to turn my back and pull off my gloves. Said she :
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
30 January 1922.
There was a tremendous fall of snow on Sunday. Monday was the first real perfect day of winter. It seemed that the happiness of J. and of me reached its zenith on that day. We could not have been happier; that was the feeling. Sitting one moment on the balcony of the bed-room, for instance, or driving in the sleigh through masses of heaped-up snow. He looked so beautiful, too — hatless, strolling about with his hands in his pockets. He weighed himself. 10 stone. There was a harmonium in the waiting-room. Then I went away, after a quick but not hurried kiss. . . .

It was very beautiful on the way to Sierre. Then I kept wondering if I was seeing it all for the last time — the snowy bushes, the leafless trees. "I miss the buns."
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
28 August 1666.
Up, and in my new closet a good while doing business. Then called on Mrs. Martin and Burroughs of Westminster about business of the former’s husband. Which done, I to the office, where we sat all the morning. At noon I, with my wife and Mercer, to Philpott Lane, a great cook’s shop, to the wedding of Mr. Longracke, our purveyor, a good, sober, civil man, and hath married a sober, serious mayde. Here I met much ordinary company, I going thither at his great request; but there was Mr. Madden and his lady, a fine, noble, pretty lady, and he, and a fine gentleman seems to be. We four were most together; but the whole company was very simple and innocent. A good-dinner, and, what was best, good musique. After dinner the young women went to dance; among others Mr. Christopher Pett his daughter, who is a very pretty, modest girle, I am mightily taken with her; and that being done about five o’clock, home, very well pleased with the afternoon’s work. And so we broke up mightily civilly, the bride and bridegroom going to Greenwich (they keeping their dinner here only for my sake) to lie, and we home, where I to the office, and anon am on a sudden called to meet Sir W. Pen and Sir W. Coventry at the Victualling Office, which did put me out of order to be so surprised. But I went, and there Sir William Coventry did read me a letter from the Generalls to the King,

a most scurvy letter, reflecting most upon Sir W. Coventry, and then upon me for my accounts (not that they are not true, but that we do not consider the expence of the fleete), and then of the whole office, in neglecting them and the King’s service, and this in very plain and sharp and menacing terms. I did give a good account of matters according to our computation of the expence of the fleete. I find Sir W. Coventry willing enough to accept of any thing to confront the Generalls. But a great supply must be made, and shall be in grace of God! But, however, our accounts here will be found the true ones. Having done here, and much work set me, I with greater content home than I thought I should have done, and so to the office a while, and then home, and a while in my new closet, which delights me every day more and more, and so late to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
25 May 1667.
Up, and to the office, where all the morning. At noon dined at home, and there come Mr. Pierce, the surgeon, and dined with me, telling me that the Duke of Cambridge continues very ill, so as they do despair of his living. So to the office again, where all the afternoon. About 4 o’clock comes Mrs. Pierce to see my wife, and I into them, and there find Pierce very fine, and in her own hair, which do become her, and so says my wife, ten times better than lighter hair, her complexion being mighty good. With them talked a little, and was invited by her to come with my wife on Wednesday next in the evening, to be merry there, which we shall do. Then to the office again, where dispatched a great deal of business till late at night, to my great content, and then home and with my wife to our flageolets a little, and so to supper and to bed, after having my chamber a little wiped up.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
12 November 1915.
A Dark Day

September 20th. My fits of temper are really terrifying. I had one this (Sunday) morning and tore a page up of the book I was reading — and absolutely lost my head. Very significant. When it was over J. came in and stared. "What is the matter? What have you done? Why? You look all dark." He drew back the curtains and called it an effect of light but when I came into my studio to dress I saw it was not that. I was a deep earthy colour, with pinched eyes. Strangely enough these fits are L. and F. over again. I am more like L. than anybody. We are unthinkably alike, in fact.

It is a dark reluctant day. The fire makes a noise like a flag — and there is the familiar sound from below of someone filling buckets. I am very stiff, very unused to writing now, and yet, as I sit here it's as though my dear one, my only one, came and sat down opposite me and gazed at me across the table. And I think suddenly of the verses which seemed so awfully good in my girlhood.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|maclane|>
29 January 1901.
As I read over now and then what I have written of my Portrayal I have alternate periods of hope and despair. At times I think I am succeeding admirably--and again, what I have written compared to what I have felt seems vapid and tame. Who has not felt the futility of words when one would express feelings?

I take this hope and despair as another mark of genius. Genius, apart from natural sensitiveness, is prone equally to unreasoning joy and to bitterest morbidness.

I am more than fond of writing, though I have hours when I can not write any more than I could paint a picture, or play Wagner as it should be played.

I think my style of writing has a wonderful intensity in it, and it is admirably suited to the creature it portrays. What sort of Portrayal of myself would I produce if I wrote with the long, elaborate periods of Henry James, or with the pleasant, ladylike phrasing of Howells? It would be rather like a little tin phonograph trolling out flowery poetry at breakneck speed, or like a deep-toned church organ pouring forth “Goo-Goo Eyes” with ponderous feeling.

When I read a book I study it carefully to find whether the author knows things, and whether I could, with the same subject, write a better one myself.

The latter question I usually decide in the affirmative.

The highest thing one can do in literature is to succeed in saying that thing which one meant to say. There is nothing better than that--to make the world see your thoughts as you see them. Eugene Field and Edgar Allan Poe and Robert Louis Stevenson and Charles Dickens, among others, have succeeded in doing this. They impress the world with a sense of their courage and realness.

There are people who have written books which did not impress the world in this way, but which nevertheless came out of the feeling and fullness of zealous hearts. Always I think of that pathetic, artless little old-fashioned thing, “Jane Eyre,” as a picture shown to a world seeing with distorted vision. Charlotte Bronté meant one thing when she wrote the book, and the world after a time suddenly understood a quite different thing, and heaped praise and applause upon her therefor. When I read the book I was not quite able to see just what the message was that the Bronté intended to send out. But I saw that there was a message--of bravery, perhaps, or of that good which may come out of Nazareth. But the world that praised and applauded and gave her money seems totally to have missed it.

It takes centuries of tears and piety and mourning to move this world a tiny bit.

But still it will give you praise and applause and money if you will prostitute your sensibilities and emotions for the gratification of it.

I have no message to hide in a book and send out. I am writing a Portrayal.

But a Portrayal is also a thing that may be misunderstood.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
10 January 1664.
(Lord’s day). Lay in bed with my wife till 10 or 11 o’clock, having been very sleepy all night. So up, and my brother Tom being come to see me, we to dinner, he telling me how Mrs. Turner found herself discontented with her late bad journey, and not well taken by them in the country, they not desiring her coming down, nor the burials of Mr. Edward Pepys’s corps there. After dinner I to the office, where all the afternoon, and at night my wife and I to my uncle Wight’s, and there eat some of their swan pie, which was good, and I invited them to my house to eat a roasted swan on Tuesday next, which after I was come home did make a quarrels between my wife and I, because she had appointed a wish to-morrow. But, however, we were friends again quickly. So to bed. All our discourse to-night was Mr. Tryan’s late being robbed; and that Collonell Turner (a mad, swearing, confident fellow, well known by all, and by me), one much indebted to this man for his very livelihood, was the man that either did or plotted it; and the money and things are found in his hand, and he and his wife now in Newgate for it; of which we are all glad, so very a known rogue he was.
<|/entry|><|entry|>
12 January 1664.
Up and to the office, where we sat all the morning, and at noon to the ‘Change awhile, and so home, getting things against dinner ready, and anon comes my uncle Wight and my aunt, with their cozens Mary and Robert, and by chance my uncle Thomas Pepys. We had a good dinner, the chief dish a swan roasted, and that excellent meate. At, dinner and all day very merry. After dinner to cards, where till evening, then to the office a little, and to cards again with them, and lost half-a-crowne. They being gone, my wife did tell me how my uncle did this day accost her alone, and spoke of his hoping she was with child, and kissing her earnestly told her he should be very glad of it, and from all circumstances methinks he do seem to have some intention of good to us, which I shall endeavour to continue more than ever I did yet. So to my office till late, and then home to bed, after being at prayers, which is the first time after my late vowe to say prayers in my family twice in every week.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
2 April 1915.
Paris. I am not doing what I swore I would at Bandol. I must again write the word

DISCIPLINE

and under that

WHICH DO YOU PREFER?

And from day to day after this keep a strict account of what it is that I fail in. I have failed very badly these last few days and this evening was a comble. This to the uninitiated would appear great rubbish. They'd suspect me of God knows what. If only they knew the childish truth ! But they won't know. Now, Katherine, here goes for to-morrow — Keep it up, my girl. It's such a chance, now that L.M. is not I-spy-I.

April 3rd. A good day.

He woke, but did not move. Warm and solemn he lay, with wide open troubled eyes, pouting a little, almost frowning for one long moment. In that long moment he sprang out of bed, bathed, dressed, reached the wharf, boarded the ferry boat, crossed the harbour and was waving — waving to Isabel and Maisie who stood there, waiting for him on the pier. A tall young sailor, standing near him, threw a coil of tarred rope

and it fell in a long loop, over a landing post. . . . Beautifully done. . . . And all this moment (vision) was so clear and bright and tiny, he might with his flesh and pout and solemn eyes have been a baby watching a bubble.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
8 July 1665.
All day very diligent at the office, ended my letters by 9 at night, and then fitted myself to go down to Woolwich to my wife, which I did, calling at Sir G. Carteret’s at Deptford, and there hear that my Lady Sandwich is come, but not very well. By 12 o’clock to Woolwich, found my wife asleep in bed, but strange to think what a fine night I had down, but before I had been one minute on shore, the mightiest storm come of wind and rain that almost could be for a quarter of an houre and so left. I to bed, being the first time I come to her lodgings, and there lodged well.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|pepys|>
15 July 1665.
Up, and after all business done, though late, I to Deptford, but before I went out of the office saw there young Bagwell’s wife returned, but could not stay to speak to her, though I had a great mind to it, and also another great lady, as to fine clothes, did attend there to have a ticket signed; which I did do, taking her through the garden to my office, where I signed it and had a salute----of her, and so I away by boat to Redriffe, and thence walked, and after dinner, at Sir G. Carteret’s, where they stayed till almost three o’clock for me, and anon took boat, Mr. Carteret and I to the ferry-place at Greenwich, and there staid an hour crossing the water to and again to get our coach and horses over; and by and by set out, and so toward Dagenhams. But, Lord! what silly discourse we had by the way as to love-matters, he being the most awkerd man I ever met with in my life as to that business. Thither we come, by that time it begun to be dark, and were kindly received by Lady Wright and my Lord Crew. And to discourse they went, my Lord discoursing with him, asking of him questions of travell, which he answered well enough in a few words; but nothing to the lady from him at all. To supper, and after supper to talk again, he yet taking no notice of the lady. My Lord would have had me have consented to leaving the young people together to-night, to begin their amours, his staying being but to be little. But I advised against it, lest the lady might be too much surprised. So they led him up to his chamber, where I staid a little, to know how he liked the lady, which he told me he did mightily; but, Lord! in the dullest insipid manner that ever lover did. So I bid him good night, and down to prayers with my Lord Crew’s family, and after prayers, my Lord, and Lady Wright, and I, to consult what to do; and it was agreed at last to have them go to church together, as the family used to do, though his lameness was a great objection against it. But at last my Lady Jem. sent me word by my Lady Wright that it would be better to do just as they used to do before his coming; and therefore she desired to go to church, which was yielded then to.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|pepys|>
19 July 1665.
Up and to the office, and thence presently to the Exchequer, and there with much trouble got my tallys, and afterwards took Mr. Falconer, Spicer, and another or two to the Leg and there give them a dinner, and so with my tallys and about 30 dozen of bags, which it seems are my due, having paid the fees as if I had received the money I away home, and after a little stay down by water to Deptford, where I find all full of joy, and preparing to go to Dagenhams to-morrow. To supper, and after supper to talk without end. Very late I went away, it raining, but I had a design ‘pour aller a la femme de Bagwell’ and did so.... So away about 12, and it raining hard I back to Sir G. Carteret and there called up the page, and to bed there, being all in a most violent sweat.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
10 May 1914.
But where are these comely people? These young strong people with hard healthy bodies and curling hair? They are not saints or philosophers; they are decent human beings — but where are they?

Wednesday. {December} To-day I am hardening my heart. I am walking all round my heart and building up the defences. I do not mean to leave a loophole even for a tuft of violets to grow in. Give me a hard heart, O Lord ! Lord, harden thou my heart !

This morning I could walk a little. So I went to the Post Office. It was bright with sun. The palm-trees stood up into the air, crisp and shining; the blue gums hung heavy with sun as is their wont. When I reached the road I heard a singing. A funny thought... "The English have come !" But of course, it was not they.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
13 October 1916.
was certainly there. But last evening he called me while I sat down by the fire. At last I obeyed and came upstairs. I stayed in the dark and waited. The moon got very bright. There were stars outside, very bright twinkling stars, that seemed to move as I watched them. The moon shone. I could see the curve of the sea and the curve of the land embracing, and above in the sky there was a round sweep of cloud. Perhaps those three half-circles were very magic. But then, when I leaned out of the window I seemed to see my brother dotted all over the field — now on his back, now on his face, now huddled up, now half-pressed into the earth. Wherever I looked, there he lay. I felt that God showed him to me like that for some express purpose, and I knelt down by the bed. But I could not pray. I had done no work. I was not in an active state of grace. So I got up finally and went downstairs again. But I was terribly sad. . . . The night before, when I lay in bed, I felt suddenly passionate. I wanted J. to embrace me. But as I turned to speak to him or to kiss him I saw my brother lying fast asleep, and I got cold. That happens nearly always. Perhaps because I went to sleep thinking of him, I woke and was he, for quite a long time. I felt my face was his serious, sleepy face. I felt that the lines of my mouth were changed, and I blinked like he did on waking.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
28 December 1667.
Up, and to the office, where busy all the morning, at noon home, and there to dinner with my clerks and Mr. Pelting, and had a very good dinner, among others a haunch of venison boiled, and merry we were, and I rose soon from dinner, and with my wife and girle to the King’s house, and there saw “The Mad Couple,” which is but an ordinary play; but only Nell’s and Hart’s mad parts are most excellently done, but especially hers: which makes it a miracle to me to think how ill she do any serious part, as, the other day, just like a fool or changeling; and, in a mad part, do beyond all imitation almost. Many fine faces here to-day. Thence home, and there to the office late, and then home to supper and to bed. I am told to-day, which troubles me, that great complaint is made upon the ‘Change, among our merchants, that the very Ostend little pickaroon men-of-war do offer violence to our merchant-men, and search them, beat our masters, and plunder them, upon pretence of carrying Frenchmen’s goods. Lord! what a condition are we come to, and that so soon after a war!
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
28 January 1668.
Up, and to the office, and there with W. Griffin talking about getting the place to build a coach-house, or to hire one, which I now do resolve to have, and do now declare it; for it is plainly for my benefit for saving money. By and by the office sat, and there we concluded on our letter to the Commissioners of Accounts and to the several officers of ours about the work they are to do to answer their late great demands. At noon home to dinner, and after dinner set my wife and girl down at the Exchange, and I to White Hall; and, by and by, the Duke of York comes, and we had a little meeting, Anglesey, W. Pen, and I there, and none else: and, among other things, did discourse of the want of discipline in the fleete, which the Duke’ of York confessed, and yet said that he, while he was there, did keep it in a good measure, but that it was now lost when he was absent; but he will endeavour to have it again. That he did tell the Prince and Duke of Albemarle they would lose all order by making such and such men commanders, which they would, because they were stout men: he told them that it was a reproach to the nation, as if there were no sober men among us, that were stout, to be had. That they did put out some men for cowards that the Duke of York had put in, but little before, for stout men; and would now, were he to go to sea again, entertain them in his own division, to choose: and did put in an idle fellow, Greene, who was hardly thought fit for a boatswain by him: they did put him from being a lieutenant to a captain’s place of a second-rate ship; as idle a drunken fellow, he said, as any was in the fleete. That he will now desire the King to let him be what he is, that is, Admirall; and he will put in none but those that he hath great reason to think well of; and particularly says, that; though he likes Colonell Legg well, yet his son that was, he knows not how, made a captain after he had been but one voyage at sea, he should go to sea another apprenticeship, before ever he gives him a command. We did tell him of the many defects and disorders among the captains, and I prayed we might do it in writing to him, which he liked; and I am glad of an opportunity of doing it. Thence away, and took up wife and girl, and home, and to the office, busy late, and so to supper and to bed. My wife this day hears from her father and mother: they are in France, at Paris; he, poor good man! I think he is, gives her good counsel still, which I always observed of him, and thankful for my small charities to him. I could be willing to do something for them, were I sure not to bring them over again hither. Coming home, my wife and I went and saw Kate Joyce, who is still in mighty sorrow, and the more from something that Dr. Stillingfleete should simply say in his sermon, of her husband’s manner of dying, as killing himself.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
2 December 1914.
When The Blue Review died, in July 1913, Katherine Mansfield had no place to write in. The beautiful story, Something Childish but very Natural, which she wrote in Paris in December 1913, was refused by every editor to whom she submitted it. No home could be found for any one of her stories till the winter of 1915, when she and D. H. Lawrence and I produced three numbers of a little magazine called The Signature, written wholly by ourselves. The Signature died within two months, and again Katherine Mansfield had nowhere to write, until I became editor of The Athenæum in 1919. In the four years between 1915 and 1919, three stories of hers were published by English periodicals, all in 1918. "Bliss" in The English Review, and "Pictures" and "The Man Without a Temperament"
<|/entry|><|entry|>
25 August 1914.
= ix =

Introduction

merit " in Art and Letters. In 1917, however, Prelude had been published as a little blue-paper book by the Hogarth Press, and Je ne parle pas français printed for private circulation by my brother and myself.

Prelude marks the beginning of the final phase in Katherine Mansfield's development. The war had come as a profound spiritual shock to her, as it did to many less gifted writers of her generation. For a long period the chaos into which her thoughts and ideals and purposes had been flung remained unresolved. Then slowly her mind began to turn back towards her early childhood as a life which had existed apart from, and uncontaminated by, the mechanical civilisation which had produced the war. The crucial moment was when, in 1915, her dearly loved younger brother arrived in England to serve as an officer. Her meeting with him formed, as it were, a point round which her changed attitude could crystallise. They talked over their early childhood for hours on end, and Katherine Mansfield resolved to dedicate herself to recreating life as she had lived and felt it in New Zealand. Her brother's death a month later confirmed her in her purpose, and shortly afterwards she left England for Bandol in the south of France, and began to work on a long story of her childhood days called The Aloe, which was published in a different and shortened form as Prelude.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
15 January 1914.
It is, however, impossible for me who knew her intimately, who (in a sense) worked with her during the greater part of her career as a writer, who copied and punctuated and criticised her stories as they were written, to be silent on one element in her nature which, it seems to me, was essential to the peculiar quality of her work. This peculiar quality of her work I can only describe as a kind of purity. It is as though the glass through which she looked upon life were crystal clear. And this quality of her work corresponds to a quality in her life. Katherine Mansfield was natural and spontaneous as was no other human being I have ever met. She seemed to adjust herself to life as a flower adjusts itself to the earth and to the sun. She suffered greatly, she delighted greatly : but her suffering and her delight were never partial, they filled the whole of her. She was utterly generous, utterly courageous; when
<|/entry|><|entry|>
8 January 1914.
= xv =

Introduction

she gave herself, to life, to love, to some spirit of truth which she served, she gave royally. She loved life — with all its beauty and its pain; she accepted life completely, and she had the right to accept it, for she had endured in herself all the suffering which life can lavish upon a single soul.

The brief biographical sketch printed above was written for the information of the many people who have asked me for particulars of Katherine Mansfield's life. It is printed here to serve as a background to the Journal and the two volumes of letters now in preparation. As for the Journal itself, a few words of introduction are necessary.

At various times in her life Katherine Mansfield entertained the plan of writing for publication "a kind of minute note-book" (see the entry of January 22, 1916). Three separate attempts to carry the plan into execution can be traced in her manuscripts, and once she got so far as to ask me to arrange with a publisher for its publication. The notes for this "notebook" would have been rewritten from entries in her Journal. In a few cases, as in May 1919, the original entry and the "note" exist side by side.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
28 June 1886.
I have just read Zola’s “Au Bonheur des Dames” again; and it seems to me more beautiful every time.

I am writing to you again to-day, because, when I wanted to pay my bill at my hotel, I again discovered that I had been robbed. I suggested an arrangement which, however, has not been accepted, and when I wished to remove my things they refused to allow me to do so. “Very well,” I said, “we shall discuss the matter before the Justice of the Peace” (where I shall probably be declared in the wrong). Now I must retain enough money to be able to pay in the event of my being held to be wrong--67·40 francs instead of 40 francs, which is the sum I owe. A thing that often makes me feel sad is that living is dearer here than I had reckoned, and that I cannot manage to subsist on the same amount as our friends in Brittany. But now that I am feeling better I refuse to think that I am defeated. After all, you have not yet seen any of my work here, and I have already spent a good deal of money. I am therefore sending you a case containing all the work I have done, with the exception of one or two studies which I had to destroy. I have not signed them all; a dozen of them are off their stretchers, and fourteen of them are still stretched. One is a little landscape with a white, red and green cottage, and a cypress. You have the drawing of that one, and I painted it all in my studio. It will show you that if you like I can paint you small pictures, after the manner of crape prints,[30] from all my drawings.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
20 October 1920.
She dressed and went downstairs into the horrible hall, because there, with the monde drinking coffee, she dared not cry. A little brougham drove up with an old dragging man. She got in. "A la poste!" Oh, these little broughams, what she had gone through in them! the blue-buttoned interior, the blue cords and ivory tassels, all, all! She leaned back and lifted her veil and dried her tears. But it was no use. The post office was full. She had to wait in a queue for the telegrams among horrible men who shouted over her shoulder, horrible men. And now, where? A dose of sal volatile at the chemist's. While he made it up she walked quickly up and down the shop, twisting her hands. There was a box of Kolynos. It spoke of him, him in her room, talking about the foam, saying he'd leave his behind. Four francs seventy-five.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
26 August 1922.
How badly, how stupidly you manage your life! Don't you realize that both of you have had enough contact to last for years, that the only way for each of you to be renewed and refreshed is for you to go apart. Not necessarily to tear apart, but to go apart as wisely as possible. You are the most stupid woman I have ever met. You never will see that it all rests with you. If you do not take the initiative, nothing will be done. The reason why you find it so hard to write is because you are learning nothing. I mean of the things

Sierre

that count — like the sight of this tree with its purple cones against the blue. How can I put it, that there is gum on the cones? " Gemmed? " No. " Beaded? " No. " They are like crystals." Must I? I am afraid so. . . .
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
July 1922.
Sierre. This is a damning little note-book, quite in the old style. How I am committed !

To-day is Tuesday. Since leaving Montana I have written about a page. The rest of the time I seem to have slept ! This, of course, started all the Old Fears : that I should never write again, that I was getting sleeping sickness and so on. But this morning I nearly kicked off, and this evening I feel perhaps a time of convalescence was absolutely necessary. The mind was choked with the wrack of all those dreadful tides.

I wrote to K to-day. It seems to bring things nearer.

It's only now I am beginning to see again and to recognise again the beauty of the world. Take the swallows to-day, their flutter-flutter, their velvet-forked tails, their transparent wings that are like the fins of fishes. The little dark head and breast golden in the light. Then the beauty of the garden, and the beauty of raked paths. . . . Then, the silence.

I wage eternally a war of small deceits. Tear this book up ! Tear it up, now ! But now I am pretending to be making notes on a book I have already read and despise. . . .

What dreadful, awful rot!

I should like to write the canary story to-morrow. So many ideas come and go. If there is time I shall write them all. If this uninterrupted time continues. The story about this hotel would be wonderful if I could do it.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
5 September 1922.
If there is a book to be read, no matter how bad that book is, I read it. I will read it. Was it always so with me? I don't remember. Looking back, I imagine I was always writing. Twaddle it was, too. But better far write twaddle or anything, anything, than nothing at all.

My first conversation with O. took place on August 30, 1922.

On that occasion I began by telling him how dissatisfied I was with the idea that Life must be a lesser thing than we were capable of imagining it to be. I had the feeling that the same thing happened to nearly everybody whom I knew and whom I did not know. No sooner was their youth, with the little force and impetus characteristic of youth, done, than they stopped growing. At the very moment that one felt that now was the time to gather oneself together, to use one's whole strength, to take control, to be an adult, in fact, they seemed content to swop the darling wish of their hearts for innumerable little wishes. Or
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
13 April 1922.
Father and the Girls: see "The Doves' Nest," which contains also The Canary.

London

the image that suggested itself to me was that of a river flowing away in countless little trickles over a dark swamp.

They deceived themselves, of course. They called this trickling away — greater tolerance — wider interests — a sense of proportion — so that work did not rule out the possibility of 'life.' Or they called it an escape from all this mind-probing and self-consciousness — a simpler and therefore a better way of life. But sooner or later, in literature at any rate, there sounded an undertone of deep regret. There was an uneasiness, a sense of frustration. One heard, one thought one heard, the cry that began to echo in one's own being: "I have missed it. I have given up. This is not what I want. If this is all, then Life is not worth living."
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
17 May 1661.
All the morning at home. At noon Lieutenant Lambert came to me, and he and I to the Exchange, and thence to an ordinary over against it, where to our dinner we had a fellow play well upon the bagpipes and whistle like a bird exceeding well, and I had a fancy to learn to whistle as he do, and did promise to come some other day and give him an angell to teach me. To the office, and sat there all the afternoon till 9 at night. So home to my musique, and my wife and I sat singing in my chamber a good while together, and then to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
13 December 1885.
The cart one draws must be useful to people whom one does not know. If we believe in the new art, and in the artists of the future, our presentiment does not deceive us. Shortly before his death good old father Corot said: “Last night in my dream I saw landscapes with pink-coloured skies.” And, as a matter of fact, are not pink and even yellow and green skies to be found among impressionist landscapes? This is only to show how many things of whose coming one has a presentiment, actually do come to pass in the future. We do not, however, yet stand on the edge of the grave, and we feel that art is greater and longer than our lives. We do not feel moribund, but of little account; and in order to be a link in the chain of artists we pay a heavy price in youth, health, and freedom. And we no more enjoy the latter than the poor cab-horse does, that has to convey people, who wish to enjoy the spring, out into the open country. That hope of Puvis de Chavannes’ should and must be realized: there is an art of the future, and it must be so beautiful and so young that even if we now sacrifice our own youth to it, we must make up our loss in the joy of living and in peace.{X}
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
12 August 1921.
Antony and Cleopatra

Act I. Scene i.

" The triple pillars of the world . . . " The wide arch of the ranged empire . . ." " To-night we'll wander through the streets and note The qualities of people." (That is so true a pleasure of lovers.)

Act I. Scene 2.

" A Roman thought hath struck him . . ." "Ah, then we bring forth weeds When our quick minds lie still . . ."

Enobarbus constantly amazes me, e.g. his first speeches with Antony about Cleopatra's celerity in dying.

" Your old smock brings forth a new petticoat."

Act I. Scene 3. Like Scene 2. (1) "Saw you my lord?" (2) "Where is he?" The married woman. There's jealousy! And then her fury that he's not more upset at Fulvia's death ! ' Now I know how you'll behave when I die ! '
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
6 June 1921.
These are beautiful lines of Antony's :

" Our separation so abides and flies That thou, residing here, goes yet with me, And I, hence fleeing, here remain with thee."

Act I. Scene 4.

" Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream Goes to and back, lackeying the varying tide To rot itself with motion."

Marvellous words! I can apply them. There is a short story. And then it seems that the weed gets caught up and it sinks ; it is gone out to sea and lost. But comes a day, a like tide, a like occasion, and it reappears more sickeningly rotten still ! Shall he? Will he? Are there any letters? No letters? The post? Does he miss me? No. Then sweep it all out to sea. Clear the water for ever ! Let me write this one day.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
22 January 1921.
"His cheek so much as lacked not." (Economy of utterance.)

Act III. The short scene between Antony and the Soothsayer is very remarkable. It explains the tone of Caesar's remarks to Antony. . . . And Antony's concluding speech shows his uneasiness at the truth of it. He'll go to Egypt. He'll go where his weakness is praised for strength. There's a hankering after Egypt between the lines.

Scene 5. "Tawny-finned fishes . . . their shiny jaws. . . ." and the adjectives seem part of the nouns when Shakespeare uses them. They grace them so beautifully, attend and adorn so modestly, and yet with such skill. It so often happens with lesser writers that we are more conscious of the servants than we are of the masters, and quite forget that their office is to serve, to enlarge, to amplify the power of the master.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
6 August 1921.
Anthony and Cleopatra

" Ram thou thy fruitful tidings in my ears That long time have been barren."

Good lines ! And another example of the choice of the place of words. I suppose it was instinctive. But ' fruitful ' seems to be just where it ought to be, to be resolved (musically speaking) by the word ' barren '. One reads ' fruitful ' expecting ' barren ' almost from the " sound-sense."

" ' But yet ' is as a jailor to bring forth Some monstrous malefactor."

There's matter indeed ! Does not that give the pause that always follows those hateful words. ' But yet ' — and one waits. And both look towards the slowly opening door. What is coming out ? And sometimes there's a sigh of relief after. Well, it was nothing so very awful. The gaol-mouse, so to speak, comes mousing through and cleans his face with his paw. " I am pale, Charmian."
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|vangogh|>
25 July 1886.
At last, after all this time, the weather has changed. This morning early it became quite mild. I have thus had the opportunity of making the acquaintance of the Mistral. I have already taken several walks in the neighbourhood; but the wind was so strong on each occasion that it was impossible to paint. The sky was a vivid blue and the great sun shed such powerful rays that it melted almost all the snow away. But the wind was so dry and piercing that it made me have goose-skin all over. However, I saw some beautiful things; the ruin of an abbey on a hill, covered with holly, pines and gray olive trees. I hope to be able to tackle this very shortly.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
9 April 1886.
Just a few lines to tell you that I have called upon the gentleman whom the Jew in “Tartarin” called the “Zouge de paix.” I have, at least, saved twelve francs, and my landlord was reprimanded for having detained my box despite the fact that I had not refused to pay. It would have been very disastrous for me if the other party had won his case, for he would certainly have told everybody that I could not, or would not, pay, and that he was compelled to detain my box. As it was, however, when we were walking out of the place together, he said to me that the whole thing had happened in a moment of anger, and that he had no intention of offending me. Of course this was precisely what his object had been, for he had probably seen that I had had enough of his place and did not wish under any circumstances to remain a day longer in it. In order to obtain the reduction which was actually due to me I ought probably to have claimed very much more. You can well understand that if I were to allow anybody and everybody to do as they pleased with me, I should soon be robbed of my last farthing.{BB}
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
24 May 1916.
country till I simply exhaust my store. Not only because it is "a sacred debt" that I pay to my country because my brother and I were born there, but also because in my thoughts I range with him over all the remembered places. I am never far away from them. I long to renew them in writing.

Ah, the people — the people we loved there — of them, too, I want to write. Another "debt of love." Oh, I want for one moment to make our undiscovered country leap into the eyes of the Old World. It must be mysterious, as though floating. It must take the breath. It must be "one of those islands. ..." I shall tell everything, even of how the laundry-basket squeaked at 75. But all must be told with a sense of mystery, a radiance, an afterglow, because you, my little sun of it, are set. You have dropped over the dazzling brim of the world. Now I must play my part.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
25 September 1916.
Then I want to write poetry. I feel always trembling on the brink of poetry. The almond tree, the birds, the little wood where you are, the flowers you do not see, the open window out of which I lean and dream that you are against my shoulder, and the times that your photograph "looks sad." But especially I want to write a kind of long elegy to you . . . perhaps not in poetry. Nor perhaps in prose. Almost certainly in a kind of special prose.

And, lastly, I want to keep a kind of minute notebook, to be published some day. That's all. No novels, no problem stories, nothing that is not simple, open.

K.M.

The Decision
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|vangogh|>
18 November 1889.
M. K. returned here yesterday, and liked my pictures of the little girl and my garden. But I do not know whether he has any money. I am now busy painting a postman in a blue uniform with gold trimmings; he is a fanatical Republican like old T., and much more interesting than most people are.

If it were possible to call R.’s attention to it, he might perhaps take the picture by G. which you bought; and if there is no other way of helping G. what shall we do? I will say to him (R.): “Look here, our picture pleases you very much just as it is, and I believe we shall see even better work by this painter; why do you not do as we do? We believe in the man as he stands and like everything he does.” And then I will add: “that, if it has to be, we shall naturally let him have the large picture, but that as G. is sure to be constantly in need of money, it would not be right for us in his interests to keep back the picture until his prices had risen three or four fold, which they are certain to do sooner or later.” If R. then makes a plain and definite offer, we shall be able to consider it--and G. might say that although he had let you, his friend, have the picture at a certain price, he would not think of letting an art lover have it for the same sum. But let us first wait to hear what he will say.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
16 February 1916.
1 found " The Aloe " 1 this morning. And when I had re-read it I knew that I was not quite " right " yesterday. No, dearest, it was not just the

1 " The Aloe " was the original version of Prelude. It exists in its original and longer form, and will be published with the remaining fragments of Katherine Mansfield's writings.

Jo urnal i g 1 6

spirit. " The Aloe " is right. " The Aloe " is lovely. It simply fascinates me, and I know that it is what you would wish me to write. And now I know what the last chapter is. It is your birth — your coming in the autumn. You in Grandmother's arms under the tree, your solemnity, your wonderful beauty. Your hands, your head — your helplessness, lying on the earth, and, above all, your tremendous solemnity. That chapter will end the book. The next book will be yours and mine. And you must mean the world to Linda ; and before ever you are born Kezia must play with you — her little Bogey. Oh, Bogey — I must hurry. All of them must have this book. It is good, my treasure ! My little brother, it is good, and it is what we really meant.
<|/entry|><|entry|>
17 February 1916.
I am sad to-night. Perhaps it is the old forlorn wind. And the thought of you spiritually is not enough to-night. I want you by me. I must get deep down into my book, for then I shall be happy. Lose myself, lose myself to find you, dearest. Oh, I want this book to be written. It must be done. It must be bound and wrapped and sent to New Zealand. I feel that with all my soul. ... It will be.

A Recollection of Childhood Things happened so simply then, without preparation and without any shock. They let me go into my mother's room (I remember standing on tiptoe and using both hands to turn the big white china doorA Recollection of Childhood

handle) and there lay my mother in bed with her arms along the sheet, and there sat my grandmother before the fire with a baby in a flannel across her knees. My mother paid no attention to me at all. Perhaps she was asleep, for my grandmother nodded and said in a voice scarcely above a whisper, " Come and see your little sister." I tiptoed to her voice across the room, and she parted the flannel, and I saw a little round head with a tuft of goldy hair on it and a big face with eyes shut — white as snow. "Is it alive? " I asked. " Of course," said grandmother. " Look at her holding my finger." And — yes, a hand, scarcely bigger than my doll's, in a frilled sleeve, was wound round her finger. "Do you like her?" said my grandmother. "Yes. Is she going to play with the doll's house? " " By-and-by," said the grandmother, and I felt very pleased. Mrs. Heywood had just given us the doll's house. It was a beautiful one with a verandah and a balcony and a door that opened and shut and two chimneys. I wanted badly to show it to someone else.
<|/entry|><|entry|>
7 March 1916.
" Her name is Gwen," said the grandmother. " Kiss her."

I bent down and kissed the little goldy tuft. But she took no notice. She lay quite still with her eyes shut.

" Now go and kiss mother," said the grandmother.

But mother did not want to kiss me. Very languid, leaning against the pillows, she was eating some sago. The sun shone through the windows and winked on the brass knobs of the big bed.

After that grandmother came into the nursery with
Gwen, and sat in front of the nursery fire in the rocking chair with her. Mag and Tadpole were away staying with Aunt Harriet, and they had gone before the new doll's house arrived, so that was why I so longed to have somebody to show it to. I had gone all through it myself, from the kitchen to the dining-room, up into the bedrooms with the doll's lamp on the table, heaps and heaps of times.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
31 October 1666.
Out with Sir W. Batten toward White Hall, being in pain in my cods by being squeezed the other night in a little coach when I carried Pierce and his wife and my people. But I hope I shall be soon well again. This day is a great day at the House, so little to do with the Duke of York, but soon parted. Coming out of the Court I met Colonell Atkins, who tells me the whole city rings to-day of Sir Jeremy Smith’s killing of Holmes in a duell, at which I was not much displeased, for I fear every day more and more mischief from the man, if he lives; but the thing is not true, for in my coach I did by and by meet Sir Jer. Smith going to Court. So I by coach to my goldsmith, there to see what gold I can get, which is but little, and not under 22d. So away home to dinner, and after dinner to my closett, where I spent the whole afternoon till late at evening of all my accounts publique and private, and to my great satisfaction I do find that I do bring my accounts to a very near balance, notwithstanding all the hurries and troubles I have been put to by the late fire, that I have not been able to even my accounts since July last before; and I bless God I do find that I am worth more than ever I yet was, which is L6,200, for which the Holy Name of God be praised! and my other accounts of Tangier in a very plain and clear condition, that I am not liable to any trouble from them; but in fear great I am, and I perceive the whole city is, of some distractions and disorders among us, which God of his goodness prevent! Late to supper with my wife and brother, and then to bed. And thus ends the month with an ill aspect, the business of the Navy standing wholly still. No credit, no goods sold us, nobody will trust. All we have to do at the office is to hear complaints for want of money. The Duke of York himself for now three weeks seems to rest satisfied that we can do nothing without money, and that all must stand still till the King gets money, which the Parliament have been a great while about; but are so dissatisfied with the King’s management, and his giving himself up to pleasures, and not minding the calling to account any of his officers, and they observe so much the expense of the war, and yet that after we have made it the most we can, it do not amount to what they have given the King for the warn that they are backward of giving any more. However, L1,800,000 they have voted, but the way of gathering it has taken up more time than is fit to be now lost: The seamen grow very rude, and every thing out of order; commanders having no power over their seamen, but the seamen do what they please. Few stay on board, but all coming running up hither to towne, and nobody can with justice blame them, we owing them so much money; and their familys must starve if we do not give them money, or they procure upon their tickets from some people that will trust them. A great folly is observed by all people in the King’s giving leave to so many merchantmen to go abroad this winter, and some upon voyages where it is impossible they should be back again by the spring, and the rest will be doubtfull, but yet we let them go; what the reason of State is nobody can tell, but all condemn it. The Prince and Duke of Albemarle have got no great credit by this year’s service. Our losses both of reputation and ships having been greater than is thought have ever been suffered in all ages put together before; being beat home, and fleeing home the first fight, and then losing so many ships then and since upon the sands, and some falling into the enemy’s hands, and not one taken this yeare, but the Ruby, French prize, now at the end of the yeare, by the Frenchmen’s mistake in running upon us. Great folly in both Houses of Parliament, several persons falling together by the eares, among others in the House of Lords, the Duke of Buckingham and my Lord Ossory. Such is our case, that every body fears an invasion the next yeare; and for my part, I do methinks foresee great unhappiness coming upon us, and do provide for it by laying by something against a rainy day, dividing what I have, and laying it in several places, but with all faithfulness to the King in all respects; my grief only being that the King do not look after his business himself, and thereby will be undone both himself and his nation, it being not yet, I believe, too late if he would apply himself to it, to save all, and conquer the Dutch; but while he and the Duke of York mind their pleasure, as they do and nothing else, we must be beaten. So late with my mind in good condition of quiet after the settling all my accounts, and to bed.

November 1st. Up, and was presented by Burton, one of our smith’s wives, with a very noble cake, which I presently resolved to have my wife go with to-day, and some wine, and house-warme my Betty Michell, which she readily resolved to do. So I to the office and sat all the morning, where little to do but answer people about want of money; so that there is little service done the King by us, and great disquiet to ourselves; I am sure there is to me very much, for I do not enjoy myself as I would and should do in my employment if my pains could do the King better service, and with the peace that we used to do it. At noon to dinner, and from dinner my wife and my brother, and W. Hewer and Barker away to Betty Michell’s, to Shadwell, and I to my office, where I took in Mrs. Bagwell and did what I would with her, and so she went away, and I all the afternoon till almost night there, and then, my wife being come back, I took her and set her at her brother’s, who is very sicke, and I to White Hall, and there all alone a pretty while with Sir W. Coventry at his chamber. I find him very melancholy under the same considerations of the King’s service that I am. He confesses with me he expects all will be undone, and all ruined; he complains and sees perfectly what I with grief do, and said it first himself to me that all discipline is lost in the fleete, no order nor no command, and concurs with me that it is necessary we do again and again represent all things more and more plainly to the Duke of York, for a guard to ourselves hereafter when things shall come to be worse. He says the House goes on slowly in finding of money, and that the discontented party do say they have not done with us, for they will have a further bout with us as to our accounts, and they are exceedingly well instructed where to hit us. I left him with a thousand sad reflections upon the times, and the state of the King’s matters, and so away, and took up my wife and home, where a little at the office, and then home to supper, and talk with my wife (with whom I have much comfort) and my brother, and so to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
15 August 1919.
So the serpent still slept between us. Oh! why won't she turn and speak her mind. This pretence of being fond of me! I believe she thinks she is. There is something in what L.M. says: she is not consciously evil. She is a fool, of course. I have to do all the managing and all the explaining. I have to cook everything before she cooks it. I believe she thinks she is a treasure . . . no, wants to think it. At bottom she knows her corruptness. There are moments when it comes to the surface, comes out, like a stain, in her face. Then her

eyes are like the eyes of a woman-prisoner — a creature looking up as you enter her cell and saying: 'If you'd known what a hard life I've had you wouldn't be surprised to see me here.'
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
[Prompt: What do you want?]
21 November 1666.
Up, with Sir W. Batten to Charing Cross, and thence I to wait on Sir Philip Howard, whom I find dressing himself in his night-gown and turban like a Turke, but one of the finest persons that ever I saw in my life. He had several gentlemen of his owne waiting on him, and one playing finely on the gittar: he discourses as well as ever I heard man, in few words and handsome. He expressed all kindness to Balty, when I told him how sick he is: he says that, before he comes to be mustered again, he must bring a certificate of his swearing the oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy, and having taken the Sacrament according to the rites of the Church of England. This, I perceive, is imposed on all, and he will be ready to do. I pray God he may have his health again to be able to do it. Being mightily satisfied with his civility, I away to Westminster Hall, and there walked with several people, and all the discourse is about some trouble in Scotland I heard of yesterday, but nobody can tell the truth of it. Here was Betty Michell with her mother. I would have carried her home, but her father intends to go with her, so I lost my hopes. And thence I to the Excise Office about some tallies, and then to the Exchange, where I did much business, and so home to dinner, and then to the office, where busy all the afternoon till night, and then home to supper, and after supper an hour reading to my wife and brother something in Chaucer with great pleasure, and so to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
12 February 1914.
" Do you remember, Katie ? " I hear his voice in the trees and flowers, in scents and light and shadow. Have people, apart from these far-away people, ever existed for me? Or have they always failed and faded because I denied them reality? Supposing I were to die as I sit at this table, playing with my Indian paperknife, what would the difference be ? No difference at all. Then why don't I commit suicide? Because I feel I have a duty to perform to the lovely time when we were both alive. I want to write about it, and he wanted me to. We talked it over in my little top room

A W oman' s Song

in London. I said: I will just put on the front page: To my brother, Leslie Heron Beauchamp. Very well: it shall be done. . . .
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
9 December 1664.
Up betimes and walked to Mr. Povy’s, and there, not without some few troublesome questions of his, I got a note, and went and received L117 5s. of Alderman Viner upon my pretended freight of the “William” for Tangier, which overbears me on one side with joy and on the other to think of my condition if I shall be called into examination about it, and (though in strictness it is due) not be able to give a good account of it. Home with it, and there comes Captain Taylor to me, and he and I did set even the business of the ship Union lately gone for Tangier, wherein I hope to get L50 more, for all which the Lord be praised. At noon home to dinner, Mr. Hunt and his wife with us, and very pleasant. Then in the afternoon I carried them home by coach, and I to Westminster Hall, and thence to Gervas’s, and there find I cannot prevail with Jane to go forth with me, but though I took a good occasion of going to the Trumpet she declined coming, which vexed me. ‘Je avait grande envie envers elle, avec vrai amour et passion’. Thence home and to my office till one in the morning, setting to rights in writing this day’s two accounts of Povy and Taylor, and then quietly to bed. This day I had several letters from several places, of our bringing in great numbers of Dutch ships.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|pepys|>
12 December 1664.
Up, and with Sir W. Batten by coach to White Hall, where all of us with the Duke; Mr. Coventry privately did tell me the reason of his advice against our pretences to the Prize Office (in his letter from Portsmouth), because he knew that the King and the Duke had resolved to put in some Parliament men that have deserved well, and that would needs be obliged, by putting them in. Thence homeward, called at my bookseller’s and bespoke some books against the year’s out, and then to the ‘Change, and so home to dinner, and then to the office, where my Lord Brunkard comes and reads over part of our Instructions in the Navy--and I expounded it to him, so he is become my disciple. He gone, comes Cutler to tell us that the King of France hath forbid any canvass to be carried out of his kingdom, and I to examine went with him to the East India house to see a letter, but came too late. So home again, and there late till 12 at night at my office, and then home to supper and to bed. This day (to see how things are ordered in the world), I had a command from the Earle of Sandwich, at Portsmouth, not to be forward with Mr. Cholmly and Sir J. Lawson about the Mole at Tangier, because that what I do therein will (because of his friendship to me known) redound against him, as if I had done it upon his score. So I wrote to my Lord my mistake, and am contented to promise never to pursue it more, which goes against my mind with all my heart.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|pepys|>
17 December 1664.
Up and to the office, where we sat all the morning. At noon I to the ‘Change, and there, among others, had my first meeting with Mr. L’Estrange, who hath endeavoured several times to speak with me. It is to get, now and then, some newes of me, which I shall, as I see cause, give him. He is a man of fine conversation, I think, but I am sure most courtly and full of compliments. Thence home to dinner, and then come the looking-glass man to set up the looking-glass I bought yesterday, in my dining-room, and very handsome it is. So abroad by coach to White Hall, and there to the Committee of Tangier, and then the Fishing. Mr. Povy did in discourse give me a rub about my late bill for money that I did get of him, which vexed me and stuck in my mind all this evening, though I know very well how to cleare myself at the worst. So home and to my office, where late, and then home to bed. Mighty talke there is of this Comet that is seen a’nights; and the King and Queene did sit up last night to see it, and did, it seems. And to-night I thought to have done so too; but it is cloudy, and so no stars appear. But I will endeavour it. Mr. Gray did tell me to-night, for certain, that the Dutch, as high as they seem, do begin to buckle; and that one man in this Kingdom did tell the King that he is offered L40,000 to make a peace, and others have been offered money also. It seems the taking of their Bourdeaux fleete thus, arose from a printed Gazette of the Dutch’s boasting of fighting, and having beaten the English: in confidence whereof (it coming to Bourdeaux), all the fleete comes out, and so falls into our hands.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|pepys|>
18 December 1664.
(Lord’s day). To church, where, God forgive me! I spent most of my time in looking my new Morena----at the other side of the church, an acquaintance of Pegg Pen’s. So home to dinner, and then to my chamber to read Ben Johnson’s Cataline, a very excellent piece, and so to church again, and thence we met at the office to hire ships, being in great haste and having sent for several masters of ships to come to us. Then home, and there Mr. Andrews and Hill come and we sung finely, and by and by Mr. Fuller, the Parson, and supped with me, he and a friend of his, but my musique friends would not stay supper. At and after supper Mr. Fuller and I told many storys of apparitions and delusions thereby, and I out with my storys of Tom Mallard. He gone, I a little to my office, and then to prayers and to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
[Prompt: What are you afraid of right now?]
30 September 1915.
I hope this pen works. Yes, it does.

The last day in September — immensely cold, a kind of solid cold outside the windows. My life has played traitor nearly all day and I have been, in the good, old-fashioned way, feeling my skin curl.

Don't read this. Do you hear that train whistle and now the leaves — the dry leaves — and now the fire

— fluttering and breaking.

Why doesn't she bring the lamps ?
<|/entry|><|entry|>
21 October 1915.
L.M. is going to town. I must take some of my dear money out of the Bank and give it her. I am in bed; I feel very sick. Queer altogether — decomposing a bit.

'Russian Country'

It's a pale silent day: I would like to be walking in a wood, far away.

Health seems to me now more remote than anything— unattainable. Best to stay in bed and be horrid from there. This sky in waves of blue and cream and grey is like the sky overhanging a dead calm sea, when you hear someone rowing, far far away; and then the voices from the boat and the rattle of the chain and the barking of the ship's dog all sound loud. There is as usual a smell of onions and chop bones in the house.

What do I want her to buy for me ? When it really becomes an urgent matter — I want nothing — waste of money — I feel like Mile. Seguin, who wouldn't hang the pictures in her new flat because Life is such a breathy little Dolly.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|maclane|>
8 January 1917.
Their little shoes
Often in windy autumn nights I lie awake in my shadowy bed and think of the children, the Drab-eyed thousands of children in this America who work in coal mines and factories.

Whenever I’m wakeful and the night is windy and my room is dark and I lie in aloneness--a long aloneness: centuries--then shadows come from far-off world-wildnesses and float and flutter dimly unhappy around my bed. They tell me tales of shame and tame petty hopelessness and trifling despair.

And the one that comes oftenest is the one that tells of those Drab-Eyed children distances from here, but very immediate, who work in coal mines and factories. I read about them in magazines and newspapers, but they aren’t then one one-hundredth so real as when their shadow floats as close to me in the windy autumn night.

Once in Pennsylvania I saw a group of children, very Drab in the Eyes and very thin in the necks and legs, who worked in a mill. Their look made its imprint in my memory and more in my flesh. And it comes back as if it were the only thing that mattered as I lie wakeful in the windy night.

The children--unconscious and smiling their small decayed smiles--they are living and being crushed between greed and need as between two murderous millstones. Their frail flesh and their little brittle bones, their voices and their pinched insides, the sweet vague childish looks which belong in their faces are squeezed and crunched by two millstones--squeezed, squeezed till their scrawny fledgeling bodies are dry, breathless, and are gasping, strangling, striving frightfully for life: and still are slowly, all too slowly, dying between two millstones.

If it were their own greed or their own need--but it’s the greed of fat people and the need of their own warped gaunt parents. Betwixt the two the children meet homelike hideous ruin. Placidly they are cheated and blighted and blasted, placidly and with the utmost domesticness.

The most darkling-luminous thing about the Drab-Eyed children is that they never weep. They talk among themselves and smile their little dreadful decayed smiles, but they don’t weep. When they walk it’s with a middle-aged gait: when they eat their noontime food it’s as grown people do, with half-conscious economic and gastronomic consideration. They count their Tuesdays and Wednesdays with calculation as work-days, which should be childishly wind-sweptly free. Which is all of less weight than the heavy fact that they never weep.

They reckon themselves fairly fortunate with their bits of silver in yellow envelopes every Saturday. They are permitted to keep a bit of it, each child a bit for herself or himself, so that on Sunday afternoons they lose themselves for precious hours watching Charlie Chaplin. Many pink-faced inconsequent children whose parents nurture them and guard them and eternally misunderstand them are less worldlily lucky. But the pink-faced children often weep--loudly, foolishly like puppies and snarling furry cubs--and wet sweet salt tears of proper childishness are round and bright on their cheeks and lashes. It’s a sun-washed blestness for them: they’re impelled and allowed to weep. But the Drab Eyes shed no tears--they know no reason why they should. There’s no impulse for soft liquid grief in the murderous philosophy of two grinding millstones. And there’s no time--the lives of the work-children move on fast. Their very shoes are ground between the millstones.

--their little shoes are heartbreaking. The millstones grind many things along with little-little shoes of children: germs of potent splendid humanness that might grow bigly American in heroic ways or in sane round honesty: germs that might grow into brave barbaric beauty or warm wistful sweetness: germs that would grow into lips blooming tender and fragrant as jonquils or into minds swimming with lyrics:--what is strongly lasting and glorified in the forlorn divine human thing--crumpled--twisted forever when millstones grind children’s little poor shoes--

The young Drab Eyes are endlessly betrayed: their very color thieved. There’s no reason why they should weep.

But there’s a far-blown sound as if ten thousand bad and good worldly eyes were weeping in their stead: with a note in it careless, compassionate and jadedly menacing.

I seem to hear it in the wakeful windy night. And I hear no world-music pouring out of small throats of work-children shrill with woe-and-joy. The sound they make is a dumb sound, for they never weep: a ghost-wail of partly-dead children borne lowly across this mixed world on a stale hellish breeze.
<|/entry|>