<|entry|><|pepys|>
23 February 1669.
Up: and to the Office, where all the morning, and then home, and put a mouthfull of victuals in my mouth; and by a hackney-coach followed my wife and the girls, who are gone by eleven o’clock, thinking to have seen a new play at the Duke of York’s house. But I do find them staying at my tailor’s, the play not being to-day, and therefore I now took them to Westminster Abbey, and there did show them all the tombs very finely, having one with us alone, there being other company this day to see the tombs, it being Shrove Tuesday; and here we did see, by particular favour, the body of Queen Katherine of Valois; and I had the upper part of her body in my hands, and I did kiss her mouth, reflecting upon it that I did kiss a Queen,

and that this was my birth-day, thirty-six years old, that I did first kiss a Queen. But here this man, who seems to understand well, tells me that the saying is not true that says she was never buried, for she was buried; only, when Henry the Seventh built his chapel, it was taken up and laid in this wooden coffin; but I did there see that, in it, the body was buried in a leaden one, which remains under the body to this day. Thence to the Duke of York’s playhouse, and there, finding the play begun, we homeward to the Glass-House,

and there shewed my cozens the making of glass, and had several things made with great content; and, among others, I had one or two singing-glasses made, which make an echo to the voice, the first that ever I saw; but so thin, that the very breath broke one or two of them. So home, and thence to Mr. Batelier’s, where we supped, and had a good supper, and here was Mr. Gumbleton; and after supper some fiddles, and so to dance; but my eyes were so out of order, that I had little pleasure this night at all, though I was glad to see the rest merry, and so about midnight home and to bed.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|pepys|>
25 February 1669.
All the morning at the office. At noon home and eat a bit myself, and then followed my wife and girls to the Duke of York’s house, and there before one, but the house infinite full, where, by and by, the King and Court come, it being a new play, or an old one new vamped, by Shadwell, called “The Royall Shepherdesse;” but the silliest for words and design, and everything, that ever I saw in my whole life, there being nothing in the world pleasing in it, but a good martial dance of pikemen, where Harris and another do handle their pikes in a dance to admiration; but never less satisfied with a play in my life. Thence to the office I, and did a little business, and so home to supper with my girls, and pretty merry, only my eyes, which continue very bad, and my cold, that I cannot speak at all, do trouble me.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|pepys|>
26 February 1669.
Was forced to send my excuse to the Duke of York for my not attending him with my fellows this day because of my cold, and was the less troubled because I was thereby out of the way to offer my proposals about Pursers till the Surveyor hath delivered his notions, which he is to do to-day about something he has to offer relating to the Navy in general, which I would be glad to see and peruse before I offer what I have to say. So lay long in bed, and then up and to my office, and so to dinner, and then, though I could not speak, yet I went with my wife and girls to the King’s playhouse, to shew them that, and there saw “The Faithfull Shepherdesse.” But, Lord! what an empty house, there not being, as I could tell the people, so many as to make up above L10 in the whole house! The being of a new play at the other house, I suppose, being the cause, though it be so silly a play that I wonder how there should be enough people to go thither two days together, and not leave more to fill this house. The emptiness of the house took away our pleasure a great deal, though I liked it the better; for that I plainly discern the musick is the better, by how much the house the emptier. Thence home, and again to W. Hewer’s, and had a pretty little treat, and spent an hour or two, my voice being wholly taken away with my cold, and so home and to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
28 August 1664.
(Lord’s day). Up the first time I have had great while. Home to dined, and with my boy alone to church anybody to attend me to church a dinner, and there met Creed, who, and we merry together, as his learning is such and judgment that I cannot but be pleased with it. After dinner I took him to church, into our gallery, with me, but slept the best part of the sermon, which was a most silly one. So he and I to walk to the ‘Change a while, talking from one pleasant discourse to another, and so home, and thither came my uncle Wight and aunt, and supped with us mighty merry. And Creed lay with us all night, and so to bed, very merry to think how Mr. Holliard (who came in this evening to see me) makes nothing, but proving as a most clear thing that Rome is Antichrist.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
6 March 1664.
(Lord’s day). Up, and my cold continuing in great extremity I could not go out to church, but sat all day (a little time at dinner excepted) in my closet at the office till night drawing up a second letter to Mr. Coventry about the measure of masts to my great satisfaction, and so in the evening home, and my uncle and aunt Wight came to us and supped with us, where pretty merry, but that my cold put me out of humour. At night with my cold, and my eye also sore still, to bed.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|pepys|>
8 March 1664.
Up with some little discontent with my wife upon her saying that she had got and used some puppy-dog water, being put upon it by a desire of my aunt Wight to get some for her, who hath a mind, unknown to her husband, to get some for her ugly face. I to the office, where we sat all the morning, doing not much business through the multitude of counsellors, one hindering another. It was Mr. Coventry’s own saying to me in his coach going to the ‘Change, but I wonder that he did give me no thanks for my letter last night, but I believe he did only forget it. Thence home, whither Luellin came and dined with me, but we made no long stay at dinner; for “Heraclius” being acted, which my wife and I have a mighty mind to see, we do resolve, though not exactly agreeing with the letter of my vowe, yet altogether with the sense, to see another this month, by going hither instead of that at Court, there having been none conveniently since I made my vowe for us to see there, nor like to be this Lent, and besides we did walk home on purpose to make this going as cheap as that would have been, to have seen one at Court, and my conscience knows that it is only the saving of money and the time also that I intend by my oaths, and this has cost no more of either, so that my conscience before God do after good consultation and resolution of paying my forfeit, did my conscience accuse me of breaking my vowe, I do not find myself in the least apprehensive that I have done any violence to my oaths. The play hath one very good passage well managed in it, about two persons pretending, and yet denying themselves, to be son to the tyrant Phocas, and yet heire of Mauritius to the crowne. The garments like Romans very well. The little girle is come to act very prettily, and spoke the epilogue most admirably. But at the beginning, at the drawing up of the curtaine, there was the finest scene of the Emperor and his people about him, standing in their fixed and different pastures in their Roman habitts, above all that ever I yet saw at any of the theatres. Walked home, calling to see my brother Tom, who is in bed, and I doubt very ill of a consumption. To the office awhile, and so home to supper and to bed.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|pepys|>
10 March 1664.
Up and to the office, where all the morning doing business, and at noon to the ‘Change and there very busy, and so home to dinner with my wife, to a good hog’s harslet,

a piece of meat I love, but have not eat of I think these seven years, and after dinner abroad by coach set her at Mrs. Hunt’s and I to White Hall, and at the Privy Seale I enquired, and found the Bill come for the Corporation of the Royall Fishery; whereof the Duke of Yorke is made present Governor, and several other very great persons, to the number of thirty-two, made his assistants for their lives: whereof, by my Lord Sandwich’s favour, I am one; and take it not only as a matter of honour, but that, that may come to be of profit to me, and so with great content went and called my wife, and so home and to the office, where busy late, and so home to supper and to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
14 September 1662.
(Lord’s day). Up very early, and Mr. Moore taking leave of me the barber came and trimmed me (I having him now to come to me again after I have used a pumice-stone a good while, not but what I like this where I cannot conveniently have a barber, but here I cannot keep my hair dry without one), and so by water to White Hall, by the way hearing that the Bishop of London had given a very strict order against boats going on Sundays, and as I come back again, we were examined by the masters of the company in another boat; but I told them who I was. But the door not being open to Westminster stairs there, called in at the Legg and drank a cup of ale and a toast, which I have not done many a month before, but it served me for my two glasses of wine to-day. Thence to St. James’s to Mr. Coventry, and there staid talking privately with him an hour in his chamber of the business of our office, and found him to admiration good and industrious, and I think my most true friend in all things that are fair. He tells me freely his mind of every man and in every thing. Thence to White Hall chapel, where sermon almost done, and I heard Captain Cooke’s new musique. This the first day of having vialls and other instruments to play a symphony between every verse of the anthem; but the musique more full than it was the last Sunday, and very fine it is.

But yet I could discern Captain Cooke to overdo his part at singing, which I never did before. Thence up into the Queen’s presence, and there saw the Queen again as I did last Sunday, and some fine ladies with her; but, my troth, not many. Thence to Sir G. Carteret’s, and find him to have sprained his foot and is lame, but yet hath been at chappell, and my Lady much troubled for one of her daughters that is sick. I dined with them, and a very pretty lady, their kinswoman, with them. My joy is, that I do think I have good hold on Sir George and Mr. Coventry. Sir George told me of a chest of drawers that were given Sir W. B. by Hughes the rope-maker, whom he has since put out of his employment, and now the fellow do cry out upon Sir W. for his cabinet. So home again by water and to church, and from church Sir Williams both and Sir John Minnes into the garden, and anon Sir W. Pen and I did discourse about my lodgings and Sir J. Minnes, and I did open all my mind to him, and he told me what he had heard, and I do see that I shall hardly keep my best lodging chamber, which troubles me, but I did send for Goodenough the plasterer, who tells me that it did ever belong to my lodgings, but lent by Mr. Payles to Mr. Smith, and so I will strive hard for it before I lose it. So to supper with them at Sir W. Batten’s, and do counterfeit myself well pleased, but my heart is troubled and offended at the whole company. So to my office to prepare notes to read to the Duke to-morrow morning, and so to my lodgings and to bed, my mind a little eased because I am resolved to know the worst concerning my lodgings tomorrow. Among other things Sir W. Pen did tell me of one of my servants looking into Sir J. Minnes’ window when my Lady Batten lay there, which do much trouble them, and me also, and I fear will wholly occasion my loosing the leads. One thing more he told me of my Jane’s cutting off a carpenter’s long mustacho, and how the fellow cried, and his wife would not come near him a great while, believing that he had been among some of his wenches. At which I was merry, though I perceive they discourse of it as a crime of hers, which I understand not.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|pepys|>
16 September 1662.
Up and to my workmen, and then to the office, and there we sat till noon; then to the Exchange, and in my way met with the housekeeper of this office, and he did give me so good an account of my chamber in my house about which I am so much troubled that I am well at ease in my mind. At my office all the afternoon alone. In the evening Sir J. M. and I walked together a good while in the garden, very pleasant, and takes no notice that he do design any further trouble to me about my house. At night eat a bit of bread and cheese, and so to my lodgings and to bed, my mind ill at ease for these particulars: my house in dirt, and like to lose my best chamber. My wife writes me from the country that she is not pleased there with my father nor mother, nor any of her servants, and that my boy is turned a very rogue. I have L30 to pay to the cavaliers: then a doubt about my being forced to leave all my business here, when I am called to the court at Brampton; and lastly, my law businesses, which vex me to my heart what I shall be able to do next term, which is near at hand.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
17 October 1922.
Laubblätter. The Four Fountains. The Red Tobacco Plant. English dog. The funeral procession. Actions and Reactions. The silky husks, like the inside of the paw of a cat. Darling.

Fire is sunlight and returns to the sun again in an unending cycle. . . . G. looks exactly like a desert chief. I kept thinking of Doughty's " Arabia "...

To be wildly enthusiastic, or deadly serious — both

Indifference

are wrong. Both pass. One must keep ever present a sense of humour. It depends entirely on yourself how much you see or hear or understand. But the sense of humour I have found of use in every single occasion of my life. Now perhaps you understand what the word ' indifferent ' means. It is to learn not to mind, and not to show your mind.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
8 January 1661.
My wife and I lay very long in bed to-day talking and pleasing one another in discourse. Being up, Mr. Warren came, and he and I agreed for the deals that my Lord is to, have. Then Will and I to Westminster, where I dined with my Lady. After dinner I took my Lord Hinchinbroke and Mr. Sidney to the Theatre, and shewed them “The Widdow,” an indifferent good play, but wronged by the women being to seek in their parts. That being done, my Lord’s coach waited for us, and so back to my Lady’s, where she made me drink of some Florence wine, and did give me two bottles for my wife. From thence walked to my cozen Stradwick’s, and there chose a small banquet and some other things against our entertainment on Thursday next. Thence to Tom Pepys and bought a dozen of trenchers, and so home. Some talk to-day of a head of Fanatiques that do appear about Barnett, but I do not believe it. However, my Lord Mayor, Sir Richd. Browne, hath carried himself very honourably, and hath caused one of their meeting-houses in London to be pulled down.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
27 October 1664.
Up and to the office, where all the morning busy. At noon, Sir G. Carteret, Sir J. Minnes, Sir W. Batten, Sir W. Pen, and myself, were treated at the Dolphin by Mr. Foly, the ironmonger, where a good plain dinner, but I expected musique, the missing of which spoiled my dinner, only very good merry discourse at dinner. Thence with Sir G. Carteret by coach to White Hall to a Committee of Tangier, and thence back to London, and ‘light in Cheapside and I to Nellson’s, and there met with a rub at first, but took him out to drink, and there discoursed to my great content so far with him that I think I shall agree with him for Bewpers to serve the Navy with. So with great content home and to my office, where late, and having got a great cold in my head yesterday home to supper and to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
13 December 1910.
Sunday Morning. Yet another Sunday. ... It is raining again to-day — just a steady persistent rain that seems to drift one from one morning to the other. When I had finished writing I went down to supper, drank a little soup, and the old Doctor next me suddenly said: " Please go to bed now" and I went like a lamb and drank some hot milk. It was a night of agony. When I felt morning was at last come, I lighted a candle, looked at the watch, and found it was just a quarter to twelve! Now I know what it is to fight a drug. Veronal was on the table by my bed. Oblivion — deep sleep — think of it! But I didn't take any. Now I am up and dressed. . . .
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
[Prompt: What are you working on, and how does it go?]
17 March 1661.
(Lord’s day). At church in the morning, a stranger preached a good honest and painfull sermon. My wife and I dined upon a chine of beef at Sir W. Batten’s, so to church again. Then home, and put some papers in order. Then to supper at Sir W. Batten’s again, where my wife by chance fell down and hurt her knees exceedingly. So home and to bed.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|pepys|>
29 March 1661.
Up among my workmen with great pleasure. Then to the office, where I found Sir W. Pen sent down yesterday to Chatham to get two great ships in readiness presently to go to the East Indies upon some design against the Dutch, we think, at Goa but it is a great secret yet. Dined at home, came Mr. Shepley and Moore, and did business with both of them. After that to Sir W. Batten’s, where great store of company at dinner. Among others my schoolfellow, Mr. Christmas, where very merry, and hither came letters from above for the fitting of two other ships for the East Indies in all haste, and so we got orders presently for the Hampshire and Nonsuch. Then home and there put some papers in order, and not knowing what to do, the house being so dirty, I went to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
30 January 1920.
I tried all day to work and feel dog-tired. Perhaps it's the massage. Jinnie came to see me and brought me a present from her little dog.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
[Prompt: What small thing mattered today?]
15 November 1913.
It's very quiet. I've re-read L'Entrave. I suppose Colette is the only woman in France who does just this. I don't care a fig at present for anyone I know except her. But the book to be written is still unwritten. I can't sit down and fire away like J.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
16 November 1913.
A letter from F. I had not expected it, and yet, when it came, it seemed quite inevitable — the writing, the way the letters were made, his confidence, and his warm sensational life. I wish he were my friend; he's very near to me. His personality comes right through his letters to J. and I want to laugh and run into the road.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
18 February 1920.
Does it always happen that while you look at the star you feel the other stars are dancing, flickering, changing places, almost playing a game on purpose to bewilder you ? It is strange that there are times when I feel the stars are not at all solemn: they are secretly gay. I felt this to-night. I sat on the cane chair and leaned against the wall. I thought of him contained in the little house against which I leaned — within reach — within call. I remembered there was a time when this thought was a distraction. Oh, it might have been a sweet distraction — but there it was ! It took away from my power to work. ... I, as it were, made him my short story. But that belongs to the Past. . . One has passed beyond it.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
29 August 1665.
In the morning waking, among other discourse my wife begun to tell me the difference between her and Mercer, and that it was only from restraining her to gad abroad to some Frenchmen that were in the town, which I do not wholly yet in part believe, and for my quiet would not enquire into it. So rose and dressed myself, and away by land walking a good way, then remembered that I had promised Commissioner Pett to go with him in his coach, and therefore I went back again to him, and so by his coach to Greenwich, and called at Sir Theophilus Biddulph’s, a sober, discreet man, to discourse of the preventing of the plague in Greenwich, and Woolwich, and Deptford, where in every place it begins to grow very great. We appointed another meeting, and so walked together to Greenwich and there parted, and Pett and I to the office, where all the morning, and after office done I to Sir J. Minnes and dined with him, and thence to Deptford thinking to have seen Bagwell, but did not, and so straight to Redriffe, and home, and late at my business to dispatch away letters, and then home to bed, which I did not intend, but to have staid for altogether at Woolwich, but I made a shift for a bed for Tom, whose bed is gone to Woolwich, and so to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
18 July 1663.
Up and to my office, where all the morning, and Sir J. Minnes and I did a little, and but a little business at the office. So I eat a bit of victuals at home, and so abroad to several places, as my bookseller’s, and then to Thomson the instrument maker’s to bespeak a ruler for my pocket for timber, &c., which I believe he will do to my mind. So to the Temple, Wardrobe, and lastly to Westminster Hall, where I expected some bands made me by Mrs. Lane, and while she went to the starchers for them, I staid at Mrs. Howlett’s, who with her husband were abroad, and only their daughter (which I call my wife) was in the shop, and I took occasion to buy a pair of gloves to talk to her, and I find her a pretty spoken girl, and will prove a mighty handsome wench. I could love her very well. By and by Mrs. Lane comes, and my bands not being done she and I posted and met at the Crown in the Palace Yard, where we eat a chicken I sent for, and drank, and were mighty merry, and I had my full liberty of towzing her and doing what I would, but the last thing of all.... Of which I am heartily ashamed, but I do resolve never to do more so. But, Lord! to see what a mind she has to a husband, and how she showed me her hands to tell her her fortune, and every thing that she asked ended always whom and when she was to marry. And I pleased her so well, saying as. I know she would have me, and then she would say that she had been with all the artists in town, and they always told her the same things, as that she should live long, and rich, and have a good husband, but few children, and a great fit of sickness, and 20 other things, which she says she has always been told by others. Here I staid late before my bands were done, and then they came, and so I by water to the Temple, and thence walked home, all in a sweat with my tumbling of her and walking, and so a little supper and to bed, fearful of having taken cold.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
25 October 1667.
Up, and all the morning close till two o’clock, till I had not time to eat my dinner, to make our answer ready for the Parliament this afternoon, to shew how Commissioner Pett was singly concerned in the executing of all orders from Chatham, and that we did properly lodge all orders with him. Thence with Sir W. Pen to the Parliament Committee, and there we all met, and did shew, my Lord Bruncker and I, our commissions under the Great Seal in behalf of all the rest, to shew them our duties, and there I had no more matters asked me, but were bid to withdraw, and did there wait, I all the afternoon till eight at, night, while they were examining several about the business of Chatham again, and particularly my Lord Bruncker did meet with two or three blurs that he did not think of. One from Spragg, who says that “The Unity” was ordered up contrary to his order, by my Lord Bruncker and Commissioner Pett. Another by Crispin, the waterman, who said he was upon “The Charles;” and spoke to Lord Bruncker coming by in his boat, to know whether they should carry up “The Charles,” they being a great many naked men without armes, and he told them she was well as she was. Both these have little in them indeed, but yet both did stick close against him; and he is the weakest man in the world to make his defence, and so is like to have much fault laid on him therefrom. Spragg was in with them all the afternoon, and hath much fault laid on him for a man that minded his pleasure, and little else of his whole charge. I walked in the lobby, and there do hear from Mr. Chichly that they were (the Commissioners of the Ordnance) shrewdly put to it yesterday, being examined with all severity and were hardly used by them, much otherwise than we, and did go away with mighty blame; and I am told by every body that it is likely to stick mighty hard upon them: at which every body is glad, because of Duncomb’s pride, and their expecting to have the thanks of the House whereas they have deserved, as the Parliament apprehends, as bad as bad can be. Here is great talk of an impeachment brought in against my Lord Mordaunt, and that another will be brought in against my Lord Chancellor in a few days. Here I understand for certain that they have ordered that my Lord Arlington’s letters, and Secretary Morrice’s letters of intelligence, be consulted, about the business of the Dutch fleete’s coming abroad, which is a very high point, but this they have done, but in what particular manner I cannot justly say, whether it was not with the King’s leave first asked. Here late, as I have said, and at last they broke up, and we had our commissions again, and I do hear how Birch is the high man that do examine and trouble every body with his questions, and they say that he do labour all he can to clear Pett, but it seems a witness has come in tonight, C. Millett, who do declare that he did deliver a message from the Duke of Albemarle time enough for him to carry up “The Charles,” and he neglected it, which will stick very hard, it seems, on him. So Sir W. Pen and I in his coach home, and there to supper, a good supper, and so weary, and my eyes spent, to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
15 August 1916.
Tinakori Road

gate, and a huge pair of old iron gates that were never used and clashed and clamoured when Bogey and I tried to swing on them.

Tinakori Road was not fashionable; it was very mixed. Of course there were some good houses in it, old ones, like ours for instance, hidden away in wildish gardens, and there was no doubt that land there would become extremely valuable, as Father said, if one bought enough and hung on.

It was high, it was healthy; the sun poured in all the windows all day long, and once we had a decent tramway service, as Father argued. . . .

But it was a little trying to have one's own washerwoman living next door who would persist in attempting to talk to Mother over the fence, and then, just beyond her *hovel,' as Mother called it, there lived an old man who burned leather in his back yard whenever the wind blew our way. And further along there lived an endless family of halfcastes who appeared to have planted their garden with empty jam tins and old saucepans and black iron kettles without lids. And then just opposite our house there was a paling fence and below the paling fence in a hollow, squeezed in almost under the fold of a huge gorse-covered hill, was Saunder's Lane.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
September 1921.
September is different from all other months. It is more magical. I feel the strange chemical change in the earth which produces mushrooms is the cause, too, of this extra ' life ' in the air — a resilience, a sparkle. For days the weather has been the same. One wakes to see the trees outside bathed in greengold light. It's fresh — not cold. It's clear. The sky is a light pure blue. During the morning the sun gets hot. There is a haze over the mountains. Occasionally a squirrel appears, runs up the mast of a pine-tree, seizes a cone and sits in the crook of a branch, holding it like a banana. Now and again a little bird, hanging upside-down, pecks at the seed. There is a constant sound of bells from the valley. It keeps on all day, from early to late.

Midday — with long shadows. Hot and still. And yet there's always that taste of a berry rather than scent of a flower in the air. But what can one say of the afternoons? Of the evening? The rose, the gold on the mountains, the quick mounting shadows? But it's soon cold — Beautifully cold, however.

I am struck beyond words, and again it seems to me that what I am doing has no form! I ought to finish my book of stories first and then, when it's gone, really get down to my novel, Karori.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
1 November 1921.
Why I should be so passionately determined to disguise this, I don't quite know. But here I lie, pretending, as Heaven knows how often I have before, to write. Supposing I were to give up this pretence and really did try? Supposing I only wrote half a page in a day — it would be half a page to the good; and I should at least be training my mind to get into the habit of regular performance. As it is, every day sees me further off my goal. And, once I had this book finished, I'm free to start the real one. And it's a question of money.

But my idea, even of the short story, has changed rather, lately — That was lucky! J. opened the door softly and I was apparently really truly engaged.... And — no, enough of this. It has served its purpose. It has put me on the right lines.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
13 October 1921.
Dear Friend. I like your criticism. It is right you should have hated those things in me. For I was careless and false. I was not true in those days. But I have been trying for a long time now to " squeeze the slave out of my soul." ... I just want to let you know.

"The Garden Party"

Oh, I am in the middle of a nice story. I wish you would like it. I am writing it in this exercise book, and just broke off for a minute to write to you.

Thank you for the address. I can't go to Paris before the spring, so I think it would be better if I did not write until then. I feel this light treatment is the right one. Not that I am ill at present. I am not in the least an invalid, in any way.

It's a sunny, windy day — beautiful. There is a soft roaring in the trees and little birds fly up into the air just for the fun of being tossed about.

Good-bye. I press your hand. Do you dislike the idea we should write to each other from time to time? Katherine.

This is a moderately successful story, and that's all. It's somehow, in the episode at the lane, scamped.

The New Baby

It is late night, very dark, very still. Not a star to be seen. And now it has come on to rain. What happiness it is to listen to rain at night; joyful relief, ease; a lapping-round and hushing and brooding tenderness, all are mingled together in the sound of the fastfalling rain. God, looking down upon the rainy earth, sees how faint are these lights shining in little windows,— how easily put out. . . .
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
15 January 1666.
Busy all the morning in my chamber in my old cloth suit, while my usuall one is to my taylor’s to mend, which I had at noon again, and an answer to a letter I had sent this morning to Mrs. Pierce to go along with my wife and I down to Greenwich to-night upon an invitation to Mr. Boreman’s to be merry to dance and sing with Mrs. Knipp. Being dressed, and having dined, I took coach and to Mrs. Pierce, to her new house in Covent-Garden, a very fine place and fine house. Took her thence home to my house, and so by water to Boreman’s by night, where the greatest disappointment that ever I saw in my life, much company, a good supper provided, and all come with expectation of excesse of mirthe, but all blank through the waywardnesse of Mrs. Knipp, who, though she had appointed the night, could not be got to come. Not so much as her husband could get her to come; but, which was a pleasant thing in all my anger, I asking him, while we were in expectation what answer one of our many messengers would bring, what he thought, whether she would come or no, he answered that, for his part, he could not so much as thinke. By and by we all to supper, which the silly master of the feast commended, but, what with my being out of humour, and the badnesse of the meate dressed, I did never eat a worse supper in my life. At last, very late, and supper done, she came undressed, but it brought me no mirthe at all; only, after all being done, without singing, or very little, and no dancing, Pierce and I to bed together, and he and I very merry to find how little and thin clothes they give us to cover us, so that we were fain to lie in our stockings and drawers, and lay all our coates and clothes upon the bed. So to sleep.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
29 November 1660.
In the morning seeing a great deal of foul water come into my parlour from under the partition between me and Mr. Davis, I did step thither to him and tell him of it, and he did seem very ready to have it stopt, and did also tell me how thieves did attempt to rob his house last night, which do make us all afraid. This noon I being troubled that the workmen that I have to do my door were called to Mr. Davis’s away, I sent for them, when Mr. Davis sent to inquire a reason of, and I did give him a good one, that they were come on purpose to do some work with me that they had already begun, with which he was well pleased, and I glad, being unwilling to anger them. In the afternoon Sir W. Batten and I met and did sell the ship Church for L440; and we asked L391, and that being done, I went home, and Dr. Petty came to me about Mr. Barlow’s money, and I being a little troubled to be so importuned before I had received it, and that they would have it stopt in Mr. Fenn’s hands, I did force the Doctor to go fetch the letter of attorney that he had to receive it only to make him same labour, which he did bring, and Mr. Hales came along with him from the Treasury with my money for the first quarter (Michaelmas last) that ever I received for this employment. So I paid the Dr. L25 and had L62 10s. for myself, and L7 10s. to myself also for Will’s salary, which I do intend yet to keep for myself. With this my heart is much rejoiced, and do bless Almighty God that he is pleased to send so sudden and unexpected payment of my salary so soon after my great disbursements. So that now I am worth L200 again. In a great ease of mind and spirit I fell about the auditing of Mr. Shepley’s last accounts with my Lord by my Lord’s desire, and about that I sat till 12 o’clock at night, till I began to doze, and so to bed, with my heart praising God for his mercy to us.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
25 March 1666.
(Lady day and Sunday). Up, and to my chamber in my gowne all the morning about settling my papers there. At noon to dinner, where my wife’s brother, whom I sent for to offer making him a Muster-Master and send to sea, which the poore man likes well of and will go, and it will be a good preferment to him, only hazardous. I hope he will prove a good discreet man. After dinner to my papers and Tangier accounts again till supper, and after supper again to them, but by my mixing them, I know not how, my private and publique accounts, it makes me mad to see how hard it is to bring them to be understood, and my head is confounded, that though I did sweare to sit up till one o’clock upon them, yet, I fear, it will be to no purpose, for I cannot understand what I do or have been doing of them to-day.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
1 May 1919.
Indoo Weather

laughing herself: "try, try, try as I can — there's always just one secret — just one — that never can be told — that mocks me." And then for a moment she lay still. . . .

Indoo Weather: A Dream

"It's what you might call indoo weather," said the little man.

"Oh, really. . . . Why that?" said I, vaguely.

He did not answer. The two polished knobs of his behind shone as he leaned over feeding the black seams of the boat with a brown twist.

The day was dull, steaming; there was a blackness out at sea; the heavy waves came tolling. On the sea grasses the large bright dew fell not. The little man's hammer went tap-tap.

L.M. snorted, threw up her head, stamped her feet on the wet sand, scrambled to a boulder, tore at some sea-poppies, dug them in her hat, held the hat away, looked, scornful, wrenched them out again.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|maclane|>
7 February 1917.
Just beneath my skin
This I write is a strange thing.

So close to fact: so far from it.

So close to truth: so surrounded by lies.

It does not contain lies but is someway surrounded by a mist of lies.

A strange thing about it is that it is expressing the Self Just Beneath My Skin.

That Self is someways trivial and outlandish and mentally nervous, flightly, silly--silly to a verge of tragicness. I know that to be true from a long acquaintance with me. It is oddly intriguing to read over some chapters and find it shown.

Some unconscious exact photography aids my writing talent.

Some chapters are bewilderingly and mysteriously true to life.

My everyday self that casually speaks to this or that person is nothing like this book. My absorbed self that writes a letter to an intimate acquaintance is not like this book. My heartfelt self that deeply loves a friend, and gives of its depths, and thrills answeringly to other depths, is not like this book.

This book is my mere Hidden Self--just under the skin but hid away closer than the Thousand Mysteries: never shown to any other person in any conversation or any association: never would be shown: never could be.

How Another, any Other, would come out: what Another would show: photographed Beneath the Skin--what do I know?

Perchance ten times more trivial and inconsequent and mad than Me.

If Another thinks Me someway mad, let him look at Himself Just Beneath the Skin.

Perchance Another every day as he thanks a janitor for holding open a door, would much prefer to drive a long rusty brad-nail deep into the janitor’s skull.

Perchance Another has a brain like Goethe, a Soul like a humming-bird, a Heart like a little round nutmeg.

What do I know?

I know what I am.

Another may know what he is.

But I can’t tell Me to Another and Another can’t tell Himself to Me.

I can tell Me to myself and write it.

Another if he reads will see Me: but not as I see Me. Instead, through many veil-curtains and glasses, very darkly.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|maclane|>
15 January 1917.
God’s kindly caprice
For twenty-five cents and one hour and twelve minutes one may get in this present detailed world a bit of unforgettable complete enchantment.

So I found to-day in a moving-picture theater. A Carmen, the real Carmen of Prosper Mérimée glowed, vibrated, lived and died with passion on a white screen.

Of all prose writers I know Prosper Mérimée is the one--(intimate and sensitively alive as if I had lain against his shoulder as I read ‘La Guzla’ and ‘Venus d’Ille’--he melts into my veins--)whom I would most eagerly see interpreted. Of all fiction characters--if she is fiction--the poignant Carmen is the one I would most eagerly see realized.

Carmen is one of those fictions which are truer to life than life is. Such fiction-things are all around, touching everybody: the spoken truths which grow false at being spoken: the thought lies which turn to truths the moment they touch words.

I have heard Carmen sung and seen her filmed by the lustrous Farrar, and I have seen her play-acted by some lesser lights. But Bizet’s opera, a sparkling music-storm, creates a sonant objective Carmen, a beautiful bloody lyric, remote from Mérimée who made a Carmen intensely peculiar to his own subjective art. And the stage-Carmen has always been a stage-Carmen waiting in dusty, draughty wings for her cues. It remained for the cinematograph, which is a true literal mirror of human expression, to make Carmen burst into violent physical life.

But it was less the scopes of the films which made Carmen animate than it was the virile woman who played her. It was acting--but acting in the sense of losing and sinking and saturating and dissolving herself in another woman’s temperament: and by it she achieved some strong sword, keen shadings of the Carmen character--to the hair’s-breadth.

And she looked like Carmen. It was not important to the vigorous fire of her acting but it made bewitchment in the portrait. No one I have before seen play Carmen fitted the elusive points of her description.

‘Her eyes were set obliquely in her head but they were magnificent and large. Her lips, a little full but beautifully shaped, revealed a set of teeth as white as newly-skinned almonds. Her hair was black with blue lights on it like a raven’s wing, long and glossy. To every blemish she united some advantage which was perhaps all the more evident by contrast. There was something strange and wild about her beauty. Her face surprised you at first sight but nobody could forget it. Her eyes especially had an expression of mingled sensuality and fierceness which I had never seen in any human glance. Gypsy’s eye, wolf’s eye’--

This (from the English translation of the story by Lady Mary Loyd) fitted to a charm the pictured vision of the foreign-looking woman--her name is Theda Bara--who flung a throbbing Carmen across the screen with indescribable heat and color and luster. It was comparable only to the muscular force of the original which that Mérimée rubs nervously and heavily into one’s thoughts. I felt it someway satisfyingly unbelievable--an illusion more actual than actuality: a dream which outbore fact.

I suppose there’s no other character like Carmen for flaming roundness in all fiction: filled with her treacheries yet purely true to herself, without fear, utterly game: fierce, coarse, ruthless and reckless yet wrapped in a maddening unwitting pathos: strong and bold and cruelly poised yet capable of sudden complete surrender: ignorant and abandoned and criminal in every instinct yet beyond every littleness, every pettiness: sensual yet contemptuous and indifferent in it, a woman of essential chastity. Carmen is the one criminal conception in whom there is no vulgar evil, no personal maculateness though wrecking all the wildness of her temper in her tempestuous days’-journeys. She is a romantic murderous appeal to human superjudgment. It was this isolate quality of her which Theda Bara gave out with mystic masterful art. She gauged the personal odors and blood-pressures of Carmen. She slipped into Carmen’s skin and first sucked in and then breathed out the irresistible menacingness and arresting ruination of her beautiful diabolic spirit. A little feverish artistic thrill ran in my veins as I sat in the dark watching.

‘She had thrown her mantilla back,’ says Don José in the translated tale, ‘to show her shoulders and a great bunch of acacias that was thrust into her chemise. She had another acacia bloom in the corner of her mouth and she walked along swaying her hips like a filly from the Cordova stud farm. In my country anyone who had seen a woman dressed in that fashion would have crossed himself. In Seville every man paid her some bold compliment on her appearance. She had an answer to each and all with her hand on her hip--“Come, my love,” she began again, “make me seven ells of lace for my mantilla, my pet pin-maker.” And taking the acacia blossom out of her mouth she flipped it at me with her thumb so that it hit me just between the eyes. I tell you, sir, I felt as if a bullet had struck me.’

This first meeting of Carmen with the dragoon was pictured in a brilliant hot-looking plaza as if before the cigarette factory in Seville. This woman in throwing the flower at the soldier expressed wonderfully in one fleet moment, by hand and lip and eye, the savage sordid poetry and passionate freedom--that unearthly fragrance--which is Carmen.

The film version followed the scenes of the opera rather than the story, which took nothing from the headlong truth of the central figure.

But no picturing can equal the star-clarity of Mérimée’s prose in Carmen’s death-scene--a thing of a piercing pathos comparable to nothing I know in writing.

‘After we had gone a little distance I said to her, “So, my Carmen, you are quite ready to follow me, isn’t it so?”

She answered, “Yes, I’ll follow you to the death--but I won’t live with you any more.”

We had reached a lonely gorge. I stopped my horse.

“Is this the place?” she said.

And with a spring she reached the ground. She took off her mantilla and threw it at her feet, and stood motionless with one hand on her hip, looking at me steadily.

“You mean to kill me, I see that well,” she said. “It is fate. But you’ll never make me give in.”

I said to her: “Be rational, I implore you; listen to me. All the past is forgotten. Yet you know it is you who have been my ruin--it is because of you that I am a robber and a murderer. Carmen, my Carmen, let me save you, and save myself with you.”

“José,” she answered, “what you ask is impossible. I don’t love you any more. You love me still and that is why you want to kill me. If I liked I might tell you some other lie, but I don’t choose to give myself the trouble. Everything is over between us two. You are my rom and you have the right to kill your romi, but Carmen will always be free. A calli she was born and a calli she’ll die.”

“Then you love Lucas?” I asked.

“Yes, I have loved him--as I loved you--for an instant--less than I loved you, perhaps. And now I don’t love anything. And I hate myself for ever having loved you.”

I cast myself at her feet, I seized her hands, I watered them with tears, I reminded her of all the happy moments we had spent together, I offered to continue my brigand’s life, if that would please her. Everything, sir, everything--I offered her everything if she would only love me again.

She said: “Love you again? That’s not possible. Live with you? I will not do it.”

I was wild with fury. I drew my knife. I would have had her look frightened and sue for mercy--but that woman was a demon. I cried: “For the last time I ask you, Will you stay with me?”

“No! No! No!” she said and she stamped her foot. Then she pulled a ring I had given her off her finger and cast it into the brushwood. I struck her twice over--I had taken Garcia’s knife because I had broken my own. At the second thrust she fell without a sound. It seems to me that I can still see her great black eyes staring at me. Then they grew dim and the lids closed.--For a good hour I lay there prostrate beside the corpse.’--

No play-acting could make the scene so pregnant and palpitant with human-stuff and alive in vision as that translucent jewel-prose of Mérimée. But so close as one art may counterfeit another, by drinking-up the fiery spirit essence which informs it, so close did this actor-woman compass and consummate the strong delicious unafraidness of Carmen’s death-hour.

The scene was staged as in the opera--a court outside the bull-fighting arena, with Carmen richly bejeweled and dressed in the lacy smart-lady clothes of the Toreador’s mistress. But that was nothing. The gypsy wildness of the written scene was in every insolently splendid bodily movement and each fateful loveliness of eyes and lips of the fulfilling Theda Bara.

I can still see the dark drooping-lidded dying eyes. I sensed Carmen in conscious chambers of my Mind. I felt her in my throat. It was Carmen herself living and breathing near me, the fearsomely adorable Carmen who has haunted the edge of my thoughts since I first read her.

There are some odd crudenesses in Theda Bara’s acting which had the effect of making her un-stagey, unobvious. They made her humanly vibrant. And they added a devilish wistfulness to her Carmen and a surprising feel of genuineness to the whole masque.

The actor’s art brings out the romance which is in human bone-and-flesh. And Theda Bara seems someway a master of its physical and spiritual subtleties. She expressed the swift emotion of Carmen by ringing slightest possible changes on her own virile and mobile body: insolence by kimboing an elbow: cruelty by the twitch of a wrist: sensual feeling by moving a knee and an ankle: murder in the twisting of her waistline: a fleet repressed animal tenderness by a posture of shoulder and breast: a heartbreak of mirth in her careless vivid lips: the desperate bravery of that death by the tilt of her potent chin: the hurricane-freedom of Carmen’s soul by lifting her face and her arms in the night wind. She worked with an exquisite muscular sincerity, as if she strongly gave her best of brain and blood and mettle to the part.

I looked at photographs of her which decorated the lobby of the theater. She looks a beautiful and earnest-seeming girl of a mental rather than a physical caste, with melancholy dark eyes, a childlike mouth-profile and the slim patrician hands of a Bourbon duchess. She will live in my warmed memory as the star of all the Carmens.

A flood of life and color goes into the staging of a Carmen film: a throng of attractive faces and bodies of people, women and men and lovely children, move through it in a pulsating gay pageant: flowers and Spanish prettinesses of costume and country-side and street and café are all over it, bright as life: and sweet winds blow in it and leaves and grasses wave and flutter, and the sunshine melts and mellows the air--all as if one saw it thrice-enlarged through windows. It is not poetry--it is not in itself any art, but a dear delectable counterfeit of it, a miracle-taste of the outer-looking madly-peopled world.

For me it meant my long-adored Mérimée given sudden brief life, the haunting Carmen turned into flesh: a spell of silent human-music which glowed and burned upon me like gentle fire.

Often is God thus capriciously kind to me.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
4 February 1922.
Massingham accepts the idea of a regular
story. Heard from K about *people.' It was rather
a horrible day. I was ill, and at night I had one of my terrible fits of temper over a parcel. Is it possible one can be so unruly?

Heard from J. saying he will stay in Montana. There breathes in his letter the relief from strain. It is remarkable. He does not believe a word about M. and talks of coming to *fetch ' me in May. Well, if I am any better, there will never be any more fetching. Of that I am determined. The letter kept me awake until very late. And my sciatica ! Put it on record, in case it ever goes, what a pain it is. Remember to give it to someone in a story one day. L.M. is a very tragic figure. Remember her eyes — the pupils dark — black
— and her whiteness. Even her hair seems to grow

Letters

pale. She folded the quilt and held it in her arms as though it was a baby.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
5 March 1662.
In the morning to the Painter’s about my little picture. Thence to Tom’s about business, and so to the pewterer’s, to buy a poore’s-box to put my forfeits in, upon breach of my late vows. So to the Wardrobe and dined, and thence home and to my office, and there sat looking over my papers of my voyage, when we fetched over the King, and tore so many of these that were worth nothing, as filled my closet as high as my knees. I staid doing this till 10 at night, and so home and to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|vangogh|>
7 March 1882.
I should like to make copies of “The Tarascon Diligence,” “The Vineyard,” “The Harvest,” and “The Red Cabaret,” especially of the night café, for its colouring is exceptionally characteristic. There is only one white figure in the middle which will have to be painted in afresh and improved in drawing, although it is good as far as its colour is concerned. The South really looks like this, I cannot help saying so. The whole scheme is a harmony in reddish green.

I do not need to go to the Museum and to see Titian and Velasquez. I have studied my trade in Nature’s workshop, and now I know better than I did before I took my little journey, what is above all necessary if one wishes to paint the South. Heavens! what fools all these painters are! They say that Delacroix does not paint the Orient as it is. Only Parisians--Gérôme, etc.--can paint the Orient as it is--is that their claim? It really is a funny thing, this business of painting, out in the wind and the sun. And when the crowd looks over one’s shoulder, one simply sets to like mad, as if the devil himself were at one’s back, until the canvas is covered. It is precisely in this way that one discovers what everything depends upon. And this is the whole secret.

After a while one takes the study up again and attends a little more to the form. Then, at least, the thing looks less rough and more harmonious, and one also introduces something of one’s own good cheer and laughter into it.

I am well aware of the fact that, to be healthy, one must resolutely wish to be so. Pain and even death must be faced, and all individual will and self-love must be renounced. That is nothing to me. I wish to paint and see men and things, the whole of pulsating life, even if it be only deceptive appearance. Aye! The true life is said to consist of something else: but I am not one of those who do not love life, and who are ready at all times to suffer and to die.

A man with my temperament can scarcely have success, lasting success. I shall probably never attain as much as I might and ought to attain.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|vangogh|>
14 April 1882.
I still believe that Gauguin and I will one day work together. I know that Gauguin is capable of greater things than he has given us already. Have you seen the portrait he painted of me while I was painting some sunflowers? My expression has certainly grown more cheerful since then, but at that time I looked just like that--absolutely exhausted and charged with electricity. If I had then had the strength to pursue my calling, I should have painted saintly figures of men and women from nature. They would have looked as if they belonged to another age. They would have been creatures of to-day and yet they would have borne some resemblance to the early Christians.

But that sort of thing is too wearing, it would have killed me. Nevertheless, I will not swear that later on, perhaps, I may not take up the struggle again. You are quite right, a thousand times right! One should not give a thought to such things. Painting studies is simply a taking of herbs to calm one, and when one is calm, well ... then one does what one is fitted for.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|vangogh|>
25 October 1882.
It really is a pity that there are so few pictures of poor people in Paris. I think that my peasant would look quite well by the side of your Lautrec. I even flatter myself that the Lautrec would look all the better for the strong contrast, while my picture would necessarily profit too from the peculiar juxtaposition; because sunniness and scorched tawny colouring, the hot sun and the open air, are thrown into stronger relief by the side of the powdered faces and the smart dresses. What a shame it is that the Parisians show so little taste for vigorous things, such as the Monticelli’s, for instance.

Of course I am well aware of the fact that one must not lose courage because Utopias do not come true. All I know is this, that everything I learnt in Paris is going to the deuce, and I am returning to that which seemed to me right and proper in the country, before I had become acquainted with the impressionists. I should not be at all surprised if, within a short time, the impressionists found a great deal to criticize in my work, which is certainly much more under the suggestion of Delacroix’ painting than of theirs. For, instead of reproducing exactly what I see before me, I treat the colouring in a perfectly arbitrary fashion. What I aim at above all is powerful expression. But let us drop theory, and allow me rather to make my meaning clear to you by means of an example.

Just suppose that I am to paint the portrait of an artist friend--an artist who dreams great dreams and who works as the nightingale sings, simply because it is his nature to do so.

Let us imagine him a fair man. All the love I feel for him I should like to reveal in my painting of the picture. To begin with, then, I paint him just as he is, as faithfully as possible--still this is only the beginning. The picture is by no means finished at this stage. Now I begin to apply the colour arbitrarily. I exaggerate the tone of his fair hair; I take orange, chrome, and dull lemon yellow. Behind his head, instead of the trivial wall of the room--I paint infinity. I make a simple background out of the richest of blues, as strong as my palette will allow. And thus, owing to this simple combination, the fair and luminous head has the mysterious effect, upon the rich blue background, of a star suspended in dark ether.

I proceed in much the same way with the portrait of the peasant. But one ought to picture this sort of fellow in the scorching noonday sun, in the midst of the harvest. Hence this flaming orange, like a red-hot iron; hence the luminous shadows like old gold. Ah, dear friend, the public will see only a caricature in this exaggeration. But what do we care? We have read “La Terre” and “Germinal,” and when we paint a peasant, we wish to show that this reading has become part of our flesh and blood.

I can only choose between being a good and a bad painter. I choose the former.

I still believe that in studios one learns next to nothing about painting and certainly nothing about life, and that one should do all one can to learn to live and to paint without having recourse to those old fools and wiseacres.{A} [These numbers refer to the notes at the end of the book.--TR. (The numbers have been replaced with letters and curly brackets for clarification.[etext transcriber.])]

When our relations with a painter are so strained as to make us say: “If that fellow exhibits any of his pictures by the side of mine, I shall withdraw mine,” and then proceed to abuse him, it seems to me that this is not the proper way to act; for, previous to arriving at such drastic conclusions one should make quite sure, and give the matter careful thought. After due reflection we are almost sure to find--particularly when we happen to be at loggerheads with the artist--that there is as much to criticize in our own work as in the other man’s. He has as much right to exist as we have. When it is remembered that this man or that--be he a pointilliste or a member of another school--has often done good work, instead of disparaging him, we should speak of him with respect and sympathy, more particularly if he happen to be in disagreement with us. Otherwise we become too narrow-minded and are no better than those who can say no good of others and regard themselves alone as right. The observance of this principle ought even to be extended to the academicians. Take one of Fantin-Latour’s pictures, for instance, or even the whole of his life-work! In any case he is not a revolutionary, and yet there is something restful and confident in his work, which elevates him to the rank of the most independent characters. For the good of all concerned, it is worth while abandoning the selfish principle: “Everyone for himself.”
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
3 May 1922.
Paris. I must begin writing for Clement Shorter to-day 12 " spasms " of 2,000 words each. I thought of the Burnells, but no, I don't think so. Much better, the Sheridans, the three girls and the brother and the Father and Mother and so on, ending

A New Story

with a long description of Meg's wedding to Keith Fenwick. Well, there's the first flown out of the nest. The sisters Bead, who come to stay. The white sheet on the floor when the wedding dress is tried on. Yes, I've got the details all right. But the point is — Where shall I begin? One certainly wants to dash.

Meg was playing. I don't think I ought to begin with that. It seems to me the mother's coming home ought to be the first chapter. The other can come later. And in that playing chapter what I want to stress chiefly is : Which is the real life — that or this ? — late afternoon, these thoughts — the garden — the beauty — how all things pass — and how the end seems to come so soon.

And then again there is the darling bird — I've always loved birds — Where is the little chap? . . .

What is it that stirs one so ? What is this seeking — so joyful — ah, so gentle! And there seems to be a moment when all is to be discovered. Yes, that's the feeling. . . .
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
19 March 1886.
For Gauguin--as for many of us, and certainly for ourselves--the future presents many great difficulties. I firmly believe that we shall triumph in the end; but will the artists themselves ever be able to taste of that triumph and enjoy happier days? Has T. written to you? In any case, believe me, your letter will do good. Even if he does not answer, he will at least hear about us, etc.

Poor Gauguin is unfortunate; I am afraid that convalescence in his case will last longer than the fortnight he has had to spend in bed. When shall we see a generation of artists with healthy bodies? At times I feel really wild with myself; for, after all, it is no good being either more sick or more sound than the others; the ideal thing would be to have a temperament strong enough to reach the age of eighty and to have healthy blood withal. Still without all this one would be consoled if only one were sure that a more happily constituted generation of artists was going to follow the present one.

I see that you have not yet had an answer from T. I do not think it necessary that we should petition him further by another letter. All the same, in the event of your having to discuss any matter of business with him, you might let him feel in a postscript that you are surprised he has not let you know whether or not he has received the letter in question.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
21 January 1901.
Happiness, don’t you know, is of three kinds--and all are transitory. It never stays, but it comes and goes.

There is that happiness that comes from newly-washed feet, for instance, and a pair of clean stockings on them, particularly after one has been upon a tramp into the country. Always I have identified this kind of happiness with a Maltese cat, dipping a hungry, stealthy, sensual tongue into a bowl of fresh, thick cream.

There is that still happiness that has come to me at rare times when I have been with my one friend--and which does very well for people whose feelings are moderate. They need wish for nothing beyond it. They could not appreciate anything deeper.

And there is that kind of happiness which is of the red sunset sky. There is something terrible in the thought of this indescribable mad Happiness. What a thing it is for a human being to be happy--with the red, red Happiness of the sunset sky!

It’s like a terrific storm in summer with rain and wind, beating quiet water into wild waves, bending great trees to the ground,--convulsing the green earth with delicious pain.

It’s like something of Schubert’s played on the violin that stirs you within to exquisite torture.

It’s like the human voice divine singing a Scotch ballad in a manner to drag your soul from your body.

But there are no words to tell it. It is something infinitely above and beyond words. It is the kind of Happiness the Devil will bring to me when he comes,--to me, to me! Oh, why does he not come now when I am in the midst of my youth! Why is he so long in coming?

Often you hear a dozen stories of how the Devil was most ready and willing to take all from some one and give him his measure of Happiness. And sometimes the person was innately virtuous and so could not take the Happiness when it was offered. But Happiness is its own justification, and it should be eagerly grasped when it comes.

A world filled with fools will never learn this.

And so here I stand in the midst of Nothingness waiting and longing for the Devil, and he doesn’t come. I feel a choking, strangling, frenzied feeling of waiting--oh, why doesn’t my Happiness come! I have waited so long--so long.

There are persons who say to me that I ought not to think of the Devil, that I ought not to think of Happiness--Happiness for me would be sure to mean something wicked (as if Happiness could ever be wicked!); that I ought to think of being good. I ought to think of God. These are persons who help to fill the world with fools. At any rate their words are unable to affect me. I can not distinguish between right and wrong in this scheme of things. It is one of the lines of reasoning in which I have gotten to the edge, the end. I have gotten to the point to which all logic finally leads. I can only say, What is wrong? What is right? What is good? What is evil? The words are merely words, with word-meanings.

Truth is Love, and Love is the only Truth, and Love is the one thing out of all that is real.

The Devil is really the only one to whom we may turn, and he exacts payment in full for every favor.

But surely he will come one day with Happiness for me.

Yet, oh, how can I wait!

To be a woman, young and all alone, is hard--hard!--is to want things, is to carry a heavy, heavy weight.

Oh, damn! damn! damn! Damn every living thing, the world!--the universe be damned!

Oh, I am weary, weary! Can’t you see that I am weary and pity me in my own damnation?
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
19 March 1669.
Up, and by water to White Hall, there to the Lords of the Treasury, and did some business, and here Sir Thomas Clifford did speak to me, as desirous that I would some time come and confer with him about the Navy, which I am glad of, but will take the direction of the Duke of York before I do it, though I would be glad to do something to secure myself, if I could, in my employment. Thence to the plaisterer’s, and took my face, and my Lord Duke of Albemarle’s, home with me by coach, they being done to my mind; and mighty glad I am of understanding this way of having the pictures of any friends. At home to dinner, where Mr. Sheres dined with us, but after dinner I left him and my wife, and with Commissioner Middleton and Kempthorne to a Court-martiall, to which, by virtue of my late Captainship, I am called, the first I was ever at; where many Commanders, and Kempthorne president. Here was tried a difference between Sir L. Van Hemskirke, the Dutch Captain who commands “The Nonsuch,” built by his direction, and his Lieutenant; a drunken kind of silly business. We ordered the Lieutenant to ask him pardon, and have resolved to lay before the Duke of York what concerns the Captain, which was striking of his Lieutenant and challenging him to fight, which comes not within any article of the laws martiall. But upon discourse the other day with Sir W. Coventry, I did advise Middleton, and he and I did forbear to give judgment, but after the debate did withdraw into another cabin, the Court being held in one of the yachts, which was on purpose brought up over against St. Katharine’s, it being to be feared that this precedent of our being made Captains, in order to the trying of the loss of “The Defyance,” wherein we are the proper persons to enquire into the want of instructions while ships do lie in harbour, evil use might be hereafter made of the precedent by putting the Duke of Buckingham, or any of these rude fellows that now are uppermost, to make packed Courts, by Captains made on purpose to serve their turns. The other cause was of the loss of “The Providence” at Tangier, where the Captain’s being by chance on shore may prove very inconvenient to him, for example’s sake, though the man be a good man, and one whom, for Norwood’s sake, I would be kind to; but I will not offer any thing to the excusing such a miscarriage. He is at present confined, till he can bring better proofs on his behalf of the reasons of his being on shore. So Middleton and I away to the Office; and there I late busy, making my people, as I have done lately, to read Mr. Holland’s’ Discourse of the Navy, and what other things I can get to inform me fully in all; and here late, about eight at night, comes Mr. Wren to me, who had been at the Tower to Coventry. He come only to see how matters go, and tells me, as a secret, that last night the Duke of York’s closet was broken open, and his cabinets, and shut again, one of them that the rogue that did it hath left plate and a watch behind him, and therefore they fear that it was only for papers, which looks like a very malicious business in design, to hurt the Duke of York; but they cannot know that till the Duke of York comes to town about the papers, and therefore make no words of it. He gone, I to work again, and then to supper at home, and to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
19 September 1660.
(Office day). I put on my mourning and went to the office. At noon thinking to have found my wife in hers, I found that the tailor had failed her, at which I was vexed because of an invitation that we have to a dinner this day, but after having waited till past one o’clock I went, and left her to put on some other clothes and come after me to the Mitre tavern in Wood-street (a house of the greatest note in London), where I met W. Symons, and D. Scobell, and their wives, Mr. Samford, Luellin, Chetwind, one Mr. Vivion, and Mr. White,

formerly chaplin to the Lady Protectresse----(and still so, and one they say that is likely to get my Lady Francess for his wife). Here we were very merry and had a very good dinner, my wife coming after me hither to us.

Among other pleasures some of us fell to handycapp,

a sport that I never knew before, which was very good. We staid till it was very late; it rained sadly, but we made shift to get coaches. So home and to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
6 March 1660.
(Shrove Tuesday.) I called Mr. Sheply and we both went up to my Lord’s lodgings at Mr. Crew’s, where he bade us to go home again, and get a fire against an hour after. Which we did at White Hall, whither he came, and after talking with him and me about his going to sea, he called me by myself to go along with him into the garden, where he asked me how things were with me, and what he had endeavoured to do with my uncle to get him to do something for me but he would say nothing too. He likewise bade me look out now at this turn some good place, and he would use all his own, and all the interest of his friends that he had in England, to do me good. And asked me whether I could, without too much inconvenience, go to sea as his secretary, and bid me think of it. He also began to talk of things of State, and told me that he should want one in that capacity at sea, that he might trust in, and therefore he would have me to go. He told me also, that he did believe the King would come in, and did discourse with me about it, and about the affection of the people and City, at which I was full glad. After he was gone, I waiting upon him through the garden till he came to the Hall, where I left him and went up to my office, where Mr. Hawly brought one to me, a seaman, that had promised Rio to him if he get him a purser’s place, which I think to endeavour to do. Here comes my uncle Tom, whom I took to Will’s and drank with, poor man, he comes to inquire about the knights of Windsor, of which he desires to get to be one.

While we were drinking, in comes Mr. Day, a carpenter in Westminster, to tell me that it was Shrove Tuesday, and that I must go with him to their yearly Club upon this day, which I confess I had quite forgot. So I went to the Bell, where were Mr. Eglin, Veezy, Vincent a butcher, one more, and Mr. Tanner, with whom I played upon a viall, and he a viallin, after dinner, and were very merry, with a special good dinner, a leg of veal and bacon, two capons and sausages and fritters, with abundance of wine. After that I went home, where I found Kate Sterpin who hath not been here a great while before. She gone I went to see Mrs. Jem, at whose chamber door I found a couple of ladies, but she not being there, we hunted her out, and found that she and another had hid themselves behind a door. Well, they all went down into the dining-room, where it was full of tag, rag, and bobtail, dancing, singing, and drinking, of which I was ashamed, and after I had staid a dance or two I went away. Going home, called at my Lord’s for Mr. Sheply, but found him at the Lion with a pewterer, that he had bought pewter to-day of. With them I drank, and so home and wrote by the post, by my Lord’s command, for J. Goods to come up presently. For my Lord intends to go forthwith into the Swiftsure till the Nazeby be ready. This day I hear that the Lords do intend to sit, and great store of them are now in town, and I see in the Hall to-day. Overton at Hull do stand out, but can, it is thought, do nothing; and Lawson, it is said, is gone with some ships thither, but all that is nothing. My Lord told me, that there was great endeavours to bring in the Protector again; but he told me, too, that he did believe it would not last long if he were brought in; no, nor the King neither (though he seems to think that he will come in), unless he carry himself very soberly and well. Every body now drinks the King’s health without any fear, whereas before it was very private that a man dare do it. Monk this day is feasted at Mercers’ Hall, and is invited one after another to all the twelve Halls in London! Many think that he is honest yet, and some or more think him to be a fool that would raise himself, but think that he will undo himself by endeavouring it. My mind, I must needs remember, has been very much eased and joyed at my Lord’s great expressions of kindness this day, and in discourse thereupon my wife and I lay awake an hour or two in our bed.
<|/entry|><|entry|>
12 March 1660.
This day the wench rose at two in the morning to wash, and my wife and I lay talking a great while. I by reason of my cold could not tell how to sleep. My wife and I to the Exchange, where we bought a great many things, where I left her and went into London, and at Bedells the bookseller’s at the Temple gate I paid L12 10s. 6d. for Mr. Fuller by his direction. So came back and at Wilkinson’s found Mr. Sheply and some sea people, as the cook of the Nazeby and others, at dinner. Then to the White Horse in King Street, where I got Mr. Buddle’s horse to ride to Huntsmore to Mr. Bowyer’s, where I found him and all well, and willing to have my wife come and board with them while I was at sea, which was the business I went about. Here I lay and took a thing for my cold, namely a spoonful of honey and a nutmeg scraped into it, by Mr. Bowyer’s direction, and so took it into my mouth, which I found did do me much good.
<|/entry|><|entry|>
20 March 1660.
This morning I rose early and went to my house to put things in a little order against my going, which I conceive will be to-morrow (the weather still very rainy). After that to my Lord, where I found very great deal of business, he giving me all letters and papers that come to him about business, for me to give him account of when we come on shipboard. Hence with Capt. Isham by coach to Whitehall to the Admiralty. He and I and Chetwind, Doling and Luellin dined together at Marsh’s at Whitehall. So to the Bull Head whither W. Simons comes to us and I gave them my foy

against my going to sea; and so we took leave one of another, they promising me to write to me to sea. Hither comes Pim’s boy, by my direction, with two monteeres----for me to take my choice of, and I chose the saddest colour and left the other for Mr. Sheply. Hence by coach to London, and took a short melancholy leave of my father and mother, without having them to drink, or say anything of business one to another. And indeed I had a fear upon me I should scarce ever see my mother again, she having a great cold then upon her. Then to Westminster, where by reason of rain and an easterly wind, the water was so high that there was boats rowed in King Street and all our yard was drowned, that one could not go to my house, so as no man has seen the like almost, most houses full of water.

Then back by coach to my Lord’s; where I met Mr. Sheply, who staid with me waiting for my Lord’s coming in till very late. Then he and I, and William Howe went with our swords to bring my Lord home from Sir H. Wright’s. He resolved to go to-morrow if the wind ceased. Sheply and I home by coach. I to Mrs. Crisp’s, who had sat over a good supper long looking for me. So we sat talking and laughing till it was very late, and so Laud and I to bed.
<|/entry|><|entry|>
28 March 1660.
This morning and the whole day busy, and that the more because Mr. Burr was about his own business all the day at Gravesend. At night there was a gentleman very well bred, his name was Banes, going for Flushing, who spoke French and Latin very well, brought by direction from Captain Clerke hither, as a prisoner, because he called out of the vessel that he went in, “Where is your King, we have done our business, Vive le Roi.” He confessed himself a Cavalier in his heart, and that he and his whole family had fought for the King; but that he was then drunk, having been all night taking his leave at Gravesend the night before, and so could not remember what it was that he said; but in his words and carriage showed much of a gentleman. My Lord had a great kindness for him, but did not think it safe to release him, but commanded him to be used civilly, so he was taken to the Master’s Cabin and had supper there. In the meantime I wrote a letter to the Council about him, and an order for the vessel to be sent for back that he was taken out of. But a while after, he sent a letter down to my Lord, which my Lord did like very well, and did advise with me what was best to be done. So I put in something to my Lord and then to the Captain that the gentleman was to be released and the letter stopped, which was done. So I went up and sat and talked with him in Latin and French, and drank a bottle or two with him; and about eleven at night he took boat again, and so God bless him. Thence I to my cabin and to bed. This day we had news of the election at Huntingdon for Bernard and Pedly, at which my Lord was much troubled for his friends’ missing of it.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
13 March 1901.
If it were pain alone that one must bear, one could bear it. One could lose one’s sense of everything but pain.

But it is pain with other things. It is the sense of pain with the sense of beauty and the sense of the anemone. And there is that mysterious pain.

Who knows the name of that mysterious pain?

It is these mingled senses that torture me.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
1 January 1922.
I dreamed I sailed to Egypt with Grandma

— a very white boat.

Cold, still. The gale last night has blown nearly all the snow off the trees; only big, frozen-looking lumps remain. In the wood where the snow is thick, bars of sunlight lay like pale fire.

I have left undone those things I ought to have done and I have done those things which I ought not to have done, e.g. violent impatience with L.M.

Wrote The Doves' Nest this afternoon. I was in no mood to write; it seemed impossible. Yet when I had finished three pages, they were all right. This is a proof (never to be too often proved) that once one has thought out a story nothing remains but the labour.

Wing Lee disappeared for the day. Read W.J.D.'s poems. I feel very near to him in mind.

I want to remember how the light fades from a room

— and one fades with it, is expunged, sitting still, knees together, hands in pocket. . . .
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
2 January 1922.
Little round birds in the fir-tree at the side window, scouring the tree for food. I crumbled a piece

Rested
of bread, but though the crumbs fell in the branches only two found them. There was a strange remoteness in the air, the scene, the winter cheeping. In the evening, for the first time for I felt rested. I sat up in

bed and discovered I was singing within. Even the sound of the wind is different. It is joyful, not ominous and black. Dark looks in at the window and is only black dark. In the afternoon it came on to rain, long glancing rain, falling aslant.

I have not done the work I should have done. I shirk the lunch party. This is very bad. In fact I am disgusted with myself. There must be a change from now on. What I chiefly admire in Jane Austen is that what she promises, she performs, i.e. if Sir T. is to arrive, we have his arrival at length, and it's excellent and exceeds our expectations. This is rare; it is also my very weakest point. Easy to see why. . . .
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
18 September 1662.
At the office all the morning, and at noon Sir G. Carteret, Mr. Coventry, and I by invitation to dinner to Sheriff Maynell’s, the great money-man; he, Alderman Backwell, and much noble and brave company, with the privilege of their rare discourse, which is great content to me above all other things in the world. And after a great dinner and much discourse, we arose and took leave, and home to the business of my office, where I thank God I take delight, and in the evening to my lodging and to bed. Among other discourse, speaking concerning the great charity used in Catholic countrys, Mr. Ashburnham did tell us, that this last year, there being great want of corn in Paris, and so a collection made for the poor, there was two pearls brought in, nobody knew from whom (till the Queen, seeing them, knew whose they were, but did not discover it), which were sold for 200,000 crownes.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
20 November 1663.
Up, and as soon as I could to my Lord Sandwich’s lodgings, but he was gone out before, and so I am defeated of my expectation of being eased one way or other in the business of my Lord. But I went up to Mr. Howe, who I saw this day the first time in a periwigg, which becomes him very well, and discoursed with him. He tells me that my Lord is of a sudden much changed, and he do believe that he do take my letter well. However, we do both bless God that it hath so good an effect upon him. Thence I home again, calling at the Wardrobe, where I found my Lord, but so busy with Mr. Townsend making up accounts there that I was unwilling to trouble him, and so went away. By and by to the Exchange, and there met by agreement Mr. Howe, and took him with a barrel of oysters home to dinner, where we were very merry, and indeed I observe him to be a very hopeful young man, but only a little conceited. After dinner I took him and my wife, and setting her in Covent Garden at her mother’s, he and I to my Lord’s, and thence I with Mr. Moore to White Hall, there the King and Council being close, and I thinking it an improper place to meet my Lord first upon the business; I took coach, and calling my wife went home, setting Mr. Moore down by the way, and having been late at the office alone looking over some plates of the Northern seas, the White seas, and Archangell river, I went home, and, after supper, to bed. My wife tells me that she and her brother have had a great falling out to-night, he taking upon him to challenge great obligation upon her, and taxing her for not being so as she ought to be to her friends, and that she can do more with me than she pretends, and I know not what, but God be thanked she cannot. A great talke there is today of a crush between some of the Fanatiques up in arms, and the King’s men in the North; but whether true I know not yet.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|pepys|>
6 December 1663.
(Lord’s day). Lay long in bed, and then up and to church alone, which is the greatest trouble that I have by not having a man or, boy to wait on me, and so home to dinner, my wife, it being a cold day, and it begun to snow (the first snow we have seen this year) kept her bed till after dinner, and I below by myself looking over my arithmetique books and timber rule. So my wife rose anon, and she and I all the afternoon at arithmetique, and she is come to do Addition, Subtraction, and Multiplicacion very well, and so I purpose not to trouble her yet with Division, but to begin with the Globes to her now. At night came Captain Grove to discourse with me about Field’s business and of other matters, and so, he being gone, I to my office, and spent an houre or two reading Rushworth, and so to supper home, and to prayers and bed, finding myself by cold to have some pain begin with me, which God defend should increase.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|pepys|>
7 December 1663.
Up betimes, and, it being a frosty morning, walked on foot to White Hall, but not without some fear of my pain coming. At White Hall I hear and find that there was the last night the greatest tide that ever was remembered in England to have been in this river: all White Hall having been drowned, of which there was great discourse. Anon we all met, and up with the Duke and did our business, and by and by my Lord of Sandwich came in, but whether it be my doubt or no I cannot tell, but I do not find that he made any sign of kindnesse or respect to me, which troubles me more than any thing in the world. After done there Sir W. Batten and Captain Allen and I by coach to the Temple, where I ‘light, they going home, and indeed it being my trouble of mind to try whether I could meet with my Lord Sandwich and try him to see how he will receive me. I took coach and back again to Whitehall, but there could not find him. But here I met Dr. Clerke, and did tell him my story of my health; how my pain comes to me now-a-days. He did write something for me which I shall take when there is occasion. I then fell to other discourse of Dr. Knapp, who tells me he is the King’s physician, and is become a solicitor for places for people, and I am mightily troubled with him. He tells me he is the most impudent fellow in the world, that gives himself out to be the King’s physician, but it is not so, but is cast out of the Court. From thence I may learn what impudence there is in the world, and how a man may be deceived in persons: Anon the King and Duke and Duchesse came to dinner in the Vane-roome, where I never saw them before; but it seems since the tables are done, he dines there all together. The Queene is pretty well, and goes out of her chamber to her little chappell in the house. The King of France, they say, is hiring of sixty sail of ships of the Dutch, but it is not said for what design. By and by, not hoping to see my Lord, I went to the King’s Head ordinary, where a good dinner but no discourse almost, and after dinner by coach, home, and found my wife this cold day not yet out of bed, and after a little good talk with her to my office, and there spent my time till late. Sir W. Warren two or three hours with me talking of trade, and other very good discourse, which did please me very, well, and so, after reading in Rushworth, home to supper and to bed.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|pepys|>
14 December 1663.
Up by candlelight, which I do not use to do, though it be very late, that is to say almost 8 o’clock, and out by coach to White Hall, where we all met and to the Duke, where I heard a large discourse between one that goes over an agent from the King to Legorne and thereabouts, to remove the inconveniences his ships are put to by denial of pratique; which is a thing that is now-a-days made use of only as a cheat, for a man may buy a bill of health for a piece of eight, and my enemy may agree with the Intendent of the Sante for ten pieces of eight or so; that he shall not give me a bill of health, and so spoil me in my design, whatever it be. This the King will not endure, and so resolves either to have it removed, or to keep all ships from coming in, or going out there, so long as his ships are stayed for want hereof. Then, my Lord Sandwich being there, we all went into the Duke’s closet and did our business. But among other things, Lord! what an account did Sir J. Minnes and Sir W. Batten make of the pulling down and burning of the head of the Charles, where Cromwell was placed with people under his horse, and Peter, as the Duke called him, is praying to him; and Sir J. Minnes would needs infer the temper of the people from their joy at the doing of this and their building a gibbet for the hanging of his head up, when God knows, it is even the flinging away of L100 out of the King’s purse, to the building of another, which it seems must be a Neptune. Thence I through White Hall only to see what was doing, but meeting none that I knew I went through the garden to my Lord Sandwich’s lodging, where I found my Lord got before me (which I did not intend or expect) and was there trying some musique, which he intends for an anthem of three parts, I know not whether for the King’s chapel or no, but he seems mighty intent upon it. But it did trouble me to hear him swear before God and other oathes, as he did now and then without any occasion, which methinks did so ill become him, and I hope will be a caution for me, it being so ill a thing in him. The musique being done, without showing me any good or ill countenance, he did give me his hat and so adieu, and went down to his coach without saying anything to me. He being gone I and Mr. Howe talked a good while. He tells me that my Lord, it is true, for a while after my letter, was displeased, and did shew many slightings of me when he had occasion of mentioning me to his Lordship, but that now my Lord is in good temper and he do believe will shew me as much respect as ever, and would have me not to refrain to come to him. This news I confess did much trouble me, but when I did hear how he is come to himself, and hath wholly left Chelsy, and the slut, and that I see he do follow his business, and becomes in better repute than before, I am rejoiced to see it, though it do cost me some disfavour for a time, for if not his good nature and ingenuity, yet I believe his memory will not bear it always in his mind. But it is my comfort that this is the thing that after so many years good service that has made him my enemy. Thence to the King’s Head ordinary, and there dined among a company of fine gentlemen; some of them discoursed of the King of France’s greatness, and how he is come to make the Princes of the Blood to take place of all foreign Embassadors, which it seems is granted by them of Venice and other States, and expected from my Lord. Hollis, our King’s Embassador there; and that either upon that score or something else he hath not had his entry yet in Paris, but hath received several affronts, and among others his harnesse cut, and his gentlemen of his horse killed, which will breed bad blood if true. They say also that the King of France hath hired threescore ships of Holland, and forty of the Swede, but nobody knows what to do; but some great designs he hath on foot against the next year. Thence by coach home and to my office, where I spent all the evening till night with Captain Taylor discoursing about keeping of masts, and when he was gone, with Sir W. Warren, who did give me excellent discourse about the same thing, which I have committed to paper, and then fell to other talk of his being at Chatham lately and there discoursing of his masts. Commissioner Pett did let fall several scurvy words concerning my pretending to know masts as well as any body, which I know proceeds ever since I told him I could measure a piece of timber as well as anybody employed by the King. But, however, I shall remember him for a black sheep again a good while, with all his fair words to me, and perhaps may let him know that my ignorance does the King as much good as all his knowledge, which would do more it is true if it were well used. Then we fell to talk of Sir J. Minnes’s and Sir W. Batten’s burning of Oliver’s head, while he was there; which was done with so much insulting and folly as I never heard of, and had the Trayned Band of Rochester to come to the solemnity, which when all comes to all, Commissioner Pett says it never was made for him; but it troubles me the King should suffer L100 losse in his purse, to make a new one after it was forgot whose it was, or any words spoke of it. He being gone I mightily pleased with his discourse, by which I always learn something, I to read a little in Rushworth, and so home to supper to my wife, it having been washing day, and so to bed, my mind I confess a little troubled for my Lord Sandwich’s displeasure. But God will give me patience to bear since it rises from so good an occasion.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
7 December 1664.
Lay long, then up, and among others Bagwell’s wife coming to speak with me put new thoughts of folly into me which I am troubled at. Thence after doing business at my office, I by coach to my Lady Sandwich’s, and there dined with her, and found all well and merry. Thence to White Hall, and we waited on the Duke, who looks better than he did, methinks, before his voyage; and, I think, a little more stern than he used to do. Thence to the Temple to my cozen Roger Pepys, thinking to have met the Doctor to have discoursed our business, but he came not, so I home, and there by agreement came my Lord Rutherford, Povy, Gauden, Creed, Alderman Backewell, about Tangier business of accounts between Rutherford and Gauden. Here they were with me an hour or more, then after drinking away, and Povy and Creed staid and eat with me; but I was sorry I had no better cheer for Povy; for the foole may be useful, and is a cunning fellow in his way, which is a strange one, and that, that I meet not in any other man, nor can describe in him. They late with me, and when gone my boy and I to musique, and then to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
19 February 1915.
I woke up early this morning and when I opened the shutters the full round sun was just risen. I began to repeat that verse of Shakespeare's: "Lo, here the gentle lark weary of rest," and bounded back into bed. The bound made me cough — I spat — it tasted strange — it was bright red blood. Since then I've gone on spitting each time I cough a little more. Oh, yes, of course I am frightened. But for two reasons only. I don't want to be ill, I mean 'seriously,' away from J. J is the first thought. 2nd, I don't want to find this is real consumption, perhaps it's going to gallop — who knows? — and I shan't have my work written. That's what matters. How unbearable it would be to die — leave 'scraps,' 'bits' . . . nothing real finished.

But I feel the first thing to do is to get back to J. Yes, my right lung hurts me badly but it always does more or less. But J. and my work — they are all I think of (mixed with curious visionary longings for gardens in full flower). L.M. has gone for the doctor.

I knew this would happen. Now I'll say why. On my way here, in the train from Paris to Marseilles I sat in a carriage with two women. They were both dressed in black. One was big, one little. The little spry one had a sweet smile and light eyes. She was extremely pale, had been ill — was come to repose herself. The Big One, as the night wore on, wrapped herself up in a black shawl — so did her friend. They shaded the lamp and started (trust 'em) talking about illnesses. I sat in the corner feeling damned ill myself.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
June 1922.
Randogne, Switzerland. I find the rapture at being alone hard to understand. Certainly when I am sitting out of sight under a tree I feel I could be content never to return. As to *fear*,' it is gone. It is replaced by a kind of callousness. What will be, will be. But this is not a very useful statement, for I've never put it to the test.

Should I be as happy with anyone at my side? No. I'd begin to talk, and it's far nicer not to talk. Or, if it were J., he'd open a little blue book by Diderot, Jacques le Fataliste, and begin to read it, and that would make me wretched. . . . Why the devil want to read stuffy, snuffy Diderot when there is this other book before one's eyes? I do not want to be a bookworm. If its book is taken away from it, the little blind head is raised; it wags, hovers, terribly uneasy, in a void — until it begins to burrow again.

Loneliness: '*Oh Loneliness, of my sad heart be Queen!*' It isn't in the least that. My heart is not sad except when I am among people, and then I am far too

distracted to think about Queens. (Oh, dear! Here is a walking tragedy — Madame with a whole tray of food! And I begged for a basket, only a basket!)

I have watched this big heavy woman, moving so sullen, plodding in and out with her pails and brushes, coming to the door at midday and evening to look for her husband and child. She looks neither sad nor happy; she looks resigned and stupefied. Sometimes, when she stops and stares round her, she is like a cow that is being driven along a road, and sometimes when, leaning out the window, she watches her quick husband, so jauntily cutting up logs of wood, I think she hates him — and the sight of her suffocates him.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|vangogh|>
[Prompt: What did you notice today that no one else did?]
3 September 1887.
There is a porch here--that of St. Trophime--which I am beginning to think extremely beautiful. It is, however, so cruel, so monstrous, and so like a terrifying and grotesque spectre of dreamland, that, beautiful monument though it is, and great as is its style, it seems to me to be part of another world, to which I am just as pleased not to belong as I am not to have lived in the glorious world of Nero.

Shall I admit the truth, and add that the Zouaves, the houses of ill-fame, the charming little girls of Arles who go to their confirmation, the priests in their surplices, in which they look like dangerous antediluvian animals,{FF} and the drinkers of absinthe also seem to me like creatures from another world? All this does not mean that I should feel more at my ease in an artistic world, but simply that I prefer to laugh about it than to feel isolated; because I have the idea that I should be sad if I could not look at everything in a humorous light.

In the evenings I have company; for the young Danish painter who is here is a very nice fellow. His pictures are dry, correct, and sober; but in my opinion this is not a serious fault, provided that the artist be young and intelligent. He began by studying medicine; knows Zola’s, Goncourt’s, and Guy de Maupassant’s works, and has enough money to lead a pleasant life. In addition to this he is animated by the earnest desire one day to do better work than he is now doing. I believe he would do well to postpone his return to his Fatherland for a year, or to return here after only a short visit to his home.
<|/entry|>