<|entry|>
[Prompt: What do you keep returning to?]
4 January 1922.
Dreamed of M.S. An important dream; its tone was important. That gallery over the sea and my "Isn't it beautiful?" and his weary "No doubt." His definition of the two kinds of women. . . .

But I was not so wicked to-day. I have read a good deal of Cosmic Anatomy and understood it far better. Yes, such a book does fascinate me. Why does J. hate it so?

To get a glimpse of the relation of things — to follow that relation and find it remains true through the ages enlarges my little mind as nothing else does. It's only a greater view of psychology. It helps me with my writing, for instance, to know that hot + bun may mean Taurus, Pradhana, substance. No, that's not really what attracts me; it's that reactions to certain causes and effects always have been the same. It wasn't for nothing Constantia chose the moon and water, for instance!

Read Shakespeare. The snow is thicker, it clings to the branches like white new-born puppies.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
20 February 1665.
Up, and with Sir J. Minnes to attend the Duke, and then we back again and rode into the beginning of my Lord Chancellor’s new house, near St. James’s; which common people have already called Dunkirke-house, from their opinion of his having a good bribe for the selling of that towne. And very noble I believe it will be. Near that is my Lord Barkeley beginning another on one side, and Sir J. Denham on the other. Thence I to the House of Lords and spoke with my Lord Bellasses, and so to the ‘Change, and there did business, and so to the Sun taverne, haling in the morning had some high words with Sir J. Lawson about his sending of some bayled goods to Tangier, wherein the truth is I did not favour him, but being conscious that some of my profits may come out by some words that fell from him, and to be quiet, I have accommodated it. Here we dined merry; but my club and the rest come to 7s. 6d., which was too much. Thence to the office, and there found Bagwell’s wife, whom I directed to go home, and I would do her business, which was to write a letter to my Lord Sandwich for her husband’s advance into a better ship as there should be occasion. Which I did, and by and by did go down by water to Deptford, and then down further, and so landed at the lower end of the town, and it being dark ‘entrer en la maison de la femme de Bagwell’, and there had ‘sa compagnie’, though with a great deal of difficulty, ‘neanmoins en fin j’avais ma volont d’elle’, and being sated therewith, I walked home to Redriffe, it being now near nine o’clock, and there I did drink some strong waters and eat some bread and cheese, and so home. Where at my office my wife comes and tells me that she hath hired a chamber mayde, one of the prettiest maydes that ever she saw in her life, and that she is really jealous of me for her, but hath ventured to hire her from month to month, but I think she means merrily. So to supper and to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
[Prompt: Confess something.]
5 March 1663.
Rose this morning early, only to try with intention to begin my last summer’s course in rising betimes. So to my office a little, and then to Westminster by coach with Sir J. Minnes and Sir W. Batten, in our way talking of Sir W. Pen’s business of his patent, which I think I have put a stop to wholly, for Sir J. Minnes swears he will never consent to it. Here to the Lobby, and spoke with my cozen Roger, who is going to Cambridge to-morrow. In the Hall I do hear that the Catholiques are in great hopes for all this, and do set hard upon the King to get Indulgence. Matters, I hear, are all naught in Ireland, and that the Parliament has voted, and the people, that is, the Papists, do cry out against the Commissioners sent by the King; so that they say the English interest will be lost there. Thence I went to see my Lord Sandwich, who I found very ill, and by his cold being several nights hindered from sleep, he is hardly able to open his eyes, and is very weak and sad upon it, which troubled me much. So after talking with Mr. Cooke, whom I found there, about his folly for looking and troubling me and other friends in getting him a place (that is, storekeeper of the Navy at Tangier) before there is any such thing, I returned to the Hall, and thence back with the two knights home again by coach, where I found Mr. Moore got abroad, and dined with me, which I was glad to see, he having not been able to go abroad a great while. Then came in Mr. Hawley and dined with us, and after dinner I left them, and to the office, where we sat late, and I do find that I shall meet with nothing to oppose my growing great in the office but Sir W. Pen, who is now well again, and comes into the office very brisk, and, I think, to get up his time that he has been out of the way by being mighty diligent at the office, which, I pray God, he may be, but I hope by mine to weary him out, for I am resolved to fall to business as hard as I can drive, God giving me health. At my office late, and so home to supper and to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
5 January 1922.
A long typical boat dream. I was, as usual, going to N.Z. But for the first time my stepmother was very friendly — so nice. I loved her. A tragic dream as regards L.M. She disappeared, and it was too late to find her or tell her to come back at last.

Read Cosmic Anatomy. I managed to work a little. Broke through. This is a great relief. J. and I put out food for the birds. When I went to the window all the food was gone, but there was the tiny print of their feet on the sill. J. brought up the half cocoanut and sprinkled crumbs as well. Very soon, terrified, however, one came, then another, then a third, balanced on the cocoanut. They are precious little atoms.

It still snows. I think I hate snow, downright hate it. There is something stupefying in it, a kind of ' You must be worse before you're better,' and down it spins. I love, I long for the fertile earth. How I have longed for the South of France this year ! So do I now.

Soundly rated L.M. about food and clothing. She has a food ' complex.' J. and I read Mansfield Park with great enjoyment. I wonder if J. is as content as he appears ? It seems too good to be true.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
30 July 1666.
Up, and did some business in my chamber, then by and by comes my boy’s Lute-Master, and I did direct him hereafter to begin to teach him to play his part on the Theorbo, which he will do, and that in a little time I believe. So to the office, and there with Sir W. Warren, with whom I have spent no time a good while. We set right our business of the Lighters, wherein I thinke I shall get L100. At noon home to dinner and there did practise with Mercer one of my new tunes that I have got Dr. Childe to set me a base to and it goes prettily. Thence abroad to pay several debts at the end of the month, and so to Sir W. Coventry, at St. James’s, where I find him in his new closett, which is very fine, and well supplied with handsome books. I find him speak very slightly of the late victory: dislikes their staying with the fleete up their coast, believing that the Dutch will come out in fourteen days, and then we with our unready fleete, by reason of some of the ships being maymed, shall be in bad condition to fight them upon their owne coast: is much dissatisfied with the great number of men, and their fresh demands of twenty-four victualling ships, they going out but the other day as full as they could stow. I asked him whether he did never desire an account of the number of supernumeraries, as I have done several ways, without which we shall be in great errour about the victuals; he says he has done it again and again, and if any mistake should happen they must thanke themselves. He spoke slightly of the Duke of Albemarle, saying, when De Ruyter come to give him a broadside--“Now,” says he, chewing of tobacco the while, “will this fellow come and give, me two broadsides, and then he will run;” but it seems he held him to it two hours, till the Duke himself was forced to retreat to refit, and was towed off, and De Ruyter staid for him till he come back again to fight. One in the ship saying to the Duke, “Sir, methinks De Ruyter hath given us more: than two broadsides;”--“Well,” says the Duke, “but you shall find him run by and by,” and so he did, says Sir W. Coventry; but after the Duke himself had been first made to fall off. The Resolution had all brass guns, being the same that Sir J. Lawson had in her in the Straights. It is observed that the two fleetes were even in number to one ship. Thence home; and to sing with my wife and Mercer in the garden; and coming in I find my wife plainly dissatisfied with me, that I can spend so much time with Mercer, teaching her to sing and could never take the pains with her. Which I acknowledge; but it is because that the girl do take musique mighty readily, and she do not, and musique is the thing of the world that I love most, and all the pleasure almost that I can now take. So to bed in some little discontent, but no words from me.
<|/entry|><|entry|>
24 August 1666.
Up, and dispatched several businesses at home in the morning, and then comes Sympson to set up my other new presses

for my books, and so he and I fell in to the furnishing of my new closett, and taking out the things out of my old, and I kept him with me all day, and he dined with me, and so all the afternoon till it was quite darke hanging things, that is my maps and pictures and draughts, and setting up my books, and as much as we could do, to my most extraordinary satisfaction; so that I think it will be as noble a closett as any man hath, and light enough--though, indeed, it would be better to have had a little more light. He gone, my wife and I to talk, and sup, and then to setting right my Tangier accounts and enter my Journall, and then to bed with great content in my day’s worke. This afternoon comes Mrs. Barbary Sheldon, now Mrs. Wood, to see my wife. I was so busy I would not see her. But she came, it seems, mighty rich in rings and fine clothes, and like a lady, and says she is matched mighty well, at which I am very glad, but wonder at her good fortune and the folly of her husband, and vexed at myself for not paying her the respect of seeing her, but I will come out of her debt another time.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
9 March 1663.
Up betimes, to my office, where all the morning. About noon Sir J. Robinson, Lord Mayor, desiring way through the garden from the Tower, called in at the office and there invited me (and Sir W. Pen, who happened to be in the way) to dinner, which we did; and there had a great Lent dinner of fish, little flesh. And thence he and I in his coach, against my will (for I am resolved to shun too great fellowship with him) to White Hall, but came too late, the Duke having been with our fellow officers before we came, for which I was sorry. Thence he and I to walk one turn in the Park, and so home by coach, and I to my office, where late, and so home to supper and bed. There dined with us to-day Mr. Slingsby, of the Mint, who showed us all the new pieces both gold and silver (examples of them all), that are made for the King, by Blondeau’s’ way; and compared them with those made for Oliver. The pictures of the latter made by Symons, and of the King by one Rotyr, a German, I think, that dined with us also. He extolls those of Rotyr’s above the others; and, indeed, I think they are the better, because the sweeter of the two; but, upon my word, those of the Protector are more like in my mind, than the King’s, but both very well worth seeing. The crowns of Cromwell are now sold, it seems, for 25s. and 30s. apiece.
<|/entry|><|entry|>
14 March 1663.
Up betimes and to my office, where we sat all the morning, and a great rant I did give to Mr. Davis, of Deptford, and others about their usage of Michell, in his Bewpers,----which he serves in for flaggs, which did trouble me, but yet it was in defence of what was truth. So home to dinner, where Creed dined with me, and walked a good while in the garden with me after dinner, talking, among other things, of the poor service which Sir J. Lawson did really do in the Streights, for which all this great fame and honour done him is risen. So to my office, where all the afternoon giving maisters their warrants for this voyage, for which I hope hereafter to get something at their coming home. In the evening my wife and I and Ashwell walked in the garden, and I find she is a pretty ingenuous

girl at all sorts of fine work, which pleases me very well, and I hope will be very good entertainment for my wife without much cost. So to write by the post, and so home to supper and to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
13 May 1883.
I do not think that the question of the Dutch masters which we raised a day or two ago, is without interest. In all matters of humanity, originality, or naturalism, it is very interesting to consult them. But, in the first place, I must speak about you and two still-life pictures you have painted, as also two portraits of your grandmother. Have you ever succeeded better in anything else? Were you ever more yourself, more individual, in any other work? My answer is No! The thorough study of the first subject, the first person, that was at hand, sufficed to make you work with earnestness. Do you know what it was that made these three or four studies so valuable to me? Something inexplicably arbitrary, something very clever, deliberate, firm and self-reliant--that is what it was. Never, dear friend, have you been closer to Rembrandt than while painting those studies. It was in Rembrandt’s studio, under the eyes of that incomparable Sphinx, that Vermeer of Delft found that extraordinarily sound technique which was never to be surpassed, and which people are so ardently longing to find to-day. I know, of course, that we are now engaged in the problem of colour, whereas they were concerned with chiaroscuro and values. But what do these slight differences matter when that which is, above all, necessary is to be able to express oneself with vigour and strength?

At the present moment you are investigating the technique of the early Italians and Germans, and the question of the symbolic significance which the spiritualized and mystic painting of the Italians may possess--by all means continue!...

A certain anecdote about Giotto strikes me as being very neat. There was a prize competition opened for the best picture of the Virgin, and a host of sketches were sent in to the judging committee of fine arts of the day. The one signed by Giotto was a simple oval, a plain, egg-shaped space. The jury entirely confident, although perplexed, gave Giotto the commission for the picture. Whether it is true or not, I like the story.

Now, however, let me return to Daumier and to the portrait of your grandmother. When will you again send us studies of such sterling value? I urge you most earnestly to do so, although I by no means underestimate your attempts at line composition, and am far from indifferent to the effect of contrasted lines and forms. The trouble is, my dear old Bernard, that Giotto and Cimabue, like Holbein and Van Eyck, lived in an atmosphere of obelisks--if I may use such an expression--in which everything was arranged with architectural method, in which every individual was a stone or a brick in the general edifice, and all things were interdependent and constituted a monumental social structure. If the Socialists construct their edifice in the same logical manner--a thing they are very far from doing--the above-mentioned order of society will certainly come back to life in a similar way. But we, you know, live in the midst of complete _laisser-aller_ and anarchy; we artists who love order and symmetry, isolate ourselves and work at introducing a little style into some particular portion of the world.

Puvis knew this very well, and when--clever and honest man that he was--he forgot his Elysian fields, and descended into our age, he painted a very beautiful portrait, “The Jovial Old Man”--a figure of a man sitting in a blue room, reading a yellow covered book, with a glass of water, containing a water-colour brush and a rose, at his side. And he also painted a stylish lady such as the Goncourts might have described.

Yes, the Dutch painted things as they were, certainly without reflecting much upon them; as Courbet painted his naked beauties, so they painted portraits, landscapes and still-life subjects. And it is not by any means the most foolish way. But if, owing to the fact that we do not know what to do, we imitate them, we do so only to avoid squandering our modest powers in fruitless metaphysical brooding which cannot press chaos into a tumbler; for that is precisely why it is chaos, because it cannot enter into a tumbler of our calibre.

We are only able--and this is just what these Dutchmen did, who for people with a system were infernally clever,--to paint an atom out of the chaos: a horse, a portrait, a grandmother, apples or a landscape. {G}
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
22 April 1919.
down to see him. Mother, he says, you wouldn't know little Bert. He can't speak. He won't come near anybody. He starts off if you touch him ; he's like a little beast. And, oh dear, the things he'd done ! Well, you hear of people doing those things before they're put into orphanages. But when I heard that and thought it was the same little baby his father used to carry into Regent's Park bathed and dressed of a Sunday morning — well, I felt my religion was going from me.

I had a terrible time trying to get him into an orphanage. I begged for three months before they would take him. Then he was sent to Bisley. But after I'd been to see him there, in his funny clothes and all — I could see 'is misery. I was in a nice place at the time, cook to a butcher in a large way in Kensington, but that poor child's eyes — they used to follow me — and a sort of shivering that came over him when people went near.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
16 February 1919.
Well, I had a friend that kept a boarding house in Kensington. I used to visit her, and a friend of hers, a big well-set-up fellow, quite the gentleman, an engineer who worked in a garage, came there very often. She used to joke and say he wanted to walk me out. I laughed it off till one day she was very serious. She said, You're a very silly woman. He earns good money ; he'd give you a home and you could have your little boy. Well, he was to speak to me next day and I made up my mind to listen. Well, he did, and he couldn't have put it nicer. I can't give you a house to start with, he said, but you shall have three good rooms

The Cook's Story

and the kid, and I'm earning good money and shall be more.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
20 August 1919.
A week after, he come to me. I can't give you any money this week, he says, there's things to pay for from when I was single. But I daresay you've got a bit put by. And I was a fool, you know, I didn't think it funny. Oh yes, I said, I'll manage. Well, so it went on for three weeks. We'd arranged not to have little Bert for a month because, he said, he wanted me to himself, and he was so fond of him. A big fellow, he used to cling to me like a child and call me mother.

After three weeks was up I hadn't a penny. I'd been taking my jewels and best clothes to put away to pay for him until he was straight. But one night I said, Where's my money? He just up and gave me such a smack in the face I thought my head would burst. And that began it. Every time I asked him for money he beat me. As I said, I was very religious at the time, used to wear a crucifix under my clothes and couldn't go to bed without kneeling by the side and saying my prayers — no, not even the first week of my marriage. Well, I went to a clergyman and told him everything and he said, My child, he said, I am very sorry for you, but with God's help, he said, it's your duty to make him a better man. You say your first husband was so good. Well, perhaps God has kept this trial for you until now. I went home — and that very night he tore my crucifix off and hit me on the head when I knelt down. He said he wouldn't have me say my prayers; it made him wild. I had a little dog at the
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
4 July 1666.
Up, and visited very betimes by Mr. Sheply, who is come to town upon business from Hinchingbrooke, where he left all well. I out and walked along with him as far as Fleet Streete, it being a fast day, the usual fast day for the plague, and few coaches to be had. Thanks be to God, the plague is, as I hear, encreased but two this week; but in the country in several places it rages mightily, and particularly in Colchester, where it hath long been, and is believed will quite depopulate the place. To St. James’s, and there did our usual business with the Duke, all of us, among other things, discoursing about the places where to build ten great ships; the King and Council have resolved on none to be under third-rates; but it is impossible to do it, unless we have more money towards the doing it than yet we have in any view. But, however, the shew must be made to the world. Thence to my Lord Bellasses to take my leave of him, he being going down to the North to look after the Militia there, for fear of an invasion. Thence home and dined, and then to the office, where busy all day, and in the evening Sir W. Pen come to me, and we walked together, and talked of the late fight. I find him very plain, that the whole conduct of the late fight was ill, and that that of truth’s all, and he tells me that it is not he, but two-thirds of the commanders of the whole fleete have told him so: they all saying, that they durst not oppose it at the Council of War, for fear of being called cowards, though it was wholly against their judgement to fight that day with the disproportion of force, and then we not being able to use one gun of our lower tier, which was a greater disproportion than the other. Besides, we might very well have staid in the Downs without fighting, or any where else, till the Prince could have come up to them; or at least till the weather was fair, that we might have the benefit of our whole force in the ships that we had. He says three things must remedied, or else we shall be undone by this fleete. 1. That we must fight in a line, whereas we fight promiscuously, to our utter and demonstrable ruine; the Dutch fighting otherwise; and we, whenever we beat them. 2. We must not desert ships of our own in distress, as we did, for that makes a captain desperate, and he will fling away his ship, when there is no hopes left him of succour. 3. That ships, when they are a little shattered, must not take the liberty to come in of themselves, but refit themselves the best they can, and stay out--many of our ships coming in with very small disablenesses. He told me that our very commanders, nay, our very flag-officers, do stand in need of exercising among themselves, and discoursing the business of commanding a fleete; he telling me that even one of our flag-men in the fleete did not know which tacke lost the wind, or which kept it, in the last engagement. He says it was pure dismaying and fear that made them all run upon the Galloper, not having their wits about them; and that it was a miracle they were not all lost. He much inveighs upon my discoursing of Sir John Lawson’s saying heretofore, that sixty sail would do as much as one hundred; and says that he was a man of no counsel at all, but had got the confidence to say as the gallants did, and did propose to himself to make himself great by them, and saying as they did; but was no man of judgement in his business, but hath been out in the greatest points that have come before them. And then in the business of fore-castles, which he did oppose, all the world sees now the use of them for shelter of men. He did talk very rationally to me, insomuch that I took more pleasure this night in hearing him discourse, than I ever did in my life in any thing that he said. He gone I to the office again, and so after some business home to supper and to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
12 January 1662.
(Lord’s day). To church, where a stranger made a very good sermon. At noon Sir W. Pen and my good friend Dean Fuller, by appointment, and my wife’s brother by chance, dined with me very merry and handsomely. After dinner the Dean, my wife and I by Sir W. Pen’s coach left us, he to Whitehall, and my wife and I to visit Mrs. Pierce and thence Mrs. Turner, who continues very ill still, and The. is also fallen sick, which do trouble me for the poor mother. So home and to read, I being troubled to hear my wife rate though not without cause at her mayd Nell, who is a lazy slut. So to prayers and to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
28 July 1914.
the shining white of the book. I felt a sort of Spanish infatuation. . . .

It is as though God opened his hand and let you dance on it a little, and then shut it up tight — so tight that you could not even cry. . . . The wind is terrible to-night. I am very tired — but can't go to bed. I can't sleep or eat. Too tired.

"It was the touch of art that P. was suffering, the inexorable magic touch that still transforms in spite of us; that never hesitates to test and examine the materials it has to transmute, but never fails to transmute them."

A Dream March 6. K.T. and her sister were walking down a road that was bounded on one side by a high hill and had on the other a deep ravine. So deep was the ravine that the cliffs at its base shone like points of teeth, sharp and tiny. Her sister was very frightened and clung to her arm, trembling and crying. So K.T. hid her terror and said, "It is all right. It is perfectly all right." She had a little black fur muff slipped over one hand.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
5 May 1660.
All the morning very busy writing letters to London, and a packet to Mr. Downing, to acquaint him with what had been done lately in the fleet. And this I did by my Lord’s command, who, I thank him, did of himself think of doing it, to do me a kindness, for he writ a letter himself to him, thanking him for his kindness to me. All the afternoon at ninepins, at night after supper good musique, my Lord, Mr. North, I and W. Howe. After that to bed. This evening came Dr. Clarges to Deal, going to the King; where the towns-people strewed the streets with herbes against his coming, for joy of his going. Never was there so general a content as there is now. I cannot but remember that our parson did, in his prayer to-night, pray for the long life and happiness of our King and dread Soveraign, that may last as long as the sun and moon endureth.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
[Prompt: What small thing mattered today?]
26 December 1664.
Up, and with Sir W. Pen to White Hall, and there with the rest did our usual business before the Duke, and then with Sir W. Batten back and to his house, where I by sicknesse excused my wife’s coming to them to-day. Thence I to the Coffeehouse, where much good discourse, and all the opinion now is that the Dutch will avoid fighting with us at home, but do all the hurte they can to us abroad; which it may be they may for a while, but that, I think, cannot support them long. Thence to Sir W. Batten’s, where Mr. Coventry and all our families here, women and all, and Sir R. Ford and his, and a great feast and good discourse and merry, there all the afternoon and evening till late, only stepped in to see my wife, then to my office to enter my day’s work, and so home to bed, where my people and wife innocently at cards very merry, and I to bed, leaving them to their sport and blindman’s buff.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
[Prompt: What are you afraid of right now?]
August 1921.
I have been writing a story about an old man."

She looked vague. " But I don't think I like old men — do you? " said she. " They exude so."

This horrified me. It seemed so infernally petty, and more than that ... it was the saying of a vulgar little mind.

Later: I think it was shyness.

August ii. I don't know how I may write this next story. It's so difficult. But I suppose I shall. The trouble is I am so infernally cold.

Love

I would have written a card before, but I have been — am — ill, and to-day's the first day I've taken a pen even so far. I've had an attack of what the doctor calls acute enteritis. I think it was poisoning. Very high fever and sickness and dysentery and so on. Horrible. I decided yesterday to go to the Palace, but to-day makes me feel I'll try and see it out here. J. is awfully kind in the menial offices of nurse, and I've not been able to take any food except warm milk, so Ernestine can't work her worst on me. She seems, poor creature, to be much more stupid than ever! Burns everything! Leaves us without eggs, and went off for her afternoon yesterday without a word. We didn't even know she was gone.

Love August. A sudden idea of the relationship between 'lovers'."
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
25 March 1914.
L.M. and I travelled miles to-day. We sat in a bus talking, and now and again when I looked up, I kept seeing the squares with their butterfly leaves just ready to fly. We met near the old haunts — Queen Anne Street — and walked in one of the little lanes and short cuts that we know so well — side by side, talking. "Let me tie your veil," and I stop ; she ties it and we walk on again. In the Persian shop she leaned against a red and black silk curtain. She was very pale, and her black hat looked enormous, and she kept wanting to buy me "these things — feel how soft they are," and smiling and speaking just above her breath for tiredness.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
26 March 1914.
New Moon, 6h. 9m. p.m. (I didn't see it, though). L.M. and I took the tram to Clapham. She left at about 9 p.m. having dressed me. When I leave her hands I feel hung with wreaths. A silly, unreal evening at Miss R.'s. Pretty rooms and pretty people, pretty coffee, and cigarettes out of a silver tankard. A sort of sham Meredith atmosphere lurking. A.R. has a pert, nice face — that was all. I was wretched. I have nothing to say to 'charming' women. I feel like a cat among tigers. The ladies, left to themselves, talked

'Charming' Women

ghosts and child-beds. I am wretchedly unhappy among everybody — and the silence . . .
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|maclane|>
3 March 1917.
Loose twos
I take it for granted God knows all about me.

If God should read this it would not be news to him.

But his knowledge of me is not immediate knowledge nor immediately interesting to him. He knows my Twos-and-Twos but he does not make Fours of them.

I am formed of loose Twos which wait for God to make them Fours.

I can not do it myself. When I’ve tried the added Twos come out threes, seventies, nines, twelves--all the mysterious numbers. Never Fours.

Long ago I decided not to try but to wait for God.

I juggle with temperamental and psychic Twos and experiment in hysteric additions.

But it’s no good my trying to make Fours.

If God does not take it up I shall be eternal Twos.

And I seem not greatly to care: whenever that comes home to me I merely light a carefree cigarette.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|maclane|>
14 February 1917.
Knitting or plaiting straw
The things I know are jumbled and tangled into an indescribable heap inside me.

The things I Don’t Know are separated and ranged of their own volition in long orderly rows in my conscious mentality.

The things I know glow with tints and gleams and will-o’-wisp lights and primal colors and waveringly with the blinding gold-purple lightnings of all-Time.

The things I Don’t Know glow--each one separately--with a small precise lantern-brightness of its own.

Also in my wide background are things I don’t know and am unaware of it: the mass of my luminous Ignorance--it shines with an earthy phosphorescence.

When I look at the things I know I get an undetailed perspective of me like a bird’s-eye view of London.

When I look at neat formal rows of things I Don’t Know I have a clear look, as if through an uncurtained window into a bare little room, at my quietest self sitting knitting or plaiting straw.

I reckon up and count up and check up lists of big and little things I Don’t Know--like this, rapidly:

I Don’t Know what ink is made of, nor how to fire a Maxim gun: I don’t know how to make a will: I don’t know how to cook a prairie-chicken, nor what to feed a pet weasel, nor who invented the snarling-iron, nor what it is.

I Don’t Know what food people eat in the Himalaya Mountains, nor how Lord Cornwallis felt when he surrendered: I don’t know the color of a chicken’s gizzard, nor of sand, nor of fish-scales, nor of mice: I don’t know whether an English cabinet minister needs strength of mind or strength of will, or both, or neither.

I Don’t Know how I hurt the true heart of my friend: I don’t know astronomy nor solid geometry: I don’t know what I think with: I don’t know what ooze leather is, nor who pitched for the Tigers in nineteen-nine.

I Don’t Know a good horse from a bad horse: I don’t know why a bat sleeps head downward, nor what wasps live on: I don’t know how to open oysters, nor how to milk a cow: I don’t know the Latin for ‘whiskey.’

I Don’t Know whether friendship is a selfish or an unselfish thing, nor who discovered the medlar apple: I don’t know what is a jab, fistically speaking, nor a punch, nor a hook, nor a wallop, nor the fighting weight of Packey McFarland: I don’t know whether a moth ‘marries’ or whether her eggs are impregnated like a fish’s: I don’t know why a clasp knife is called a jack knife, nor what to do for an aching foot.

I Don’t Know how glass is blown: I don’t know whether coal is vegetable or mineral: I don’t know the chemical composition of the sunset vapors, nor how to play euchre: I don’t know how many guns an armored cruiser carries, nor whether a gorilla meditates: I don’t know whether I hate or greatly admire Catherine and Marie de Medici: I don’t know a winch from a windlass.

I Don’t Know where is the cinnamon bear’s native haunt: I don’t know how flint is mined, nor if wire is made of steel: I don’t know who was the better man--William Wordsworth or the Duke of Wellington: I don’t know the advantages of tariff revision downward: I don’t know where ex-President Taft will go when he dies.

I Don’t Know whether I feel more comfortable with or without my stays: I don’t know the origin of the word ‘dogged’: I don’t know whether a ‘full house’ is better than ‘two pairs,’ nor whether a right merry heart to-day is better than a wrong contented mind to-morrow: I don’t know whether rabbit-pie is made of cats in Paris, nor how many sails has a sloop: I don’t know what makes a dead body rot.

I Don’t Know how to sharpen a carving knife, nor how to roll a cigarette: I don’t know the real English meaning of the French noun ‘élancement’: I don’t know whether my sex is a matter of my genital organs or of my mental inwards: I don’t know how to determine the contents of a circle in square inches, nor how to pronounce ‘zebra.’

I Don’t Know whether Edgar Allan Poe is big or little: I don’t know how many soldiers fell at Shiloh: I don’t know whether temperament or nature or circumstance makes one woman a happy kindhearted whore and another an unhappy cruel-hearted nun: I don’t know how to grow artichokes: I don’t know what brimstone is, nor how to play the accordion: I don’t know what quality in me forms my handwriting.

I Don’t Know what-like was my Soul in the Stone Age: I don’t know whether cheese is good or bad for my health: I don’t know what becomes of discarded hairpins, nor a tooth-brush’s ultimate destiny: I don’t know the ‘Fra Diavolo’ opera, nor whether anyone ever uses the word ‘thwack.’

I Don’t Know whether my heart breaks from within or without: I don’t know whether ‘good old Marie Lloyd’ of the London ‘halls’ has a brain like G. K. Chesterton or a dexterous individuality like a juggler: I don’t know whether I feel spiritual bliss in my knees or in my spirit: I don’t know why I breathe and go on breathing.

I Don’t Know what became of the ten lost tribes of Israel: I don’t know how to say how-do-you-do to a king: I don’t know the exact meaning of my terror and despair: I don’t know why I love--why I ever love--

I Don’t Know whether laws of chance govern a spinning roulette wheel and ivory ball or whether chance is beyond law: I don’t know what kind of missile a Krupp gun shoots: I don’t know how a ground-and-lofty tumbler turns a triple air-summersault: I don’t know whether I really am the way I look in the mirror: I don’t know whether the Russian language has Romanic roots: I don’t know what is the wild power in poetry.

I Don’t Know whether lust is a human coarseness or a human fineness: I don’t know why death holds a so sweet lure since it would take away my Body: I don’t know that I wouldn’t deny my Christ, if I had one, three times before a given cockcrow: I don’t know on the other hand that I would: I don’t know whether honor is a reality in human beings or a pose: I don’t know that I mayn’t be able to think with my Body when it is in its coffin.

I Don’t Know what makes each day a Day of dark Gold and life mournfully precious: I don’t know where is God: I don’t know how they make tea in Ireland: I don’t know how to pronounce the word ‘girl’: I don’t know how to make lace: I don’t know whether I hear a sound or feel it, nor why a spool of thread looks exactly like a Spool of Thread.

I Don’t Know--I Don’t Know--I Don’t Know, rapidly, to the end of the mystic common-place infinitudes.

--those give me a clear look, as if through an uncurtained window into a bare little room, at my quietest self sitting knitting or plaiting straw--
<|/entry|><|entry|><|maclane|>
21 January 1917.
A life-long lonely word
Fleeting times I wonder if it is my defect or others’ that no human family tie holds and warms me.

There is none. I think about it with wistfulness.

The only tie-of-blood feeling that clings to me is of my warming and keeping-alive. And it is very feeble. It grows more feeble.

It is a trivial matter as I look at it universally.

But as I look at it earthlily: there would be an abnormalness, a lostness in one when the mother who bore her got from it at best but a small cool dislike.

It makes me feel humanly lost.

‘Lost’ is the shuddering life-long lonely word that brushes against me some nights and noons.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|maclane|>
25 February 1917.
Their voices
Every day at half-past ten and half-past two I hear the high shrill sweet choric Voices of hundreds of children shaking the thin clear air.

A public school is but a block from here. The children rush out of it, a hilarious noisy crowd, for a few mid-morning and mid-afternoon minutes. So those minutes, from hearing their Voices day after day, and day after day, have become lyric to my inner-listening.

Their Voices stir me, rouse me, speak to me with old very joyous, very woful meanings.

The children fairly leap out of the school-building through doors and down fire-escape stairways. And their Voices are at once hurled skyward, clamorous and chaotic.

The Sound they make is a roundly common sound yet ‘winged.’ It is an untrammeled Sound, uncultivated, only a little civilized.

It is world-music.

In it is the note beyond culture, higher than civilization, and older. It is brave as voices of the shrilling winds and warmer, viriler. It is liltinger than bird-songs and lustier than roarings of mountain cataracts.

Music of the world!--

A little door inside me opens to those Voices.

My little door opens at the first shriek of the first child out of doors, and I hear not only the hundreds of vivid piercing Voices but more--their far-off echoes.

They are the Voices of children, children light-held in crude cold innocence. The eyes of the children are clear--their impulses and instincts rule their little lives. They are yet untouched by the tiredness and terror and shame and sorrow of being human beings.

So the Sound of their Voices sweeps out resistless and regardless as the sea or the sun which makes nothing of its own strength or weakness. And through my little spirit-door I hear them, the poignant common little sweet Voices, echoing, flying away, farther and farther: along the roads: over plains and hills: through valleys long worldly distances from here: through streets: through stone buildings and dingy courts: through big rich houses: through homes of comfort and homes of misery and homes of desolate smugness: into lifeless social foyers: into learned places: into law-courts and cabinet-rooms of nations: into graveyards and churches and down into dead-vaults: into theatres: into clinics: into shops: into factories: into dives and stews and brothels and at lustful doorsteps: into hotels and on sport-courses: into market-places and across battle-fields, round monuments and in towers and in forts and in prisons and in dungeons:--there along fly their Voices.

It is a brave, brave Sound, and an insistent: nothing stops it.

It is triumph.

The noise of the noisiest battle dies away in time. The pounding of ocean-surf on the rocks and of electric thunder in the clouds are lasting only with this earth. But brave wild Voices of children fly on and on, outlasting a million earths, silencing aeons of thunder, floating strongly back of the stars. The voices of men--wizards, monks, artisans, thieves--echo no farther than their talking conceits: even of poets except as they catch up into their sonance something to interpret a cool gay clamor of child-Voices. The voices of women--singing women, lovely women, angelic honest women--die with their bodies: even of mothers of the children except as they follow with their own echo, by dream and shadow, the thronging child-Voices as they go.

For the Sound of the child-Voices is more potent than wizards’--it is not cramped into thought-forms: more devotional than monks’ because super-conscious; more menacing than thieves’ because absolute. And it echoes, echoes, echoes in the market-place full-tongued, ringing, rising like the northern gale when all the other voices are long dead-silenced: and after.

Music of the world.

This moment I hear it for it is half-after two of a bright gold day. The air is emotional, nectareal, and mellow and yellow and hot-sparkling. The Voices pierce it like a storm of fine steel arrows. I at once set open my spirit-door and through it come the sweet shrill chorus and the marvel echo beginning and swelling and starting away. It wakes vision so that I see--quick, evil, terribly human, in the dazzlingest daytime colors--all those Places where the Voices go.

I go to a window and watch the children running about beneath the high tide of their Voices. And they and the school-building and the streets and stone walls show in duller colors than the Places where their Echo goes.

--small girls with clipped hair and bloused cotton frocks, taller girls throwing a basket-ball, thin-legged little girls playing hop-scotch, groups of varied sizes with rainbow ribbons in their hair, confused masses of knitted sweaters and fat white-stockinged legs and shiny leather belts and ankle-strapped shoes, and little young shoulders and knees and waistlines--restless and kaleidoscopic--

--and confused boy-groups--little fellows in suits misnamed Oliver-Twist, larger boys of serge-Norfolk persuasion, types of the generic knickerbocker at once motley and monotonous--all with the strong sturdy calves of their legs clad in a time-honored kind of black ribbed stockings, all with the same breed of ties and collars and short-cropped hair, all with the tacit air of confessing themselves the most serenely cruel of all animals--

A careless conscienceless happy mob.

It is the Sound of their Voices that invests them with the terrifying Power, the long world-sweeping Force as of spirit and matter merged, the human radioactivity not evil and not good, stronger than all evil and all good.

Those children I look at must cease to be children, and must lose their Voices and grow into monks and thieves and singing women--must turn into persons--‘Romans, countrymen and lovers.’

But will come after those another chorus: the same chorus: the same Voices.

The brief yellow mellow minutes have passed and the last shout has been silenced and the hundreds of children, Rainbow Hair-Ribbons and Black Ribbed Legs, are again gathered into the McKinley School.

And my little door is shut again: that door opens but for those Voices.

The Voices: their echo flying everywhere flies here into my still room: and it stirs me, rouses me, speaks to me with the old joyous woe.

Music of the world.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
22 February 1668.
Up, and by coach through Ducke Lane, and there did buy Kircher’s Musurgia, cost me 35s., a book I am mighty glad of, expecting to find great satisfaction in it. Thence to Westminster Hall and the lobby, and up and down there all the morning, and to the Lords’ House, and heard the Solicitor-General plead very finely, as he always do; and this was in defence of the East India Company against a man that complains of wrong from them, and thus up and down till noon in expectation of our business coming on in the House of Commons about tickets, but they being busy about my Lord Gerard’s business I did give over the thoughts of ours coming on, and so with my wife, and Mercer, and Deb., who come to the Hall to me, I away to the Beare, in Drury Lane, and there bespoke a dish of meat; and, in the mean time, sat and sung with Mercer; and, by and by, dined with mighty pleasure, and excellent meat, one little dish enough for us all, and good wine, and all for 8s., and thence to the Duke’s playhouse, and there saw “Albumazar,” an old play, this the second time of acting. It is said to have been the ground of B. Jonson’s “Alchymist;” but, saving the ridicuiousnesse of Angell’s part, which is called Trinkilo, I do not see any thing extraordinary in it, but was indeed weary of it before it was done. The King here, and, indeed, all of us, pretty merry at the mimique tricks of Trinkilo. So home, calling in Ducke Lane for the book I bought this morning, and so home, and wrote my letters at the office, and then home to supper and to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
8 May 1660.
All the morning busy. After dinner come several persons of honour, as my Lord St. John and others, for convoy to Flushing, and great giving of them salutes. My Lord and we at nine-pins: I lost 9s. While we were at play Mr. Cook brings me word of my wife. He went to Huntsmore to see her, and brought her and my father Bowyer to London, where he left her at my father’s, very well, and speaks very well of her love to me. My letters to-day tell me how it was intended that the King should be proclaimed to-day in London, with a great deal of pomp. I had also news who they are that are chosen of the Lords and Commons to attend the King. And also the whole story of what we did the other day in the fleet, at reading of the King’s declaration, and my name at the bottom of it. After supper some musique and to bed. I resolving to rise betimes to-morrow to write letters to London.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|pepys|>
13 May 1660.
(Lord’s day). Trimmed in the morning, after that to the cook’s room with Mr. Sheply, the first time that I was there this voyage. Then to the quarter-deck, upon which the tailors and painters were at work, cutting out some pieces of yellow cloth into the fashion of a crown and C. R. and put it upon a fine sheet, and that into the flag instead of the State’s arms, which after dinner was finished and set up after it had been shewn to my Lord, who took physic to-day and was in his chamber, and liked it so well as to bid me give the tailors 20s. among them for doing of it. This morn Sir J. Boys and Capt. Isham met us in the Nonsuch, the first of whom, after a word or two with my Lord, went forward, the other staid. I heard by them how Mr. Downing had never made any address to the King, and for that was hated exceedingly by the Court, and that he was in a Dutch ship which sailed by us, then going to England with disgrace. Also how Mr. Morland was knighted by the King this week, and that the King did give the reason of it openly, that it was for his giving him intelligence all the time he was clerk to Secretary Thurloe. In the afternoon a council of war, only to acquaint them that the Harp must be taken out of all their flags,

it being very offensive to the King. Mr. Cook, who came after us in the Yarmouth, bringing me a letter from my wife and a Latin letter from my brother John, with both of which I was exceedingly pleased. No sermon all day, we being under sail, only at night prayers, wherein Mr. Ibbott prayed for all that were related to us in a spiritual and fleshly way. We came within sight of Middle’s shore. Late at night we writ letters to the King of the news of our coming, and Mr. Edward Picketing carried them. Capt. Isham went on shore, nobody showing of him any respect; so the old man very fairly took leave of my Lord, and my Lord very coldly bid him “God be with you,” which was very strange, but that I hear that he keeps a great deal of prating and talking on shore, on board, at the King’s Courts, what command he had with my Lord, &c. After letters were gone then to bed.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|pepys|>
19 May 1660.
Up early, hearing nothing of the child, and went to Scheveling, where I found no getting on board, though the Duke of York sent every day to see whether he could do it or no. Here I met with Mr. Pinkney and his sons, and with them went back to the Hague, in our way lighting and going to see a woman that makes pretty rock-work in shells, &c., which could I have carried safe I would have bought some of. At the Hague we went to buy some pictures, where I saw a sort of painting done upon woollen cloth, drawn as if there was a curtain over it, which was very pleasant, but dear. Another pretty piece of painting I saw, on which there was a great wager laid by young Pinkney and me whether it was a principal or a copy. But not knowing how to decide, it was broken off, and I got the old man to lay out as much as my piece of gold come to, and so saved my money, which had been 24s. lost, I fear. While we were here buying of pictures, we saw Mr. Edward and his company land. Who told me that they had been at Leyden all night, at which I was very angry with Mr. Pierce, and shall not be friends I believe a good while. To our lodging to dinner. After that out to buy some linen to wear against to-morrow, and so to the barber’s. After that by waggon to Lausdune, where the 365 children were born. We saw the hill where they say the house stood and sunk wherein the children were born. The basins wherein the male and female children were baptized do stand over a large table that hangs upon a wall, with the whole story of the thing in Dutch and Latin, beginning, “Margarita Herman Comitissa,” &c. The thing was done about 200 years ago.

The town is a little small village which answers much to one of our small villages, such a one as Chesterton in all respects, and one could have thought it in England but for the language of the people. We went into a little drinking house where there were a great many Dutch boors eating of fish in a boorish manner, but very merry in their way. But the houses here as neat as in the great places. From thence to the Hague again playing at crambo----in the waggon, Mr. Edward, Mr. Ibbott, W. Howe, Mr. Pinkney, and I. When we were come thither W. Howe, and Mr. Ibbott, and Mr. Pinckney went away for Scheveling, while I and the child to walk up and down the town, where I met my old chamber-fellow, Mr. Ch. Anderson, and a friend of his (both Physicians), Mr. Wright, who took me to a Dutch house, where there was an exceeding pretty lass, and right for the sport, but it being Saturday we could not have much of her company, but however I staid with them (having left the child with my uncle Pickering, whom I met in the street) till 12 at night. By that time Charles was almost drunk, and then broke up, he resolving to go thither again, after he had seen me at my lodging, and lie with the girl, which he told me he had done in the morning. Going to my lodging we met with the bellman, who struck upon a clapper, which I took in my hand, and it is just like the clapper that our boys frighten the birds away from the corn with in summer time in England. To bed.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|pepys|>
29 May 1660.
The King’s birthday. Busy all the morning writing letters to London, among the rest one to Mr. Chetwind to give me an account of the fees due to the Herald for the Order of the Garter, which my Lord desires to know. After dinner got all ready and sent away Mr. Cook to London with a letter and token to my wife. After that abroad to shore with my Lord (which he offered me of himself, saying that I had a great deal of work to do this month, which was very true). On shore we took horses, my Lord and Mr. Edward, Mr. Hetly and I, and three or four servants, and had a great deal of pleasure in riding. Among other things my Lord showed me a house that cost a great deal of money, and is built in so barren and inconvenient a place that my Lord calls it the fool’s house. At last we came upon a very high cliff by the sea-side, and rode under it, we having laid great wagers, I and Dr. Mathews, that it was not so high as Paul’s; my Lord and Mr. Hetly, that it was. But we riding under it, my Lord made a pretty good measure of it with two sticks, and found it to be not above thirty-five yards high, and Paul’s is reckoned to be about ninety. From thence toward the barge again, and in our way found the people at Deal going to make a bonfire for joy of the day, it being the King’s birthday, and had some guns which they did fire at my Lord’s coming by. For which I did give twenty shillings among them to drink. While we were on the top of the cliffe, we saw and heard our guns in the fleet go off for the same joy. And it being a pretty fair day we could see above twenty miles into France. Being returned on board, my Lord called for Mr. Sheply’s book of Paul’s, by which we were confirmed in our wager. After that to supper and then to musique, and so to bed. The pain that I have got last night by cold is not yet gone, but troubles me at the time of.... This day, it is thought, the King do enter the city of London.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
23 April 1660.
All the morning very busy getting my packet ready for London, only for an hour or two had the Captain and Mr. Sheply in my cabin at the barrel of pickled oysters that the Captain did give me on Saturday last. After dinner I sent Mr. Dunn to London with the packet. This afternoon I had 40s. given me by Captain Cowes of the Paradox.’ In the evening the first time that we had any sport among the seamen, and indeed there was extraordinary good sport after my Lord had done playing at ninepins. After that W. Howe and I went to play two trebles in the great cabin below, which my Lord hearing, after supper he called for our instruments, and played a set of Lock’s, two trebles, and a base, and that being done, he fell to singing of a song made upon the Rump, with which he played himself well, to the tune of “The Blacksmith.” After all that done, then to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
16 May 1669.
(Lord’s day). My wife and I at church, our pew filled with Mrs. Backewell, and six more that she brought with her, which vexed me at her confidence. Dined at home and W. Batelier with us, and I all the afternoon drawing up a foul draught of my petition to the Duke of York, about my eyes, for leave to spend three or four months out of the Office, drawing it so as to give occasion to a voyage abroad which I did, to my pretty good liking; and then with my wife to Hyde Park, where a good deal of company, and good weather, and so home to supper and to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
[Prompt: Confess something.]
24 December 1660.
In the morning to the office and Commissioner Pett (who seldom comes there) told me that he had lately presented a piece of plate (being a couple of flaggons) to Mr. Coventry, but he did not receive them, which also put me upon doing the same too; and so after dinner I went and chose a payre of candlesticks to be made ready for me at Alderman Backwell’s. To the office again in the afternoon till night, and so home, and with the painters till 10 at night, making an end of my house and the arch before my door, and so this night I was rid of them and all other work, and my house was made ready against to-morrow being Christmas day. This day the Princess Royal died at Whitehall.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
20 September 1662.
Up betimes and to my office, where I found my brother Tom, who tells me that his mistress’s mother has wrote a letter to Mr. Lull of her full satisfaction about Tom, of which I was glad, and do think the business will take. All this morning we sat at the office, Sir J. Minnes and I. And so dined at home, and among my workmen all the afternoon, and in the evening Tom brought Mr. Lull to me, a friend of his mistress, a serious man, with whom I spoke, and he gives me a good account of her and of their satisfaction in Tom, all which pleases me well. We walked a good while in the garden together, and did give him a glass of wine at my office, and so parted. So to write letters by the post and news of this to my father concerning Tom, and so home to supper and to my lodgings and to bed. To-night my barber sent me his man to trim me, who did live in King Street in Westminster lately, and tells me that three or four that I knew in that street, tradesmen, are lately fallen mad, and some of them dead, and the others continue mad. They live all within a door or two one of another.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
[Prompt: What do you keep returning to?]
11 December 1914.
Off we flew again. By the river. Down a long strange white street with houses on either side, very fairy in the late sunlight. He said " I know you will Rupert Brooke like the house. It's quite white, and so is the room, and the people are, too."

At last we arrived. The woman of the house, with a serious baby in her arms, came to the door.

"It is all right?"

" Yes, all right. Bonjour, Madame."

It was like an elopement.

Sunday, May 16. Paris. I dreamed all night of Rupert Brooke. And to-day as I left the house he was standing at the door, with a rucksack on his back and his hat shading his face. So after I had posted J.'s letter I did not go home. I went a long, very idle sort of amble along the quais. It was exquisitely hot: white clouds lay upon the sky like sheets spread out to dry. On the big sandheaps down by the river children had hollowed out tunnels and caverns. They sat in them, stolid and content, their hair glistening in the sun. Now and then a man lay stretched on his face, his head in his arms. The river was full of big silver stars; the trees shook, faintly glinting with light. I found delightful places — little squares with white square houses. Quite hollow they looked, with the windows gaping open. Narrow streets arched over with chestnut boughs, or perhaps quite deserted, with a clock tower showing over the roofs. The sun put a spell on everything.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
7 February 1919.
Those were dreadful times. I was so ill, I could scarcely work and of course I couldn't get my little boy out. He had to grow up in it. And so I had to start all over again. I had nothing of his, nothing of mine. I lost it all except my marriage lines. Somehow I remembered them just as I was running out that night and put them in my body — sort of an instinct as you might say.

J. digs the garden as though he were exhuming a hated body or making a hole for a loved one.

The ardent creature spent more than half her time in church praying to be delivered from temptation. But God grew impatient at last and caused the door

Wingley

to be shut against her. " For Heaven's sake," said he, " give the temptation a chance ! "
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
5 January 1920.
Nuit blanche. Decided at 3 a.m. that D. was a homicidal maniac. Certain of this. Started my story, 'Late Spring.' A cold bitter day. Worked on Tchehov all day and then at my story till 11 p.m. Anna came. We talked about her to her face in English. No letters. Post Office strike. Anna's bow and velvet blouse.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
6 January 1920.
Black day. Dark, no sky to be seen; a livid sea; a noise of boiling in the air. Dreamed the cats died of anti-pneumonia. Heart attack 8 a.m. Awful day. No relief for a moment. Couldn't work. At night changed the position of my bed. At five o'clock I thought I was at sea tossing — for ever. N.B.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
7 January 1920.
On the verandah. I don't want a God to praise or to entreat, but to share my vision with. This afternoon looking at the primula after the rain. I want no one to dance and wave their arms. I only want to feel they see, too.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
8 January 1920.
Black. A day spent in Hell. Unable to do anything. Took brandy. Determined not to weep — wept. Sense of isolation frightful. I shall die if I don't

The Sea

escape. Nauseated, faint, cold with misery. Oh, I must survive it somehow.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
13 May 1669.
Up, and to the office, where all the morning, it being a rainy foul day. But at noon comes my Lord Hinchingbroke, and Sidney, and Sir Charles Harbord, and Roger Pepys, and dined with me; and had a good dinner, and very merry with; us all the afternoon, it being a farewell to Sidney; and so in the evening they away, and I to my business at the Office and so to supper, and talk with my brother, and so to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
27 October 1921.
Stories for my new book.

N.Z. Honesty: The Doctor, Arnold Cullen, and his wife Lydia, and Archie the friend.

L. Second Violin: Alexander and his friend in the train. Spring — spouting rain. Wet lilac.

N.Z. Six Years After: A wife and husband on board a steamer. The cold buttons. They see someone who reminds them.

L. Life Like Logs of Driftwood: This wants to be a long, very well-written story. The men are important, especially the lesser man. It wants a good deal of working... newspaper office.

N.Z. A Weak Heart: Ronnie on his bike in the evening, with his hands in his pockets, doing marvels, by that dark tree at the corner of May Street. Edie and Ronnie.

L. Widowed: Geraldine and Jimmie: a house overlooking Sloane Street and Square. Wearing those buds at her heart. "Married or not married..." From Autumn to Spring.

N.Z. Our Maude: Husband and wife play duets

— KJ —

and a one a two a three a one a two three one! His white waistcoats. Wifeling and Mahub! What a girl you are!

N.Z. At Karori: The little lamp. I seen it. And then they were silent. (Finito: October 30, 1921.)

I wish that my silence were only a two-minute one!
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
17 December 1920.
free from the sense of guilt, even? Never. After I had finished that slight sketch, The Young Girl, wasn't there a moment which surpasses all other moments? Oh, yes. Then — why do you hesitate? How can you? I take my oath. Not one day shall pass without I write something — original.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
2 February 1887.
I am once again in the midst of work and am still painting blossoming orchards.

The air here is decidedly good for me, I only wish you could fill your lungs full of it. One of its effects is very strange; a small glass of cognac makes one drunk here. But as I do not feel the need of such stimulants in these parts to keep my blood circulating, my constitution will not suffer so much.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
16 October 1921.
Another radiant day. J. is typing my last story, The Garden Party, which I finished on my birthday. It took me nearly a month to 'recover' from At the Bay. I made at least three false starts. But I could not get away from the sound of the sea, and Beryl fanning her hair at the window. These things would not die down. But now I'm not at all sure about that story. It seems to me it's a little 'wispy' — not what it might have been. The G.P. is better. But that is not good enough, either. . . .

The last few days what one notices more than anything is the blue. Blue sky, blue mountains, all is a heavenly blueness! And clouds of all kinds — wings, soft white clouds, almost hard little golden islands, great mock-mountains. The gold deepens on the slopes. In fact, in sober fact, it is perfection.

But the late evening is the time — of times. Then with that unearthly beauty before one it is not hard to

Montana, 1921

Simplicity

realise how far one has to go. To write something that will be worthy of that rising moon, that pale light. To be 'simple' enough, as one would be simple before God. ...
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
27 May 1669.
At the office all the morning, dined at home, Mr. Hollier with me. Presented this day by Mr. Browne with a book of drawing by him, lately printed, which cost me 20s. to him. In the afternoon to the Temple, to meet with Auditor Aldworth about my interest account, but failed meeting him. To visit my cozen Creed, and found her ill at home, being with child, and looks poorly. Thence to her husband, at Gresham College, upon some occasions of Tangier; and so home, with Sir John Bankes with me, to Mark Lane.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
[Prompt: Confess something.]
5 February 1922.
J. arrived early in the morning. In half an hour it seemed he had been here a long time. I still regret his coming here for his sake. I know it is right for our sake. We went together to the clinique. Bare leafless trees. A wonderful glow in the sky: the windows flashed fire. M drew a picture of my heart. I wish he had not. I am haunted by the hideous picture, by the thought of my heart like a heavy drop in my breast. But he is good.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
25 August 1666.
All the morning at the office. At noon dined at home, and after dinner up to my new closett, which pleases me mightily, and there I proceeded to put many things in order as far as I had time, and then set it in washing, and stood by myself a great while to see it washed; and then to the office, and then wrote my letters and other things, and then in mighty good humour home to supper and to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
5 July 1667.
Up, and to the office, where Sir W. Batten, W. Pen, T. Harvy and I met upon Mr. Gawden’s accounts, and was at it all the morning. This morning Sir G. Carteret did come to us, and walked in the garden. It was to talk with me about some thing of my Lord Sandwich’s, but here he told us that the great seale is passed to my Lord Annesly for Treasurer of the Navy: so that now he do no more belong to us: and I confess, for his sake, I am glad of it, and do believe the other will have little content in it. At noon I home to dinner with my wife, and after dinner to sing, and then to the office a little and Sir W. Batten’s, where I am vexed to hear that Nan Wright, now Mrs. Markham, Sir W. Pen’s mayde and whore, is come to sit in our pew at church, and did so while my Lady Batten was there. I confess I am very much vexed at it and ashamed. By and by out with W. Pen to White Hall, where I staid not, but to the New Exchange to buy gloves and other little errands, and so home and to my office busy till night, and then walked in the garden with my wife, and then to supper and to sing, and so to bed. No news, but that the Dutch are gone clear from Harwich northward, and have given out they are going to Yarmouth.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
[Prompt: Make an account of yourself.]
8 February 1662.
All the morning in the cellar with the colliers, removing the coles out of the old cole hole into the new one, which cost me 8s. the doing; but now the cellar is done and made clean, it do please me exceedingly, as much as any thing that was ever yet done to my house. I pray God keep me from setting my mind too much upon it. About 3 o’clock the colliers having done I went up to dinner (my wife having often urged me to come, but my mind is so set upon these things that I cannot but be with the workmen to see things done to my mind, which if I am not there is seldom done), and so to the office, and thence to talk with Sir W. Pen, walking in the dark in the garden some turns, he telling me of the ill management of our office, and how Wood the timber merchant and others were very knaves, which I am apt to believe. Home and wrote letters to my father and my brother John, and so to bed. Being a little chillish, intending to take physique to-morrow morning.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
13 July 1921.
Went to the Palace, and had the gland punctured. It is very unlikely that they will save the skin. I am sure, from the feeling, that they won't, and that this affair is only beginning. I shall be back at the Palace before the week is out. In the meantime I am exhausted and can't write a stroke.

A Grey Day

Well, I must confess I have had an idle day. God knows why. All was to be written, but I just didn't write it. I thought I could, but I felt tired after tea and rested instead. Is it good or bad in me to behave so? I have a sense of guilt, but at the same time I know that to rest is the very best thing I can do. And for some reason there is a kind of booming in my head — which is horrid. But marks of earthly degradation still pursue me. I am not crystal clear. Above all else I do still lack application. It's not right. There is so much to do, and I do so little. Life would be almost perfect here if only when I was pretending to work I always was working. But that is surely not too hard. Look at the stories that wait and wait just at the threshold. Why don't I let them in? And their place would be taken by others who are lurking beyond just out there — waiting for the chance.

Next Day. Yet take this morning, for instance. I don't want to write anything. It's grey ; it's heavy and dull. And short stories seem unreal and not worth doing. I don't want to write ; I want to live. What does she mean by that? It's not easy to say. But there you are!
<|/entry|><|entry|>
7 March 1921.
Queer, this habit of mine of being garrulous. And I don't mean that any eye but mine should read this. This is — really private. And I must say — nothing affords me the same relief. What happens as a rule is, if I go on long enough, I break through. Yes, it's rather like tossing very large flat stones into the

stream. The question is, though, how long this will prove efficacious. Up till now, I own, it never has failed me. . . .

One's sense of the importance of small events is very juste here. They are not important at all. . . . ! ? Strange ! I suddenly found myself outside the library in Wcerishofen: spring — lilac — rain — books in black bindings.

And yet I love this quiet clouded day. A bell sounds from afar ; the birds sing one after another as if they called across the tree-tops. I love this settled stillness, and this feeling that, at any moment, down may come the rain. Where the sky is not grey, it is silvery white, streaked with little clouds. The only disagreeable feature of the day is the flies. They are really maddening, and there is nothing really to be done for them : I feel that about hardly anything.
<|/entry|><|entry|>
12 December 1921.
The Barmaid

She had an immense amount of fuzzy hair piled up on top of her head, and several very large rings, which from their bright flashing look, you felt certain were engagement-rings.

Above all cooking smells I hate that of mutton chops. It is somehow such an ill-bred smell. It reminds me of commercial travellers and second-class, N.Z.

I'll stand in front of the house and knock, and when the door is opened, run in past the maid and call for whoever is there.

The Problem

Should you say wasted? No, not really. Something is gathered. This quiet time brings one nearer.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
9 October 1661.
This morning went out about my affairs, among others to put my Theorbo out to be mended, and then at noon home again, thinking to go with Sir Williams both to dinner by invitation to Sir W. Rider’s, but at home I found Mrs. Pierce, la belle, and Madam Clifford, with whom I was forced to stay, and made them the most welcome I could; and I was (God knows) very well pleased with their beautiful company, and after dinner took them to the Theatre, and shewed them “The Chances;” and so saw them both at home and back to the Fleece tavern, in Covent Garden, where Luellin and Blurton, and my old friend Frank Bagge, was to meet me, and there staid till late very merry. Frank Bagge tells me a story of Mrs. Pepys that lived with my Lady Harvy, Mr. Montagu’s sister, a good woman; that she had been very ill, and often asked for me; that she is in good condition, and that nobody could get her to make her will; but that she did still enquire for me, and that now she is well she desires to have a chamber at my house. Now I do not know whether this is a trick of Bagge’s, or a good will of hers to do something for me; but I will not trust her, but told him I should be glad to see her, and that I would be sure to do all that I could to provide a place for her. So by coach home late.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|vangogh|>
16 March 1890.
FOOTNOTES:

[1] 1 See “Mercure de France,” vol. 48, p. 127 (Oct. 1903), Article, “Paul Gauguin,” by Charles Morice.

[2] “Mercure de France,” vol. 48 (Oct. 1903), p. 127.

[3] That Vincent also often felt depressed about his work may be gathered from the following passage, taken from a letter to his brother, not included in this volume: “C’est une perspective assez triste de devoir se dire que jamais la peinture que je fais n’aura une valeur quelconque.”

[4] See Emile Bernard’s preface to his publication of Van Gogh’s letters in the “Mercure de France,” vol. 7, p. 324.

[5] As to how he overcame his academic period, see Meier Graefe’s work, “Impressionisten” (p. 122) where the author has some interesting things to say.

[6] “Mercure de France,” vol. 48 (1903), p. 105.

[7] The italics are mine.--A. M. L.

[8] Not included in this collection of letters.

[9] I could not discover who the owner was; but the present number of the exhibit is 984F and the picture is marked “_In Bruikleen_” = lent.

[10] I have reasons to believe that this wonderful picture was sold by the Sonderbund people at the very time of my visit to Cologne for the sum of £450. But I was unable to discover the name of the new owner.

[11] See particularly his picture No. 1105 at the Ryksmuseum, Amsterdam.

[12] I wonder if it is to this work that Gauguin refers when, speaking of the progress Van Gogh was making under his tuition, he asks Morice: “Avez-vous vu la gure et les cheveux, jaune de chrome?”

[13] “Mercure de France,” vol. 48 (1903), p. 127.

[14] Ibid., p. 129.

[15] Both belonging to Galerie E. Druet in 1911.

[16] Belonging to Bernheim Jeune in 1911.

[17] “Mercure de France,” vol. 13 (1895).

[18] “Impressionisten,” p. 128. By-the-bye, Meier Graefe does not say why he thinks this, nor does he reveal the source of his judgment.

[19] “Mercure de France,” vol. 48, p. 126.

[20] At Amsterdam. The picture here referred to, which, as far as I was able to judge, measured 10 in. by 6 in., represents a monk seated by the side of a sick or dying man’s bed.--Tr.

[21] A word suggesting bold virtuosity in expressing an impression.--Tr.

[22] The German is _wanzenartig_, but the above rendering gives, I think, a better idea of Van Gogh’s meaning than a literal translation would.--Tr.

[23] Van Gogh must be referring, here, to Japanese prints which have undergone a process of craping. For details of this process see “Japanese Colour Prints” by E. F. Strange (pp. 110, 111).--TR.

[24] This sentence does not seem to make sense, even in the French, without this interpolation.--Tr.

[25] The writer is undoubtedly referring to the St. Matthew in the Louvre.

[26] In the Middle Ages these were corporations consisting of all people engaged in the writing and general production of books, as at Antwerp, for instance. These guilds, which in other places, as at Bruges, were also called St. John Guilds, were often joined by the first printers, until their numbers in any particular town allowed them to form a guild of their own.--Tr.

[27] The German is “No. 30 Quadrat,” which is rendered approximately by the above.--Tr.

[28] German “No. 30.”--Tr.

[29] The German is: _zwei Bilden in Breitformat_. The only English term which appears to be used to designate a picture the horizon line of which runs parallel to the longest sides of the canvas, and which is therefore the reverse of an “upright,” is “landscape-shape.”--TR.

[30] See note on p. 40.

[31] See note on p. 91.

[32] Ger. “No. 15.”--Tr.

[33] See note, p. 40.

[34] These figures are approximate only. The German equivalents are Nos. 25, 30, and 20.--Tr.

[35] See note p. 91.

[36] Reference to Diaz’s self-sacrificing friendship for Millet.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Letters of a Post-Impressionist, by Vincent Van Gogh
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
2 January 1663.
Lay long in bed, and so up and to the office, where all the morning alone doing something or another. So dined at home with my wife, and in the afternoon to the Treasury office, where Sir W. Batten was paying off tickets, but so simply and arbitrarily, upon a dull pretence of doing right to the King, though to the wrong of poor people (when I know there is no man that means the King less right than he, or would trouble himself less about it, but only that he sees me stir, and so he would appear doing something, though to little purpose), that I was weary of it. At last we broke up, and walk home together, and I to see Sir W. Pen, who is fallen sick again. I staid a while talking with him, and so to my office, practising some arithmetique, and so home to supper and bed, having sat up late talking to my poor wife with great content.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
7 March 1663.
Up betimes, and to the office, where some of us sat all the morning. At noon Sir W. Pen began to talk with me like a counterfeit rogue very kindly about his house and getting bills signed for all our works, but he is a cheating fellow, and so I let him talk and answered nothing. So we parted. I to dinner, and there met The. Turner, who is come on foot in a frolique to beg me to get a place at sea for John, their man, which is a rogue; but, however, it may be, the sea may do him good in reclaiming him, and therefore I will see what I can do. She dined with me; and after dinner I took coach, and carried her home; in our way, in Cheapside, lighting and giving her a dozen pair of white gloves as my Valentine. Thence to my Lord Sandwich, who is gone to Sir W. Wheeler’s for his more quiet being, where he slept well last night, and I took him very merry, playing at cards, and much company with him. So I left him, and Creed and I to Westminster Hall, and there walked a good while. He told me how for some words of my Lady Gerard’s

against my Lady Castlemaine to the Queen, the King did the other day affront her in going out to dance with her at a ball, when she desired it as the ladies do, and is since forbid attending the Queen by the King; which is much talked of, my Lord her husband being a great favourite. Thence by water home and to my office, wrote by the post and so home to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
23 November 1919.
" I have a blouse-pattern here I want to show you."

At that I crept upstairs, came into my room, and shut the door. It was a miracle she did not follow. . . .

What is there in all this to make me hate her so? What do you see? She has known me try to get in and out without anyone knowing it dozens of times — that is true. I have even torn my heart out and told her how it hurts my last little defences to be questioned — how it makes me feel just for the moment an independent being, to be allowed to go and come unquestioned. But that is just " Katie's funniness. She doesn't mean it, of course. . . ."

We hardly spoke at lunch. When it was over she asked me again if she might show me the pattern. I felt so ill, it seemed to me that even a hen could see at a side glance of its little leaden eye how ill I felt. I don't remember what I said. But in she came and put before me — something. Really, I hardly know what it was. " Let the little dressmaker help you," I said. But there was nothing to say.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
9 May 1668.
Up, and to the office, where all the morning we sat. Here I first hear that the Queene hath miscarryed of a perfect child, being gone about ten weeks, which do shew that she can conceive, though it be unfortunate that she cannot bring forth. Here we are told also that last night the Duchesse of Monmouth, dancing at her lodgings, hath sprained her thigh. Here we are told also that the House of Commons sat till five o’clock this morning, upon the business of the difference between the Lords and them, resolving to do something therein before they rise, to assert their privileges. So I at noon by water to Westminster, and there find the King hath waited in the Prince’s chamber these two hours, and the Houses are not ready for him. The Commons having sent this morning, after their long debate therein the last night, to the Lords, that they do think the only expedient left to preserve unity between the two Houses is, that they do put a stop to any proceedings upon their late judgement against the East India Company, till their next meeting; to which the Lords returned answer that they would return answer to them by a messenger of their own, which they not presently doing, they were all inflamed, and thought it was only a trick, to keep them in suspense till the King come to adjourne them; and, so, rather than lose the opportunity of doing themselves right, they presently with great fury come to this vote: “That whoever should assist in the execution of the judgement of the Lords against the Company, should be held betrayers of the liberties of the people of England, and of the privileges of that House.” This the Lords had notice of, and were mad at it; and so continued debating without any design to yield to the Commons, till the King come in, and sent for the Commons, where the Speaker made a short but silly speech, about their giving Him L300,000; and then the several Bills, their titles were read, and the King’s assent signified in the proper terms, according to the nature of the Bills, of which about three or four were public Bills, and seven or eight private ones, the additional Bills for the building of the City and the Bill against Conventicles being none of them. The King did make a short, silly speech, which he read, giving them thanks for the money, which now, he said, he did believe would be sufficient, because there was peace between his neighbours, which was a kind of a slur, methought, to the Commons; and that he was sorry for what he heard of difference between the two Houses, but that he hoped their recesse would put them into a way of accommodation; and so adjourned them to the 9th of August, and then recollected himself, and told them the 11th; so imperfect a speaker he is. So the Commons went to their House, and forthwith adjourned; and the Lords resumed their House, the King being gone, and sat an hour or two after, but what they did, I cannot tell; but every body expected they would commit Sir Andrew Rickard, Sir Samuel Barnardiston, Mr. Boone, and Mr. Wynne, who were all there, and called in, upon their knees, to the bar of the House; and Sir John Robinson I left there, endeavouring to prevent their being committed to the Tower, lest he should thereby be forced to deny their order, because of this vote of the Commons, whereof he is one, which is an odde case.

Thence I to the Rose Taverne in Covent Garden, and there sent for a pullet and dined all alone, being to meet Sir W. Pen, who by and by come, and he and I into the King’s house, and there “The Mayd’s Tragedy,” a good play, but Knepp not there; and my head and eyes out of order, the first from my drinking wine at dinner, and the other from my much work in the morning. Thence parted, and I towards the New Exchange and there bought a pair of black silk stockings at the hosier’s that hath the very pretty woman to his wife, about ten doors on this side of the ‘Change, and she is indeed very pretty, but I think a notable talking woman by what I heard to others there. Thence to Westminster Hall, where I hear the Lords are up, but what they have done I know not, and so walked toward White Hall and thence by water to the Tower, and so home and there to my letters, and so to Sir W. Pen’s; and there did talk with Mrs. Lowther, who is very kind to me, more than usual, and I will make use of it. She begins to draw very well, and I think do as well, if not better, than my wife, if it be true that she do it herself, what she shews me, and so to bed, and my head akeing all night with the wine I drank to-day, and my eyes ill. So lay long, my head pretty well in the morning.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|pepys|>
11 May 1668.
Up, and to my office, where alone all the morning. About noon comes to me my cousin Sarah, and my aunt Livett, newly come out of Gloucestershire, good woman, and come to see me; I took them home, and made them drink, but they would not stay dinner, I being alone. But here they tell me that they hear that this day Kate Joyce was to be married to a man called Hollingshed, whom she indeed did once tell me of, and desired me to enquire after him. But, whatever she said of his being rich, I do fear, by her doing this without my advice, it is not as it ought to be; but, as she brews, let her bake. They being gone, I to dinner with Balty and his wife, who is come to town to-day from Deptford to see us, and after dinner I out and took a coach, and called Mercer, and she and I to the Duke of York’s playhouse, and there saw “The Tempest,” and between two acts, I went out to Mr. Harris, and got him to repeat to me the words of the Echo, while I writ them down, having tried in the play to have wrote them; but, when I had done it, having done it without looking upon my paper, I find I could not read the blacklead. But now I have got the words clear, and, in going in thither, had the pleasure to see the actors in their several dresses, especially the seamen and monster, which were very droll: so into the play again. But there happened one thing which vexed me, which is, that the orange-woman did come in the pit, and challenge me for twelve oranges, which she delivered by my order at a late play, at night, to give to some ladies in a box, which was wholly untrue, but yet she swore it to be true. But, however, I did deny it, and did not pay her; but, for quiet, did buy 4s. worth of oranges of her, at 6d. a-piece. Here I saw first my Lord Ormond since his coming from Ireland, which is now about eight days. After the play done, I took Mercer by water to Spring Garden; and there with great pleasure walked, and eat, and drank, and sang, making people come about us, to hear us, and two little children of one of our neighbours that happened to be there, did come into our arbour, and we made them dance prettily. So by water, with great pleasure, down to the Bridge, and there landed, and took water again on the other side; and so to the Tower, and I saw her home, I myself home to my chamber, and by and by to bed.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|pepys|>
17 May 1668.
(Lord’s day). Up, and put on my new stuff-suit, with a shoulder-belt, according to the new fashion, and the bands of my vest and tunique laced with silk lace, of the colour of my suit: and so, very handsome, to Church, where a dull sermon and of a stranger, and so home; and there I find W. Howe, and a younger brother of his, come to dine with me; and there comes Mercer, and brings with her Mrs. Gayet, which pleased me mightily; and here was also W. Hewer, and mighty merry; and after dinner to sing psalms. But, Lord! to hear what an excellent base this younger brother of W. Howe’s sings, even to my astonishment, and mighty pleasant. By and by Gayet goes away, being a Catholick, to her devotions, and Mercer to church; but we continuing an hour or two singing, and so parted; and I to Sir W. Pen’s, and there sent for a hackney-coach; and he and she and I out, to take the gyre. We went to Stepney, and there stopped at the Trinity House, he to talk with the servants there against to-morrow, which is a great day for the choice of a new Master, and thence to Mile End, and there eat and drank, and so home; and I supped with them--that is, eat some butter and radishes, which is my excuse for not eating any other of their victuals, which I hate, because of their sluttery: and so home, and made my boy read to me part of Dr. Wilkins’s new book of the “Real Character;” and so to bed.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|pepys|>
20 May 1668.
Up, and with Colonell Middleton, in a new coach he hath made him, very handsome, to White Hall, where the Duke of York having removed his lodgings for this year to St. James’s, we walked thither; and there find the Duke of York coming to White Hall, and so back to the Council-chamber, where the Committee of the Navy sat; and here we discoursed several things; but, Lord! like fools; so as it was a shame to see things of this importance managed by a Council that understand nothing of them: and, among other things, one was about this building of a ship with Hemskirke’s secret, to sail a third faster than any other ship; but he hath got Prince Rupert on his side, and by that means, I believe, will get his conditions made better than he would otherwise, or ought indeed. Having done there, I met with Sir Richard Browne, and he took me to dinner with him to a new tavern, above Charing Cross, where some clients of his did give him a good dinner, and good company; among others, one Bovy, a solicitor, and lawyer and merchant all together, who hath travelled very much, did talk some things well; but only he is a “Sir Positive:” but the talk of their travels over the Alps very fine. Thence walked to the King’s playhouse, and saw “The Mulberry Garden” again, and cannot be reconciled to it, but only to find here and there an independent sentence of wit, and that is all. Here met with Creed; and took him to Hales’s, and there saw the beginnings of Harris’s head which he draws for me, which I do not yet like. So he and I down to the New Exchange, and there cheapened ribbands for my wife, and so down to the Whey house and drank some and eat some curds, which did by and by make my belly ake mightily. So he and I to White Hall, and walked over the Park to the Mulberry-Garden,

where I never was before; and find it a very silly place, worse than Spring-garden, and but little company, and those a rascally, whoring, roguing sort of people, only a wilderness here, that is somewhat pretty, but rude. Did not stay to drink, but walked an hour and so away to Charing Cross, and there took coach and away home, in my way going into Bishopsgate Street, to bespeak places for myself and boy to go to Cambridge in the coach this week, and so to Brampton, to see my wife. So home, and to supper and to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
20 June 1921.
I am posing here as a lady with a weak heart and lungs of Spanish leather. It seems to 'go down' for the present. Well, I had dinner in my room: consomme, fish with cream sauce, roast turkey, new potatoes, braised laitue, and two little tiny babas smothered in cream. I had to send the turkey and trimmings away. Even then. . . .

Saint-Galmier is superseded by Montreux,1 which the label says is saturated with carbonic acid gas. But my physiology book said this was deadly poison and we only breathed it out — never unless we were desperate, took it in. However, according to Doctors Ritter, Spingel, and Knechtli, it's marvellous for gravel and makes the water sparkle like champagne. These are the Minor Mysteries. . . .
<|/entry|><|entry|>
8 June 1921.
For the first time since the war I talked German to a German. "Wollen Sie fragen ob man warten kann?" And so on. It was simply extraordinary. Why?
<|/entry|><|entry|>
July 1921.
Montana. One thing I am determined upon. And that is to leave no sign. There was a time — it is not so long ago — when I should have written all that has happened since I left France. But now I deliberately choose to tell no living soul. I keep silence as Mother kept silence. And though there are moments when the old habit ' tempts ' me and I may even get so far as to write a page, they are only moments, and each day they are easier to conquer.

Chalet des Sapins, Montana. Just as now I say scarcely a word about my treacherous heart. If it's going to stop, it is going to stop, and there's an end of it. But I have been in this little house for nearly two days now, and it has not once quietened down. What dread to live in! But what's the use of saying aught? No, my soul, be quiet. . . .
<|/entry|><|entry|>
10 July 1921.
And now, just as I felt a little better and less worried about my head and my heart, the gland has become inflamed and all the surrounding tissue, too. It looks as though an abscess were forming. So here is another scare. And with it, I've one of my queer attacks when I feel nauseated all the time and can't bear light or noise or heat or cold. Shall I get through this, too? It is not easy still to find the courage to cope with these onslaughts. . . .
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
5 May 1921.
Genève: Salle d'attente. The snow lay like silver light on the tops of the mountains.

In the chill, greenish light, the wide motionless rivers looked as though they were solid, and the pale furrowed earth, with white fruit-trees like coral branches, looked as if it were water.

Later. The station clock.

The Tig Courier, Sir, is a weekly paper that pays you £950 a year for an article, personal as possible, the more intimate the better.

For three days the Editor has been waiting for your copy. To-night she got a postcard written in a train; but that was all. Will you tell her

(a) your reasons for withholding it (as subtle as you like) or

(b) when she may expect it. Address: Tig, Stillin, Bedfordshire.

Switzerland

Dear B. I can't tell you how glad I am to hear you are dancing again — *albeit delicately,' as you say.

Lo! how sweetly the Graces do it foot
To the instrument! They dauncen deftly and singen sooth
In their merriement.

That means you are really better. Don't get ill again. Isn't it awful — being ill! I lie all day on my old balcony lapping up eggs and cream and butter with no one but a pet gold-finch to bear me company. I must say the gold-finch is a great lamb. He's jet tame, and this morning after it had rained he came for his Huntley and Palmer crumb with a little twinkling rain-drop on his head. I never saw anyone look more silly and nice. Switzerland is full of birds, but they are mostly stodgy little German trots flown out of Appenrodt's catalogue. . . . But all Switzerland is on the side of the stodges. . . .
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|maclane|>
12 March 1901.
Everything is so dreary--so dreary.

I feel as if I would like to die to-day. I should not be the tiniest bit less unhappy afterward--but this life is unutterably weary. I am not strong. I can not bear things. I do not want to bear things. I do not long for strength. I want to be happy.

When I was very little, it was cold and dreary also, but I was certain it would be different when I should grow and be ten years old. It must be very nice to be ten, I thought,--and one would not be nearly so lonesome. But when the years passed and I was ten it was just exactly as lonesome. And when I was ten everything was very hard to understand.

But it will surely be different when I am seventeen, I said. I will know so much when I am seventeen. But when I was seventeen it was even more lonely, and everything was still harder to understand.

And again I said--faintly--everything will become clearer in a few years more, and I will wonder to think how stupid I have always been. But now the few years more have gone and here I am in loneliness that is more hopeless and harder to bear than when I was very little. Still, I wonder indeed to think how stupid I have been--and now I am not so stupid. I do not tell myself that it will be different when I am five-and-twenty.

For I know that it will not be different.

I know that it will be the same dreariness, the same Nothingness, the same loneliness.

It is very, very lonely.

It is hope deferred and maketh the heart sick.

It is more than I can bear.

Why--why was I ever born!

I can not live, and I can not die--for what is there after I am dead? I can see myself wandering in dark and lonely places.

Yet I feel as if I would like to die to-day.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
6 June 1661.
My head hath aked all night, and all this morning, with my last night’s debauch. Called up this morning by Lieutenant Lambert, who is now made Captain of the Norwich, and he and I went down by water to Greenwich, in our way observing and discoursing upon the things of a ship, he telling me all I asked him, which was of good use to me. There we went and eat and drank and heard musique at the Globe, and saw the simple motion that is there of a woman with a rod in her hand keeping time to the musique while it plays, which is simple, methinks. Back again by water, calling at Captain Lambert’s house, which is very handsome and neat, and a fine prospect at top. So to the office, where we sat a little, and then the Captain and I again to Bridewell to Mr. Holland’s, where his wife also, a plain dowdy, and his mother was. Here I paid Mrs. Holland the money due from me to her husband. Here came two young gentlewomen to see Mr. Holland, and one of them could play pretty well upon the viallin, but, good God! how these ignorant people did cry her up for it! We were very merry. I staid and supped there, and so home and to bed. The weather very hot, this night I left off my wastecoat.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
[Prompt: What is the weather inside you?]
17 February 1920.
"Let us have a cauliflower at any price," I said firmly.

And Marie muttered, bending over a pot — could she have understood? — "En effet, the times are dangerous!"

Foundlings

"Does nobody want that piece of bread and butter?" says L.M. You would really think from her tone that she was saving the poor little darling from

the river or worse, willing to adopt it as her own child and bring it up so that it never should know it was once unwanted. She cannot bear to see solitary little pieces of bread and butter or lonely little cakes — or even a lump of sugar that someone has cruelly, heartlessly left in his saucer. And when you offer her the big cake, she says resignedly: "Oh, well, my dear, I'll just try," as though she knew how sensitive and easily hurt the poor old chap's feelings were, if he's passed by. After all, it can't hurt her.
<|/entry|>