<|entry|>
17 May 1667.
Up, and to the office, where all the morning upon some accounts of Mr. Gawden’s, and at noon to the Three Tuns to dinner with Lord Bruncker, Sir J. Minnes, W. Batten, W. Pen, and T. Harvy, where very merry, and my Lord Bruncker in appearance as good friends as ever, though I know he has a hatred to me in heart. After dinner to my house, where Mr. Sheply dined, and we drank and talked together. He, poor man, hath had his arm broke the late frost, slipping in going over Huntingdon Bridge. He tells me that jasper Trice and Lewes Phillips and Mr. Ashfield are gone from Brampton, and he thinks chiefly from the height of Sir J. Bernard’s carriage, who carries all things before him there, which they cannot bear with, and so leave the town, and this is a great instance of the advantage a man of the law hath over all other people, which would make a man to study it a little. Sheply being gone, there come the flageolet master, who having had a bad bargain of teaching my wife by the year, she not practising so much as she should do, I did think that the man did deserve some more consideration, and so will give him an opportunity of 20s. a month more, and he shall teach me, and this afternoon I begun, and I think it will be a few shillings well spent. Then to Sir R. Viner’s with 600 pieces of gold to turn into silver, for the enabling me to answer Sir G. Carteret’s L3000; which he now draws all out of my hand towards the paying for a purchase he hath made for his son and my Lady Jemimah, in Northamptonshire, of Sir Samuel Luke, in a good place; a good house, and near all her friends; which is a very happy thing. Thence to St. James’s, and there spoke with Sir W. Coventry, and give him some account of some things, but had little discourse with him, there being company with him, and so directly home again and then to my office, doing some business, and so to my house, and with my wife to practice on the flageolet a little, and with great pleasure I see she can readily hit her notes, but only want of practice makes her she cannot go through a whole tune readily. So to supper and to bed.
<|/entry|><|entry|>
24 May 1667.
Up, and to the office, where, by and by, by appointment, we met upon Sir W. Warren’s accounts, wherein I do appear in every thing as much as I can his enemy, though not so far but upon good conditions from him I may return to be his friend, but I do think it necessary to do what I do at present. We broke off at noon without doing much, and then home, where my wife not well, but yet engaged by invitation to go with Sir W. Pen. I got her to go with him by coach to Islington to the old house, where his lady and Madam Lowther, with her exceeding fine coach and mean horses, and her mother-in-law, did meet us, and two of Mr. Lowther’s brothers, and here dined upon nothing but pigeon-pyes, which was such a thing for him to invite all the company to, that I was ashamed of it. But after dinner was all our sport, when there come in a juggler, who, indeed, did shew us so good tricks as I have never seen in my life, I think, of legerdemaine, and such as my wife hath since seriously said that she would not believe but that he did them by the help of the devil. Here, after a bad dinner, and but ordinary company, saving that I discern good parts in one of the sons, who, methought, did take me up very prettily in one or two things that I said, and I was so sensible of it as to be a caution to me hereafter how I do venture to speak more than is necessary in any company, though, as I did now, I do think them incapable to censure me. We broke up, they back to Walthamstow, and only my wife and I and Sir W. Pen to the King’s playhouse, and there saw “The Mayden Queene,” which, though I have often seen, yet pleases me infinitely, it being impossible, I think, ever to have the Queen’s part, which is very good and passionate, and Florimel’s part, which is the most comicall that ever was made for woman, ever done better than they two are by young Marshall and Nelly. Home, where I spent the evening with my father and wife, and late at night some flagillette with my wife, and then to supper and to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
[Prompt: What is the weather inside you?]
5 February 1666.
Up, and with Sir W. Batten (at whose lodgings calling for him, I saw his Lady the first time since her coming to towne since the plague, having absented myself designedly to shew some discontent, and that I am not at all the more suppliant because of my Lord Sandwich’s fall), to my Lord Bruncker’s, to see whether he goes to the Duke’s this morning or no. But it is put off, and so we parted. My Lord invited me to dinner to-day to dine with Sir W. Batten and his Lady there, who were invited before, but lest he should thinke so little an invitation would serve my turne I refused and parted, and to Westminster about business, and so back to the ‘Change, and there met Mr. Hill, newly come to town, and with him the Houblands, preparing for their ship’s and his going to Tangier, and agreed that I must sup with them to-night. So home and eat a bit, and then to White Hall to a Committee for Tangier, but it did not meet but was put off to to-morrow, so I did some little business and visited my Lord Sandwich, and so, it raining, went directly to the Sun, behind the Exchange, about seven o’clock, where I find all the five brothers Houblons, and mighty fine gentlemen they are all, and used me mighty respectfully. We were mighty civilly merry, and their discourses, having been all abroad, very fine. Here late and at last accompanied home with Mr. J. Houblon and Hill, whom I invited to sup with me on Friday, and so parted and I home to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
23 December 1660.
(Lord’s day). In the morning to Church, where our pew all covered with rosemary and baize. A stranger made a dull sermon. Home and found my wife and maid with much ado had made shift to spit a great turkey sent me this week from Charles Carter, my old colleague, now minister in Huntingdonshire, but not at all roasted, and so I was fain to stay till two o’clock, and after that to church with my wife, and a good sermon there was, and so home. All the evening at my book, and so to supper and to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
18 October 1661.
To White Hall, to Mr. Montagu’s, where I met with Mr. Pierce, the purser, to advise about the things to be sent to my Lord for the Queen’s provision, and was cleared in it, and now there is all haste made, for the fleet’s going. At noon to my Lord’s to dinner, and in the afternoon, leaving my wife there, Mr. Moore and I to Mrs. Goldsborough, who sent for a friend to meet with us, and so we were talking about the difference between us till 10 at night. I find it very troublesome, and have brought it into some hopes of an agreement, I offering to forgive her L10 that is yet due according to my uncle’s accounts to us. So we left her friend to advise about it, and I hope to hear of her, for I would not by any means go to law with a woman of so devilish a tongue as she has. So to my Lady’s, where I left my wife to lie with Mademoiselle all night, and I by link home and to bed. This night lying alone, and the weather cold, and having this last 7 or 8 days been troubled with a tumor... which is now abated by a poultice of a good handful of bran with half a pint of vinegar and a pint of water boiled till it be thick, and then a spoonful of honey put to it and so spread in a cloth and laid to it, I first put on my waistcoat to lie in all night this year, and do not intend to put it off again till spring. I met with complaints at home that my wife left no victuals for them all this day.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|pepys|>
19 October 1661.
At the office all the morning, and at noon Mr. Coventry, who sat with us all the morning, and Sir G. Carteret, Sir W. Pen, and myself,. by coach to Captain Marshe’s, at Limehouse, to a house that hath been their ancestors for this 250 years, close by the lime-house which gives the name to the place. Here they have a design to get the King to hire a dock for the herring busses, which is now the great design on foot, to lie up in. We had a very good and handsome dinner, and excellent wine. I not being neat in clothes, which I find a great fault in me, could not be so merry as otherwise, and at all times I am and can be, when I am in good habitt, which makes me remember my father Osborne’s’ rule for a gentleman to spare in all things rather than in that. So by coach home, and so to write letters by post, and so to bed.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|pepys|>
30 October 1661.
All the morning at the office. At noon played on my Theorbo, and much pleased therewith; it is now altered with a new neck. In the afternoon Captain Lambert called me out by appointment, and we walked together to Deptford, and there in his ship, the Norwich, I got him to shew me every hole and corner of the ship, much to my information, and the purpose of my going. So home again, and at Sir W. Batten’s heard how he had been already at Sir R. Slingsby’s, as we were all invited, and I intended this night to go, and there he finds all things out of order, and no such thing done to-night, but pretending that the corps stinks, they will bury it to-night privately, and so will unbespeak all their guests, and there shall be no funerall, which I am sorry for, that there should be nothing done for the honour of Sir Robert, but I fear he hath left his family in great distraction. Here I staid till late at cards with my Lady and Mrs. Martha, and so home. I sent for a bottle or two of wine thither. At my coming home I am sorry to find my wife displeased with her maid Doll, whose fault is that she cannot keep her peace, but will always be talking in an angry manner, though it be without any reason and to no purpose, which I am sorry for and do see the inconvenience that do attend the increase of a man’s fortune by being forced to keep more servants, which brings trouble. Sir Henry Vane, Lambert, and others, are lately sent suddenly away from the Tower, prisoners to Scilly; but I do not think there is any plot as is said, but only a pretence; as there was once pretended often against the Cavaliers.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|pepys|>
6 November 1661.
Going forth this morning I met Mr. Davenport and a friend of his, one Mr. Furbisher, to drink their morning draft with me, and I did give it them in good wine, and anchovies, and pickled oysters, and took them to the Sun in Fish Street, there did give them a barrel of good ones, and a great deal of wine, and sent for Mr. W. Bernard (Sir Robert’s son), a grocer thereabouts, and were very merry, and cost me a good deal of money, and at noon left them, and with my head full of wine, and being invited by a note from Luellin, that came to my hands this morning in bed, I went to Nick Osborne’s at the Victualling Office, and there saw his wife, who he has lately married, a good sober woman, and new come to their home. We had a good dish or two of marrowbones and another of neats’ tongues to dinner, and that being done I bade them adieu and hastened to Whitehall (calling Mr. Moore by the way) to my Lord Privy Seal, who will at last force the clerks to bring in a table of their fees, which they have so long denied, but I do not join with them, and so he is very respectful to me. So he desires me to bring in one which I observe in making of fees, which I will speedily do. So back again, and endeavoured to speak with Tom Trice (who I fear is hatching some mischief), but could not, which vexed me, and so I went home and sat late with pleasure at my lute, and so to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|vangogh|>
24 April 1881.
In order to make studies out of doors, and to paint a small sketch, a very strongly developed feeling for form is a pre-requisite. And this feeling is equally necessary for the subsequent further elaboration of one’s work.

In my opinion, however, this is not acquired automatically, but chiefly through observation, and furthermore through strenuously working and seeking. A study of anatomy and perspective is undoubtedly necessary as well.

At my side there hangs a landscape study by Roeloffs (a pen-and-ink drawing); but I cannot describe the full expressiveness of its simple silhouette. For everything depends upon that.

Another and even more striking example is the large wood-engraving of Millet’s _Bergère_, which I saw at your place last year, and of which I still have the most vivid recollection. While there are also Ostade’s and Bauern-Breughel’s small pen-and-ink drawings, for instance.

I have once more tackled the old pollard-willow, and I believe that it is the best of my water-colours. It is a dark landscape. My desire was to paint it in such a way that the spectator must read and sympathize with the thoughts of the signal man with his red flag, who seems to say, “Oh, what a gloomy day it is!”

I am deriving great pleasure from my work just now, although from time to time I feel the after-effects of my illness somewhat severely. As to the market value of my pictures, I should be very much surprised if, in time, they did not sell as well as other people’s. Whether this happens directly or later on does not matter to me. But to work faithfully and earnestly from Nature is, to my mind, a safe and sure road which must lead to one’s goal.

Sooner or later a love of Nature always meets with response from people interested in Art. Therefore it is the painter’s duty to become absorbed in Nature, to exercise all his intelligence, and put all his feeling into his work so that it may be comprehensible to others. But to work with a view to sell is, in my opinion, not the proper way, neither should we consider the taste of the art-lover--the great painters never did so. For the sympathy which sooner or later rewarded their efforts, they had to thank only their own honesty. That is all I know about it, and I do not believe that I require to know any more. To work in order to find people who will appreciate one, and in order to kindle love in them, is a very different thing, and naturally a very right one too. But nothing of the nature of a speculation should be attempted; for this might turn out wrong, and then much time would have been spent in vain.

Among the water-colours I have just painted, you will find many things that ought to be eliminated--but that will come in time. But please understand me, I have not the remotest idea of abiding by a system, or anything of the sort.

Now farewell! And believe me that I often have a hearty laugh at the thought that people should reproach me with certain absurdities and iniquities which have never so much as entered my head; for what am I but a friend of Nature, of study, of work, and above all of man?
<|/entry|><|entry|><|vangogh|>
4 May 1881.
A day or two ago I paid another visit to Scheveningen, and in the evening had the pleasure of seeing a fishing smack enter the harbour. Near the monument there is a wooden hut on which stood a man who was waiting. As soon as the smack sailed into view, this man appeared with a large blue flag, and was followed by a number of little children who did not reach to his knees. Apparently it was a great joy for them to stand near the man with the flag. They seemed to think that their presence contributed largely to the successful entry of the fishing smack. A few minutes after the man had waved his flag, another man came along on an old horse, who was to heave in the cable. Men and women, and mothers with their children, now joined the little group, in order to welcome the vessel.

As soon as the boat had drawn sufficiently near, the man on horseback entered the water and soon returned with the anchor.

Then the boatmen were carried ashore on the shoulders of men wearing jack-boots, and happy cries of welcome greeted each new arrival.

When they were all assembled on land, the whole party walked to their homes like a flock of sheep or a caravan, led by the man on the camel--I mean on the horse--who soared above the little crowd like a huge shadow.

I naturally made the most frantic efforts to sketch the various incidents. I also painted a little, especially the small group, of which I give you a thumb-nail sketch herewith.... From the accompanying drawing you will be able to tell what I am endeavouring to do--that is, to represent groups of people pursuing this or that occupation. But how hard it is to make things look busy and alive, and to make the figures take their place and yet stand out from one another! It is a difficult thing to render the swaying of the crowd and a group of figures of which some are head and shoulders above the rest, though they all form a whole when seen from above. Whereas the legs of the nearest figures stand out distinctly in the foreground, the coats and trousers behind and above form a most bewildering muddle, in which, however, there is plenty of drawing. And then right and left, according to the point of vision, there is the further expansion or foreshortening of the sides. Every kind of scene and figure suggests a good composition to me--a market, the arrival of a boat, a group of men outside a soup-kitchen, the crowds wandering and gossiping in the streets--on the same principle as a flock of sheep--and it is all a matter of light and shade and perspective.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|vangogh|>
14 August 1881.
It really is strange that you and I should always have the same thoughts. Last night, for instance, I returned from the wood with a study--for this week I have been particularly busy investigating the question of increasing the intensity of colour--and I should have been glad to discuss this matter with you in connection with the study I had made, when lo and behold! in your letter this morning, you just happen to mention the fact that you were struck with the strong and yet harmonious colouring in Montmartre.

...Yesterday evening I was busy painting the gently rising ground in the wood, which is all strewn with dry withered beech leaves. It varied in colour from a light to a dark red-brown, and the cast shadows of the trees fell across it in faint or strongly marked stripes. The difficulty was--and I found it very trying--to succeed in getting the depth of the colour and the enormous strength and solidity of the ground--and I noticed while I worked how much light there was even in the dark shadows! The thing was to render the effect of light and also the glow, and not to lose the depth of rich colour. For one cannot imagine a more magnificent carpet than that deep red-brown ground, bathed in the glow of the autumn evening sunlight, softened by its passage through the trees.

Beech trees grow here, the trunks of which look bright green in the clear light and a warm black-green in the shade. Behind the trunks, above the red-brown ground one could see the delicate blue and warm gray of the sky--it was scarcely blue--and in front of it a diaphanous haze of green, and a maze of trees with golden leaves. The forms of a few peasants gathering wood crept about like dark mysterious shadows, while the white bonnet of a woman bending to gather a few dried twigs suddenly stood out from the deep red-brown of the earth. A coat caught the light, a shadow was cast, and the dark silhouette of a man appeared high on the edge of the wood. The white bonnet, the shoulders, and bust of a woman stood out against the sky. The figures were large and full of poetry and, in the twilight of the deep shadows, seemed like gigantic terracottas fashioned in a studio. That is how I describe Nature to you. How far I have rendered the effect in my sketch, I do not know. I can only say that I was struck by the harmony of green, red, black, yellow, blue, and gray. It was quite in the style of de Groux; the effect was like that in the sketch of the “Départ du Conscrit.”

To paint it was a herculean task. On the ground alone I used one and a half large tubes of white; and yet it is still very dark. I also used red, yellow, brown, yellow-ochre, black, raw sienna and bistre--and the result is a red-brown, which varies from a deep wine-red to a delicate pale pink. It is very difficult to succeed in getting the colour of the moss and the effect of the small border of fresh grass which shone so brightly in the sunlight. Believe me, this is a sketch which, if I may say so, people will think something of, for it makes a decided appeal.

While working upon it, I said to myself: “Do not put down your palette before your picture seems to partake of the mood of an autumn evening, before it is instinct with mystery and with a certain deep earnestness.”

But, in order not to lose the effect, I have to paint quickly. The figures are painted in rapidly with a few vigorous and firm brush-strokes. I was struck with the sturdy manner in which the tree-trunks strike their roots into the ground. I began painting them with the brush and I did not succeed in rendering the character of the ground which was already laid on with thick colour,--a stroke of the brush vanished to nothing upon it. That is why I pressed the roots and trunks out of the tubes direct, and then modelled them a little with the brush. And now they do indeed stand in the soil, and grow out of it, and strike firm roots into it.

In a sense I am glad that I never learnt to paint. If I had I should perhaps have learnt to overlook such effects. Now I say, “No!--this and only this must I have, and if it is impossible, well then, it is impossible, that’s all. I will have a shot at it although I do not know the right way to do it.”

I really do not know how I paint. Armed with a white panel I take up a position in front of the spot that interests me, contemplate what lies before me, and say to myself “That white panel must be turned into something.” Dissatisfied with my work I return home, put my panel out of sight, and after taking a little rest, go back to my work, almost with qualms to see what it looks like. But even then I am not yet satisfied, for glorious Nature is still too vividly stamped upon my mind. Nevertheless I find in my work a certain reverberation of that which fascinated me. I know that Nature told me something, that she spoke to me, and that I took down her message in shorthand. Perhaps my stenographic transcript contains words that are undecipherable; belike there are faults and omissions in it too; still it may possess something that the wood, the beach, or the figures said. And this is never in a tame or conventional language that did not spring from Nature herself.

As you perceive, I am entering heart and soul into painting, and I am deeply engaged in the study of colour. Hitherto I had held myself aloof from it, and I am not sorry that I did. Had I not drawn, I could have no feeling for a figure that looks like an unfinished terracotta, nor could I have undertaken to paint such a thing. Now, however, I feel that I am in mid-sea--now I must set about painting with all the strength at my command.

...I am certain that I have the feeling for colour, that I shall acquire it more and more, and that painting is in my very marrow.

It is not the extravagant use of paint that makes the painter. But, in order to lend vigour to a piece of ground and to make the air clear, one should not be particular about a tube or two. Often the very spirit of the thing one is painting leads one to paint thinly; at other times the subject, the very nature of the things themselves, compels one to lay the colour on thickly.

At Mauve’s studio--who compared with J. Maris, and to an even greater extent with Millet or Jules Dupré, uses paint very moderately--there are as many old cigar boxes filled with empty tubes as there are empty bottles in the corner of a room after an evening’s bout (as Zola describes such a function, for instance).

You inquire after my health. How is yours? I should say that my treatment ought to suit you--_i.e._, to be out in the air and to paint. I am quite well. I have to pay for a little fatigue, but still on the whole I feel if anything rather better. I believe it is a good thing for me to lead such a temperate life. But that which does me the most good of all is painting.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|vangogh|>
15 March 1881.
I wish that the three pictures, about which I wrote to you, had already been despatched. I fear that if I keep them here much longer, I may paint them over again, and I believe it would be better for you to get them just as they are.

Don’t you think that, after all, it is better for us two to work diligently, even though we have to put up with a good deal in so doing, than to sit down and philosophize, especially at a time like the present? I do not know the future, Theo; but I know the eternal law of change. Think how different things were ten years ago--the circumstances of everyday life, the attitude of men’s minds, in fact everything; and ten years hence many other things will have changed also. But fancy having created something lasting! And one does not repent so soon for having created something. The busier I am the better; I prefer a piece of work that is a failure to inactivity.

We shall not have to wait so very long before what we are now producing will have become important. You yourself can see well enough--and it is one of the signs of the times with which I am most pleased--that there is a growing tendency for people to give one-man shows, or exhibitions of the work of a few men who belong to the same school. In my opinion this is a development in the art-dealing world which will have a far greater future than other enterprises. What a good thing it is that people are beginning to understand that the effect is bad when a Bouguereau is placed beside a Jacques, or a figure by Beyle or Lhermitte is hung close to a Schelfhout or a Koekkoek.

If I kept my work by me for long, I feel sure I should paint many of the pieces over again. But owing to the fact that I send them either to you or to Pottier the instant they are free from my brush, a number of them will probably not be worth much,--though by this means many studies will be preserved which otherwise would not have been improved by repeated retouching.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
22 December 1667.
(Lord’s day). Up, and my wife, poor wretch, still in pain, and then to dress myself and down to my chamber to settle some papers, and thither come to me Willet with an errand from her mistress, and this time I first did give her a little kiss, she being a very pretty humoured girle, and so one that I do love mightily. Thence to my office, and there did a little business, and so to church, where a dull sermon, and then home, and Cozen Kate Joyce come and dined with me and Mr. Holliard; but by chance I offering occasion to him to discourse of the Church of Rome, Lord! how he run on to discourse with the greatest vehemence and importunity in the world, as the only thing in the world that he is full of, and it was good sport to me to see him so earnest on so little occasion. She come to see us and to tell me that her husband is going to build his house again, and would borrow of me L300, which I shall upon good security be willing to do, and so told her, being willing to have some money out of my hands upon good security. After dinner up to my wife again, who is in great pain still with her tooth, and there, they gone, I spent the most of the afternoon and night reading and talking to bear her company, and so to supper and to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
30 April 1667.
Up, and Mr. Madden come to speak with me, whom my people not knowing have made to wait long without doors, which vexed me. Then comes Sir John Winter to discourse with me about the forest of Deane, and then about my Lord Treasurer, and asking me whether, as he had heard, I had not been cut for the stone, I took him to my closet, and there shewed it to him, of which he took the dimensions and had some discourse of it, and I believe will shew my Lord Treasurer it. Thence to the office, where we sat all the morning, but little to do, and then to the ‘Change, where for certain I hear, and the News book declares, a peace between France and Portugal. Met here with Mr. Pierce, and he tells me the Duke of Cambridge is very ill and full of spots about his body, that Dr. Frazier knows not what to think of it. Then home and to dinner, and then to the office, where all the afternoon; we met about Sir W. Warren’s business and accounts, wherein I do rather oppose than forward him, but not in declared terms, for I will not be at, enmity with him, but I will not have him find any friendship so good as mine. By and by rose and by water to White Hall, and then called my wife at Unthanke’s. So home and to my chamber, to my accounts, and finished them to my heart’s wishes and admiration, they being grown very intricate, being let alone for two months, but I brought them together all naturally, within a few shillings, but to my sorrow the Poll money I paid this month and mourning have made me L80 a worse man than at my last balance, so that I am worth now but L6700, which is yet an infinite mercy to me, for which God make me thankful. So late to supper, with a glad heart for the evening of my accounts so well, and so to bed.

May 1st. Up, it being a fine day, and after doing a little business in my chamber I left my wife to go abroad with W. Hewer and his mother in a Hackney coach incognito to the Park, while I abroad to the Excise Office first, and there met the Cofferer and Sir Stephen Fox about our money matters there, wherein we agreed, and so to discourse of my Lord Treasurer, who is a little better than he was of the stone, having rested a little this night. I there did acquaint them of my knowledge of that disease, which I believe will be told my Lord Treasurer. Thence to Westminster; in the way meeting many milk-maids with their garlands upon their pails, dancing with a fiddler before them;

and saw pretty Nelly standing at her lodgings’ door in Drury-lane in her smock sleeves and bodice, looking upon one: she seemed a mighty pretty creature. To the Hall and there walked a while, it being term. I thence home to the Rose, and then had Doll Lane venir para me.... To my Lord Crew’s, where I found them at dinner, and among others. Mrs. Bocket, which I have not seen a long time, and two little dirty children, and she as idle a prating and impertinent woman as ever she was. After dinner my Lord took me alone and walked with me, giving me an account of the meeting of the Commissioners for Accounts, whereof he is one. How some of the gentlemen, Garraway, Littleton, and others, did scruple at their first coming there, being called thither to act, as Members of Parliament, which they could not do by any authority but that of Parliament, and therefore desired the King’s direction in it, which was sent for by my Lord Bridgewater, who brought answer, very short, that the King expected they should obey his Commission. Then they went on, and observed a power to be given them of administering and framing an oath, which they thought they could not do by any power but Act of Parliament; and the whole Commission did think fit to have the judges’ opinion in it; and so, drawing up their scruples in writing, they all attended the King, who told them he would send to the judges to be answered, and did so; who have, my Lord tells me, met three times about it, not knowing what answer to give to it; and they have met this week, doing nothing but expecting the solution of the judges in this point. My Lord tells me he do believe this Commission will do more hurt than good; it may undo some accounts, if these men shall think fit; but it can never clear an account, for he must come into the Exchequer for all this. Besides, it is a kind of inquisition that hath seldom ever been granted in England; and he believes it will never, besides, give any satisfaction to the People or Parliament, but be looked upon as a forced, packed business of the King, especially if these Parliament-men that are of it shall not concur with them: which he doubts they will not, and, therefore, wishes much that the King would lay hold of this fit occasion, and let the Commission fall. Then to talk of my Lord Sandwich, whom my Lord Crew hath a great desire might get to be Lord Treasurer if the present Lord should die, as it is believed he will, in a little time; and thinks he can have no competitor but my Lord Arlington, who, it is given out, desires it: but my Lord thinks it is not so, for that the being Secretary do keep him a greater interest with the King than the other would do at least, do believe, that if my Lord would surrender him his Wardrobe place, it would be a temptation to Arlington to assist my Lord in getting the Treasurer’s. I did object to my Lord that it would be no place of content, nor safety, nor honour for my Lord, the State being so indigent as it is, and the so irregular, and those about him, that my Lord must be forced to part with anything to answer his warrants; and that, therefore, I do believe the King had rather have a man that may be one of his vicious caball, than a sober man that will mind the publick, that so they may sit at cards and dispose of the revenue of the kingdom. This my Lord was moved at, and said he did not indeed know how to answer it, and bid me think of it; and so said he himself would also do. He do mightily cry out of the bad management of our monies, the King having had so much given him; and yet, when the Parliament do find that the King should have L900,000 in his purse by the best account of issues they have yet seen, yet we should report in the Navy a debt due from the King of L900,000; which, I did confess, I doubted was true in the first, and knew to be true in the last, and did believe that there was some great miscarriages in it: which he owned to believe also, saying, that at this rate it is not in the power of the kingdom to make a war, nor answer the King’s wants. Thence away to the King’s playhouse, by agreement met Sir W. Pen, and saw “Love in a Maze” but a sorry play: only Lacy’s clowne’s part, which he did most admirably indeed; and I am glad to find the rogue at liberty again. Here was but little, and that ordinary, company. We sat at the upper bench next the boxes; and I find it do pretty well, and have the advantage of seeing and hearing the great people, which may be pleasant when there is good store. Now was only Prince Rupert and my Lord Lauderdale, and my Lord, the naming of whom puts me in mind of my seeing, at Sir Robert Viner’s, two or three great silver flagons, made with inscriptions as gifts of the King to such and such persons of quality as did stay in town the late great plague, for the keeping things in order in the town, which is a handsome thing. But here was neither Hart, Nell, nor Knipp; therefore, the play was not likely to please me. Thence Sir W. Pen and I in his coach, Tiburne way, into the Park, where a horrid dust, and number of coaches, without pleasure or order. That which we, and almost all went for, was to see my Lady Newcastle; which we could not, she being followed and crowded upon by coaches all the way she went, that nobody could come near her; only I could see she was in a large black coach, adorned with silver instead of gold, and so white curtains, and every thing black and white, and herself in her cap, but other parts I could not make . But that which I did see, and wonder at with reason, was to find Pegg Pen in a new coach, with only her husband’s pretty sister with her, both patched and very fine, and in much the finest coach in the park, and I think that ever I did see one or other, for neatness and richness in gold, and everything that is noble. My Lady Castlemayne, the King, my Lord St. Albans, nor Mr. Jermyn, have so neat a coach, that ever I saw. And, Lord! to have them have this, and nothing else that is correspondent, is to me one of the most ridiculous sights that ever I did see, though her present dress was well enough; but to live in the condition they do at home, and be abroad in this coach, astonishes me. When we had spent half an hour in the Park, we went out again, weary of the dust, and despairing of seeing my Lady Newcastle; and so back the same way, and to St. James’s, thinking to have met my Lady Newcastle before she got home, but we staying by the way to drink, she got home a little before us: so we lost our labours, and then home; where we find the two young ladies come home, and their patches off, I suppose Sir W. Pen do not allow of them in his sight, and going out of town to-night, though late, to Walthamstow. So to talk a little at Sir W. Batten’s, and then home to supper, where I find Mrs. Hewer and her son, who have been abroad with my wife in the Park, and so after supper to read and then to bed. Sir W. Pen did give me an account this afternoon of his design of buying Sir Robert Brooke’s fine house at Wansted; which I so wondered at, and did give him reasons against it, which he allowed of: and told me that he did intend to pull down the house and build a less, and that he should get L1500 by the old house, and I know not what fooleries. But I will never believe he ever intended to buy it, for my part; though he troubled Mr. Gawden to go and look upon it, and advise him in it.
<|/entry|><|entry|>
5 May 1667.
(Lord’s day). Up, and going down to the water side, I met Sir John Robinson, and so with him by coach to White Hall, still a vain, prating, boasting man as any I know, as if the whole City and Kingdom had all its work done by him. He tells me he hath now got a street ordered to be continued, forty feet broad, from Paul’s through Cannon Street to the Tower, which will be very fine. He and others this day, where I was in the afternoon, do tell me of at least six or eight fires within these few days; and continually stirs of fires, and real fires there have been, in one place or other, almost ever since the late great fire, as if there was a fate sent people for fire. I walked over the Park to Sir W. Coventry’s. Among other things to tell him what I hear of people being forced to sell their bills before September for 35 and 40 per cent. loss, and what is worst, that there are some courtiers that have made a knot to buy them, in hopes of some ways to get money of the King to pay them, which Sir W. Coventry is amazed at, and says we are a people made up for destruction, and will do what he can to prevent all this by getting the King to provide wherewith to pay them. We talked of Tangier, of which he is ashamed; also that it should put the King to this charge for no good in the world: and now a man going over that is a good soldier, but a debauched man, which the place need not to have. And so used these words: “That this place was to the King as my Lord Carnarvon says of wood, that it is an excrescence of the earth provided by God for the payment of debts.” Thence away to Sir G. Carteret, whom I find taking physic. I staid talking with him but a little, and so home to church, and heard a dull sermon, and most of the best women of our parish gone into the country, or at least not at church. So home, and find my boy not there, nor was at church, which vexed me, and when he come home I enquired, he tells me he went to see his mother. I send him back to her to send me some token that he was with her. So there come a man with him back of good fashion. He says he saw him with her, which pacified me, but I did soundly threaten him before him, and so to dinner, and then had a little scolding with my wife for not being fine enough to go to the christening to-day, which she excused by being ill, as she was indeed, and cried, but I was in an ill humour and ashamed, indeed, that she should not go dressed. However, friends by and by, and we went by water to Michell’s, and there his little house full of his father and mothers and the kindred, hardly any else, and mighty merry in this innocent company, and Betty mighty pretty in bed, but, her head akeing, not very merry, but the company mighty merry, and I with them, and so the child was christened; my wife, his father, and her mother, the witnesses, and the child’s name Elizabeth. So we had gloves and wine and wafers, very pretty, and talked and tattled, and so we away by water and up with the tide, she and I and Barker, as high as Barne Eimes, it being a fine evening, and back again to pass the bridges at standing water between 9 and 10 at might, and then home and to supper, and then to bed with much pleasure. This day Sir W. Coventry tells me the Dutch fleete shot some shot, four or five hundred, into Burnt-Island in the Frith, but without any hurt; and so are gone.
<|/entry|><|entry|>
8 May 1667.
Up pretty betimes and out of doors, and in Fen Church street met Mr. Lovett going with a picture to me, but I could not stand to discourse or see it, but on to the next hackney coach and so to Sir W. Coventry, where he and I alone a while discoursing of some businesses of the office, and then up to the Duke of York to his chamber with my fellow brethren who are come, and so did our usual weekly business, which was but little to-day, and I was glad that the business of Carcasse was not mentioned because our report was not ready, but I am resolved it shall against the next coming to the Duke of York. Here was discourse about a way of paying our old creditors which did please me, there being hopes of getting them comprehended within the 11 months Tax, and this did give occasion for Sir G. Carteret’s and my going to Sir Robert Long to discourse it, who do agree that now the King’s Council do say that they may be included in the Act, which do make me very glad, not so much for the sake of the poor men as for the King, for it would have been a ruin to him and his service not to have had a way to have paid the debt. There parted with Sir G. Carteret and into Westminster Hall, where I met with Sir H. Cholmly, and he and I to Sir Ph. Warwicke’s to speak a little about our Tangier business, but to little purpose, my Lord Treasurer being so ill that no business can be done. Thence with Sir H. Cholmly to find out Creed from one lodging to another, which he hath changed so often that there is no finding him, but at last do come to his lodging that he is entering into this day, and do find his goods unlading at the door, by Scotland Yard, and there I set down Sir H. Cholmly, and I away to the ‘Change, where spoke about several things, and then going home did meet Mr. Andrews our neighbour, and did speak with him to enquire about the ground behind our house, of which I have a mind to buy enough to make a stable and coach-house; for I do see that my condition do require it, as well as that it is more charge to my purse to live as I do than to keep one, and therefore I am resolved before winter to have one, unless some extraordinary thing happens to hinder me. He promises me to look after it for me, and so I home to dinner, where I find my wife’s flageolette master, and I am so pleased with her proceeding, though she hath lost time by not practising, that I am resolved for the encouragement of the man to learn myself a little for a month or so, for I do foresee if God send my wife and I to live, she will become very good company for me. He gone, comes Lovett with my little print of my dear Lady Castlemayne varnished, and the frame prettily done like gold, which pleases me well. He dined with me, but by his discourse I do still see that he is a man of good wit but most strange experience, and acquaintance with all manner of subtleties and tricks, that I do think him not fit for me to keep any acquaintance with him, lest he some time or other shew me a slippery trick. After dinner, he gone, I to the office, where all the afternoon very busy, and so in the evening to Sir R. Viner’s, thinking to finish my accounts there, but am prevented, and so back again home, and late at my office at business, and so home to supper and sing a little with my dear wife, and so to bed.
<|/entry|><|entry|>
10 May 1667.
Up and to the office, where a meeting about the Victuallers’ accounts all the morning, and at noon all of us to Kent’s, at the Three Tuns’ Tavern, and there dined well at Mr. Gawden’s charge; and, there the constable of the parish did show us the picklocks and dice that were found in the dead man’s pocket, and but 18d. in money; and a table-book, wherein were entered the names of several places where he was to go; and among others Kent’s house, where he was to dine, and did dine yesterday: and after dinner went into the church, and there saw his corpse with the wound in his left breast; a sad spectacle, and a broad wound, which makes my hand now shake to write of it. His brother intending, it seems, to kill the coachman, who did not please him, this fellow stepped in, and took away his sword; who thereupon took out his knife, which was of the fashion, with a falchion blade, and a little cross at the hilt like a dagger; and with that stabbed him. So to the office again, very busy, and in the evening to Sir Robert Viner’s, and there took up all my notes and evened our balance to the 7th of this month, and saw it entered in their ledger, and took a receipt for the remainder of my money as the balance of an account then adjusted. Then to my Lord Treasurer’s, but missed Sir Ph. Warwicke, and so back again, and drove hard towards Clerkenwell,

thinking to have overtaken my Lady Newcastle, whom I saw before us in her coach, with 100 boys and girls running looking upon her but I could not: and so she got home before I could come up to her. But I will get a time to see her. So to the office and did more business, and then home and sang with pleasure with my wife, and to supper and so to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|maclane|>
[Prompt: What do you want?]
16 January 1917.
The strange braveness
If God has human feelings he must often have a burning at the eyes and a fullness at the throat at the strange Braveness of human people: their Braveness as they go on in the daily life, with aching dumbish minds and disgruntled bereft bodies and flattened pinched gnawed hearts.

The easy human slattern way would be to sink beneath the burden.

Instead, people: I and Another and all others--seamstresses and monotonous clerks and lawyers and housewives: sit upright in chairs and talk into telephones and walk fast and eat breakfasts and brush hair: all the while marooned in a morass of small wild unexciting tasteless Pain.

Of others--what do I know?

But I might say, ‘Look, God, I am not fallen on the ground, from this and that--utterly lost and down. But sitting, drooping but strong, in a chair, mending a lamp-shade--neat, orderly and at-it in my misery.’
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
14 December 1915.
. . . When one is little and ill and far away in a remote bedroom all that happens beyond is marvellous. . . . Alors, I am always in that remote bedroom. Is that why I seem to see, this time in London — nothing but what is marvellous — marvellous — and incredibly beautiful?

The tide is full in the Redcliffe Road. One by one the doors have opened, have slammed shut. Now, in

The Redcliffe Road

their blind way, the houses are fed. That poor little violin goes on, tearing up note after note — there is a strange dazzling white cloud over the houses and a pool of blue.

Evening Primrose " All my virtues — all my rich nature — gone," she said, " grown over, tangled, forgotten, deserted like a once upon a time garden." She smiled and pulled down her hat and pulled her coat together as though making ready to stumble out into it and be lost too. " A dark place" said she, wavering to her feet. And then she smiled again. " Perhaps there is just left my — my — curiosity about myself. Evening Primrose. . . ." She half shut her eyes, stooping forward, curiously as though the plant had sprung up at her feet. " I always did hate evening primroses. They sound such darlings, but when you see one they're such weedy, shabby — flower on the grave without a grave stone — sort of things — I don't mean anything symbolical by that," said she, " God forbid!" and was gone.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
30 August 1660.
We found all well in the morning below stairs, bu the boy in a sad plight of seeming sorrow; but he is the most cunning rogue that ever I met with of his age. To White Hall, where I met with the Act of Indemnity----(so long talked of and hoped for), with the Act of Rate for Pole-money, an for judicial proceedings. At Westminster Hall I met with Mr. Paget the lawyer, and dined with him at Heaven. This afternoon my wife went to Mr. Pierce’s wife’s child’s christening, and was urged to be godmother, but I advised her before-hand not to do it, so she did not, but as proxy for my Lady Jemimah. This the first day that ever I saw my wife wear black patches since we were married!

My Lord came to town to-day, but coming not home till very late I staid till 10 at night, and so home on foot. Mr. Sheply and Mr. Childe this night at the tavern.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|pepys|>
13 September 1660.
Old East comes to me in the morning with letters, and I did give him a bottle of Northdown ale, which made the poor man almost drunk. In the afternoon my wife went to the burial of a child of my cozen Scott’s, and it is observable that within this month my Aunt Wight was brought to bed of two girls, my cozen Stradwick of a girl and a boy, and my cozen Scott of a boy, and all died. In the afternoon to Westminster, where Mr. Dalton was ready with his money to pay me for my house, but our writings not being drawn it could not be done to-day. I met with Mr. Hawly, who was removing his things from Mr. Bowyer’s, where he has lodged a great while, and I took him and W. Bowyer to the Swan and drank, and Mr. Hawly did give me a little black rattoon,----painted and gilt. Home by water. This day the Duke of Gloucester died of the small-pox, by the great negligence of the doctors.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
19 September 1890.
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:

us in in his favour=>us in his favour {pg xvi}

ursurped the place of higher and holier aims=>usurped the place of higher and holier aims {pg xxxiv}

Gaugin=> Gauguin {x6}

Another and even more stiking example=> Another and even more striking example {pg 8}

dry withered beach leaves=> dry withered beech leaves {pg 12}

as far as as I was able to judge=>as far as I was able to judge {pg 25}

I believe it is bettter to scrape=> I believe it is better to scrape {pg 26}

simply because it it is his nature to do so=> simply because it is his nature to do so {pg 37}

in which everything was arranged with architectual method=> in which everything was arranged with architectural method {pg 59}

he would certainly not think lighty of this talent=> he would certainly not think lightly of this talent {pg 78}

is to found on the palettes of the Dutch painters=> is to be found on the palettes of the Dutch painters {pg 92}

Everywhere a cadium yellow=> Everywhere a cadmium yellow {pg 95}

small head of of the Brittany girl=> small head of the Brittany girl {pg 127}
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
[Prompt: What do you keep returning to?]
8 December 1660.
To Whitehall to the Privy Seal, and thence to Mr. Pierces the Surgeon to tell them that I would call by and by to go to dinner. But I going into Westminster Hall met with Sir G. Carteret and Sir W. Pen (who were in a great fear that we had committed a great error of L100,000 in our late account gone into the Parliament in making it too little), and so I was fain to send order to Mr. Pierces to come to my house; and also to leave the key of the chest with Mr. Spicer; wherein my Lord’s money is, and went along with Sir W. Pen by water to the office, and there with Mr. Huchinson we did find that we were in no mistake. And so I went to dinner with my wife and Mr. and Mrs. Pierce the Surgeon to Mr. Pierce, the Purser (the first time that ever I was at his house) who does live very plentifully and finely. We had a lovely chine of beef and other good things very complete and drank a great deal of wine, and her daughter played after dinner upon the virginals,

and at night by lanthorn home again, and Mr. Pierce and his wife being gone home I went to bed, having drunk so much wine that my head was troubled and was not very well all night, and the wind I observed was rose exceedingly before I went to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
25 January 1920.
The meals here are a horror. I seem to be sitting hours and hours there, and the people are ugly. Nevertheless, thank God I am here, in sound of the train, in reach of the post.

Mentone
<|/entry|><|entry|>
26 January 1920.
Felt ill with fatigue and cold and my lungs hurt. It is because I am not working. All is a bit of a nightmare for that reason. My temper is so bad ! I feel I am horrid and can't stop it. It's a bad feeling.
<|/entry|><|entry|>
27 January 1920.
The woman who does the massage is not really any good. My life is queer here. I like my big airy room, but to work is so hard. At the back of my mind I am so wretched. But all the while I am thinking over my philosophy — the defeat of the personal.
<|/entry|><|entry|>
28 January 1920.
I shall not remember what happened on this day. It is a blank. At the end of my life I may want it, may long to have it. There was a new moon : that I remember. But who came or what I did — all is lost. It's just a day missed, a day crossing the line.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
26 August 1920.
19-12-1920. Katherine Mansfield.

At the Bay. At last the milk white harbour catches the glitter and the gulls floating on the trembling water gleam like the shadows within a pearl.

The house dog comes out of his kennel dragging the heavy chain and kalop-kalops at the water standing cold in the iron pan. The house cat emerges from nowhere and bounds on to the kitchen window sill waiting for her spill of warm morning milk.

Morning Children

Morning Children

Children! children!

Oh no. Not yet. Oh, it can't be time. Go away. I won't. Oh, why must I?

Children! Children!

They are being called by the cold servant girls.

But they simply can't get up. They simply must have one more little sleep — the best sleep of all — the warm, soft, darling little rabbit of a sleep. . . . Just let me hug it one minute more before it bounds away.
<|/entry|><|entry|>
22 December 1920.
Soft little girls rolled up in rounds, just their bunch of curls showing over the sheet top ; little long pale boys stretching out their slender feet ; other little boys lying on their bellies pressing their heads into the pillows ; tiny little fellows with fresh cut hair sprouting from a tuft; little girls on their backs, their fists clenched, the bedclothes anyhow, one foot dangling; girls with pigtails or rings of white paper snails instead of hair. And now there is the sound of plunging water and all those youthful, warm bodies, the tender exposed boy children, and the firm compact little girls, lie down in the bathtubs and ruffle their shoulders scattering the bright drops as birds love to do with their wings. . . .
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
4 July 1667.
Up, and, in vain expecting Sir R. Ford’s calling on me, I took coach and to the Sessions-house, where I have a mind to hear Bazill Fielding’s case----tried; and so got up to the Bench, my Lord Chief-Justice Keeling being Judge. Here I stood bare, not challenging, though I might well enough, to be covered. But here were several fine trials; among others, several brought in for making it their trade to set houses on fire merely to get plunder; and all proved by the two little boys spoken of yesterday by Sir R. Ford, who did give so good account of particulars that I never heard children in my life. And I confess, though I was unsatisfied with the force given to such little boys, to take away men’s lives, yet, when I was told that my Lord Chief-Justice did declare that there was no law against taking the oath of children above twelve years old, and then heard from Sir R. Ford the good account which the boys had given of their understanding the nature and consequence of an oath, and now my own observation of the sobriety and readiness of their answers, further than of any man of any rank that come to give witness this day, though some men of years and learning, I was a little amazed, and fully satisfied that they ought to have as much credit as the rest. They proved against several, their consulting several times at a bawdy-house in Moore-Fields, called the Russia House, among many other rogueries, of setting houses on fire, that they might gather the goods that were flung into the streets; and it is worth considering how unsafe it is to have children play up and down this lewd town. For these two boys, one is my Lady Montagu’s (I know not what Lady Montagu) son, and the other of good condition, were playing in Moore-Fields, and one rogue, Gabriel Holmes, did come to them and teach them to drink, and then to bring him plate and clothes from their fathers’ houses, and carry him into their houses, and leaving open the doors for him, and at last were made of their conspiracy, and were at the very burning of this house in Aldersgate Street, on Easter Sunday at night last, and did gather up goods, as they had resolved before and this Gabriel Holmes did advise to have had two houses set on fire, one after another, that, while they were quenching of one, they might be burning another. And it is pretty that G. Holmes did tell his fellows, and these boys swore it, that he did set fire to a box of linen in the Sheriffe, Sir Joseph Shelden’s’ house, while he was attending the fire in Aldersgate Street, and the Sheriffe himself said that there was a fire in his house, in a box of linen, at the same time, but cannot conceive how this fellow should do it. The boys did swear against one of them, that he had made it his part to pull the plug out of the engine while it was a-playing; and it really was so. And goods they did carry away, and the manner of the setting the house on fire was, that Holmes did get to a cockpit; where, it seems, there was a publick cockpit, and set fire to the straw in it, and hath a fire-ball at the end of the straw, which did take fire, and so it prevailed, and burned the house; and, among other things they carried away, he took six of the cocks that were at the cockpit; and afterwards the boys told us how they had one dressed, by the same token it was so hard they could not eat it. But that which was most remarkable was the impudence of this Holmes, who hath been arraigned often, and still got away; and on this business was taken and broke loose just at Newgate Gate; and was last night luckily taken about Bow, who got loose, and run into the river, and hid himself in the rushes; and they pursued him with a dog, and the dog got him and held him till he was taken. But the impudence of this fellow was such, that he denied he ever saw the boys before, or ever knew the Russia House, or that the people knew him; and by and by the mistress of the Russia House was called in, being indicted, at the same time, about another thing; and she denied that the fellow was of her acquaintance, when it was pretty to see how the little boys did presently fall upon her, and ask her how she durst say so, when she was always with them when they met at her house, and particularly when she come in in her smock before a dozen of them, at which the Court laughed, and put the woman away. Well, this fellow Holmes was found guilty of the act of burning the house, and other things, that he stood indicted for. And then there were other good cases, as of a woman that come to serve a gentlewoman, and in three days run away, betimes in the morning, with a great deal of plate and rings, and other good things. It was time very well spent to be here. Here I saw how favourable the judge was to a young gentleman that struck one of the officers, for not making him room: told him he had endangered the loss of his hand, but that he hoped he had not struck him, and would suppose that he had not struck him. About that the Court rose, and I to dinner with my Lord Mayor and Sheriffs; where a good dinner and good discourse; the judge being there. There was also tried this morning Fielding, which I thought had been Bazilll--but it proved the other, and Bazill was killed; that killed his brother, who was found guilty of murder, and nobody pitied him. The judge seems to be a worthy man, and able: and do intend, for these rogues that burned this house to be hung in some conspicuous place in the town, for an example. After dinner to the Court again, where I heard some more causes, but with so much trouble because of the hot weather that I had no pleasure in it. Anon the Court rose, and I walked to Fleet streete for my belt at the beltmaker’s, and so home and to the office, wrote some letters, and then home to supper and to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
16 December 1920.
L.M. is also exceedingly fond of bananas. But she eats them so slowly, so terribly slowly. Ah, they know it — somehow they realise what is in store for them when she reaches out her hand. I have seen bananas turn absolutely livid with terror, or grow pale — pale as ashes.

The Kiss ... I kissed her. Her flesh felt cold, pale, soft. I thought of nuns who have prayed all night in cold churches. . . . All her warmth and colour and passion she had offered up in prayer, in cold ancient churches. . . . She was chill, severe, pale; the light flickered in her raised eyes like the light of candles; her skirt was worn shiny over her peaked knees; she smelled faintly of incense. " No, Father. Yes, Father. Do you think so, Father? " (But still I haven't said what I wanted to say.) October 18, 1920.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
October 1921.
I wonder why it should be so very difficult to be humble. I do not think I am a good writer; I realize my faults better than anyone else could realize them. I know exactly where I fail. And yet, when I have finished a story and before I have begun another, I catch myself preening my feathers. It is disheartening. There seems to be some bad old pride in my heart; a root of it that puts out a thick shoot on the slightest provocation... This interferes very much with work. One can't be calm, clear, good as one must be, while it goes on. I look at the mountains, I try to pray and I think of something clever. It's a kind of excitement within, which shouldn't be there. Calm yourself. Clear yourself. And anything that I write in this mood will be no good; it will be full of sediment. If I were well, I would go off by myself somewhere and sit under a tree. One must learn, one must practise, to forget oneself. I can't tell the truth about Aunt Anne unless I am free to look into her life without self-consciousness. Oh God! I am divided still. I am bad. I fail in my personal life. I lapse into impatience, temper, vanity, and so I fail as thy priest. Perhaps poetry will help.

I have just thoroughly cleaned and attended to my fountain pen. If after this it leaks, then it is no gentleman!
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
13 November 1921.
It is time I started a new journal. Come, my unseen, my unknown, let us talk together. Yes, for the last two weeks I have written scarcely anything. I have been idle ; I have failed. Why ? Many reasons. There has been a kind of confusion in my consciousness. It has seemed as though there was no time to write. The mornings, if they are sunny, are taken up with sun-treatment ; the post eats away the afternoon. And at night I am tired.

' But it all goes deeper.' Yes, you are right. I haven't been able to yield to the kind of contemplation that is necessary. I have not felt pure in heart, not humble, not good. There's been a stirring-up of sediment. I look at the mountains and I see nothing but mountains. Be frank ! I read rubbish. I give way about writing letters. I mean I refuse to meet my obligations, and this of course weakens me in every way. Then I have broken my promise to review the books for The Nation. Another bad spot. Out of hand? Yes, that describes it — dissipated, vague, not positive, and above all, above everything, not working as I should be working — wasting time.

Wasting time. The old cry — the first and last cry — Why do ye tarry? Ah, why indeed? My deepest desire is to be a writer, to have " a body of work " done. And there the work is, there the stories wait for me, grow tired, wilt, fade, because I will not come. And I hear and I acknowledge them, and still I go on sitting at the window, playing with the ball of wool. What is to be done?
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
26 July 1921.
I must make another effort — at once. I must begin all over again. I must try and write simply, fully, freely, from my heart. Quietly, caring nothing for success or failure, but just going on.

I must keep this book so that I have a record of what I do each week. (Here a word. As I re-read At the Bay in proof, it seemed to me flat, dull, and not a success at all. I was very much ashamed of it. I am.) But now to resolve ! And especially to keep in touch with Life — with the sky and this moon, these stars, these cold, candid peaks.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
21 November 1921.
Since then I have only written The Doll's House. A bad spell has been on me. I have begun two stories¹, but then I told them and they felt betrayed. It is absolutely fatal to give way to this temptation. . . . To-day I began to write, seriously, The Weak Heart, — a story which fascinates me deeply. What I feel it needs so peculiarly is a very subtle variation of ' tense ' from the present to the past and back again — and softness, lightness, and the feeling that all is in bud, with a play of humour over the character of Ronnie. And the feeling of the Thorndon Baths, the wet, moist, oozy . . . no, I know how it must be done.

A Prayer

May I be found worthy to do it! Lord, make me crystal clear for thy light to shine through!
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
[Prompt: Set down the truth of this day.]
30 March 1669.
Up, and to Sir W. Coventry, to see and discourse with him; and he tells me that he hath lately been with my Lord Keeper, and had much discourse about the Navy; and particularly he tells me that he finds they are divided touching me and my Lord Brouncker; some are for removing; and some for keeping us. He told my Lord Keeper that it would cost the King L10,000 before he hath made another as fit to serve him in the Navy as I am; which, though I believe it is true, yet I am much pleased to have that character given me by W. Coventry, whatever be the success of it. But I perceive they do think that I know too much, and shall impose upon whomever shall come next, and therefore must be removed, though he tells me that Sir T. Clifford is inclined well enough to me, and Sir T. Osborne; by what I have lately done, I suppose. This news do a little trouble me, but yet, when I consider it, it is but what I ought not to be much troubled for, considering my incapacity, in regard to my eyes, to continue long at this work, and this when I think of and talk with my wife do make me the less troubled for it. After some talk of the business of the navy more with him, I away and to the Office, where all the morning; and Sir W. Pen, the first time that he hath been here since his being last sick, which, I think, is two or three months; and I think will be the last that he will be here as one of the Board, he now inviting us all to dine with him, as a parting dinner, on Thursday next, which I am glad of, I am sure; for he is a very villain. At noon home to dinner, where, and at the office, all the afternoon, troubled at what I have this morning heard, at least my mind full of thoughts upon it, and so at night after supper to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
9 January 1914.
J. went to town. I worked a little — chased the fowls. One brown fowl refused to leave the garden. Long after it knew there was no gap in the wire netting it kept on running up and down. I must not forget that, nor how cold it was, nor how the mud coated my thin shoes. In the evening L. and K. They talked plans; but I felt very antagonistic to the whole affair.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
10 January 1914.
Windy and dark. ... At night we went to L.'s. It was a warm night with big drops of rain falling. I didn't mind the going, but the coming back was rather awful. I was unwell, and tired, and my heart could scarcely beat. But we made up a song to keep going. The rain splashed up to my knees, and I was frightened. L. was nice, very nice, sitting with a piece of string in his hand . . .

January 11. I got up in the dark to be ready for my little maid and watch the dawn coming. It wasn't up to much, though. I am wretched. It is a bright winking day. Oh God, my God, let me work ! Wasted ! Wasted !
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
12 January 1914.
Have been in more of a state of virtue to-day. Actually finished the story, Brave Love, and I don't know what to make of it even now. Read it to J. who was also puzzled. Violent headache, but rather happy.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
20 January 1914.
A man outside is breaking stones. The day is utterly quiet. Sometimes a leaf rustles and a strange puff of wind passes the window. The old man chops, chops, as though it were a heart beating out there.

In the afternoon there came a violent storm, but we walked over to C.'s, dined with them and the L.'s and the S.'s and had a play after. Late we went to the L.'s to sleep, very untidy — newspapers and faded mistletoe. I hardly slept at all, but it was nice.

A stormy day. We walked back this morning. It has rained and snowed and hailed and the wind blows. The dog at the mill howls. A man far away is playing the bugle. I have read and sewed to-day, but not written a word. I want to to-night. It is so funny to sit quietly sewing, while my heart is never for a moment still. I am dreadfully tired in head and body. This sad place is killing me. I live upon old made-up dreams ; but they do not deceive either of us.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
6 November 1660.
In the morning with Sir W. Batten and Pen by water to Westminster, where at my Lord’s I met with Mr. Creed. With him to see my Lord’s picture (now almost done), and thence to Westminster Hall, where we found the Parliament met to-day, and thence meeting with Mr. Chetwind, I took them to the Sun, and did give them a barrel of oysters, and had good discourse; among other things Mr. Chetwind told me how he did fear that this late business of the Duke of York’s would prove fatal to my Lord Chancellor. From thence Mr. Creed and I to Wilkinson’s, and dined together, and in great haste thence to our office, where we met all, for the sale of two ships by an inch of candle

(the first time that ever I saw any of this kind), where I observed how they do invite one another, and at last how they all do cry,----and we have much to do to tell who did cry last. The ships were the Indian, sold for L1,300, and the Half-moon, sold for L830. Home, and fell a-reading of the tryalls of the late men that were hanged for the King’s death, and found good satisfaction in reading thereof. At night to bed, and my wife and I did fall out about the dog’s being put down into the cellar, which I had a mind to have done because of his fouling the house, and I would have my will, and so we went to bed and lay all night in a quarrel. This night I was troubled all night with a dream that my wife was dead, which made me that I slept ill all night.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
12 March 1917.
The sleep of the dead
When I’m dead I want to Rest awhile in my grave: for I’m Tired, Tired always.

My Soul must go on as it has gone on up to now.

It has a long way to go, and it has come a long way.

My Soul first started on its journey somewhere in Asia before the dawn of this civilization. And it has gone on since through the centuries and through strange phases of Body, terrors of flesh and blood, suffering long. But it has gone someway on, each space of the journey taking it nearer to the journey’s-End.

It is the dim-felt memory of those journeys that heaps the Tiredness on me now. Not only is my spirit Tired. Through my spirit my hands are Tired: my knees are Tired: my drooping shoulders: my thin feet: my sensitive backbone. When I lift my hand in the sunshine the weight of the yellow honeyed air bears down and down on it because I’m so Tired. When I start to walk on stone pavements the ache of them is in my feet before I set a foot on them because I’m so Tired. The pulse in my veins Tires my blood as it beats. My low voice, though I speak but rarely--it Tires my throat. My breath Tires my chest. The weight of my hair Tires my forehead and temples. My plain frocks Tire my Body to wear. My swift trenchant thoughts Tire my Mind.

It is not the Tiredness of effort though I strive to the limits of my strength every day.

It is not pain, Restful pain. It is Tired Tiredness.

So when I’m dead I want to Rest awhile in my grave. It would Rest me.

In the Episcopal Church they use a ritual of poetic beauty, full of Restful things. One of them is the sleep of the dead. The crucified Nazarene slept three days. But all others of us when we go down into our graves are to sleep until a Judgment Day. ‘Judgment Day’ is preposterous and evilly crude: there’s no judgment till each can judge himself simply and cruelly in the morning light. But the sleep of the dead--

--the sleep of the dead. Its sound by itself without the thought is Restful--

And the thought is Restful.

I imagine me wrapped in a shroud of soft thin wool cloth of a pale color, laid in a plain wood coffin: and my eyelids are closed, and my Tired feet are dead feet, and my hands are folded on my breast. And the coffin is nine feet down in the ground and the earth covers it. Upon that some green sod: and above, the ancient blue deep sheltering sky: and the clouds and the winds and the suns and moons, and the days and nights and circling horizons--those above my grave.

And my Body laid at its length, eyes closed, hands folded, down there Resting: my Soul not yet gone but laid beside my Body in the coffin Resting.

--might we lie like that--Resting, Resting, for weeks, months, ages--

Year after long year, Resting.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
7 April 1921.
Reminds me of Mary Shelley. " Byron had never seen any one so pale as I."

" Since I myself have given myself the cause."

What does that mean exactly? That she sent Anthony away? or let Anthony go?

" In praising Anthony I have dispraised Caesar . . . I am paid for it now."

A creature like Cleopatra always expects to be paid for things.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
29 June 1665.
Up and by water to White Hall, where the Court full of waggons and people ready to go out of towne. To the Harp and Ball, and there drank and talked with Mary, she telling me in discourse that she lived lately at my neighbour’s, Mr. Knightly, which made me forbear further discourse. This end of the towne every day grows very bad of the plague. The Mortality Bill is come to 267;

which is about ninety more than the last: and of these but four in the City, which is a great blessing to us. Thence to Creed, and with him up and down about Tangier business, to no purpose. Took leave again of Mr. Coventry; though I hope the Duke has not gone to stay, and so do others too. So home, calling at Somersett House, where all are packing up too: the Queene-Mother setting out for France this day to drink Bourbon waters this year, she being in a consumption; and intends not to come till winter come twelvemonths.

So by coach home, where at the office all the morning, and at noon Mrs. Hunt dined with us. Very merry, and she a very good woman. To the office, where busy a while putting some things in my office in order, and then to letters till night. About 10 a’clock home, the days being sensibly shorter before I have once kept a summer’s day by shutting up office by daylight; but my life hath been still as it was in winter almost. But I will for a month try what I can do by daylight. So home to supper and to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
5 November 1914.
And nothing passed but a black horse as tall as a house with a dark serene rider in a wide hat gliding past them like a ship through the dark water, and gliding importantly down the hill. The sight was so fearful that K.T. knew she dreamed. "I must wake up at once." And she made every effort to shut her eyes and shake away the scene, but it would not go. She tried to call and she felt her lips open, but no sound would come. She shouted and screamed without a sound until at last she felt her bed and lifted her head into the burning dark of the bedroom.

The view from my window this morning is so tremendously exciting. A high wind is blowing and the glass is dashed with rain. In the timber-yard beside the cemetery there are large pools of water and smoke blows from . . .
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
21 March 1914.
Travelled with two brown women. One had a basket of chickweed on her arm, the other a basket of daffodils. They both carried babies bound, somehow, to them with a torn shawl. Neat spare women with combed and braided hair. They slung talk at each other across the bus. Then one woman took a piece of bread from her sagging pocket and gave it to the baby, the other opened her bodice and put the child to her breast. They sat and rocked their knees and darted their quick eyes over the busload. Busy and indifferent they looked.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
22 March 1914.
Went to the Albert Hall with B.C. A bad, dull concert. But I thought all the while that I'd rather be with musical people than any others, and that

New Zealand Memories

they're mine, really. A violinist (miles away) bent his head and his hair grew like G.'s : that made me think so, I suppose. I ought to be able to write about them wonderfully.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
[Prompt: What are you afraid of right now?]
30 August 1913.
We go to Cornwall to-morrow, I suppose. I've re-read my diary. Tell me, Is there a God? I'm old to-night. Ah, I wish I had someone to love me, comfort me and stop me thinking.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
26 December 1667.
Up and to Westminster, and there to the Swan, and by chance met Mr. Spicer and another ‘Chequer clerk, and there made them drink, and there talked of the credit the ‘Chequer is now come to and will in a little time, and so away homeward, and called at my bookseller’s, and there bought Mr. Harrington’s works, “Oceana,” &c., and two other books, which cost me L4, and so home, and there eat a bit, and then with my wife to the King’s playhouse, and there saw “The Surprizall;” which did not please me to-day, the actors not pleasing me; and especially Nell’s acting of a serious part, which she spoils. Here met with Sir W. Pen, and sat by him, and home by coach with him, and there to my office a while, and then home to supper and to bed. I hear this day that Mrs. Stewart do at this day keep a great court at Somerset House, with her husband the Duke of Richmond, she being visited for her beauty’s sake by people, as the Queen is, at nights; and they say also that she is likely to go to Court again, and there put my Lady Castlemayne’s nose out of joynt. God knows that would make a great turn. This day I was invited to have gone to my cozen Mary Pepys’ burial, my uncle Thomas’ daughter, but could not.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
[Prompt: What does this day deserve to have remembered of it?]
13 January 1922.
Heard from B. Her letter was almost frightening. It brought back the inexplicable past. It flashed into my mind too that she must have a large number of letters of mine which don't bear thinking about. In some way I fear her. I feared her at the rue de Tournon. There was a peculiar recklessness in her manner and in her tones which made me feel she would recognise no barriers at all. At the same time, of course, one is fascinated.

Wrote to K. Began a new story, but it went too slowly. J. typed for me. I am again held up by letters to write. Letters are the real curse of my existence. I hate to write them : I have to. If I don't, there they are — the great guilty gates barring my way.

Dreams

H. came and suggested my heart condition was caused by the failure to expand the diaphragm. Then why, in that case, not learn to expand it?
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
6 December 1921.
July 1 8. The noise in this house this morning is sheer hell. It has gone on steadily since shortly after six o'clock, and for some reason the maid seems to have completely lost her head. It's now nearly ten, and she hasn't cleared the breakfast away. I have to go again

Blankets

to the Palace at n, and the consequence is I'm rather nervous anyway. And I've had the flowers to do and various things to see to like — laundry. I can hardly bear it. Now she plods up. Bang! She will be at the door in a moment. I don't know how to stand it if it goes on. She's here. She's about to put the things in the lift. What are her thoughts ? I don't know or care. But I bitterly long for a little private room where I can work undisturbed. The balcony is not good enough; neither is this salon. Here again, J. has beaten me. And it's not half so important for him. . . .
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
[Prompt: What does this day deserve to have remembered of it?]
11 February 1666.
(Lord’s day). Up, and put on a new black cloth suit to an old coate that I make to be in mourning at Court, where they are all, for the King of Spayne.----To church I, and at noon dined well, and then by water to White Hall, carrying a captain of the Tower (who desired his freight thither); there I to the Parke, and walked two or three turns of the Pell Mell with the company about the King and Duke; the Duke speaking to me a good deal. There met Lord Bruncker and Mr. Coventry, and discoursed about the Navy business; and all of us much at a loss that we yet can hear nothing of Sir Jeremy Smith’s fleete, that went away to the Streights the middle of December, through all the storms that we have had since, that have driven back three or four of them with their masts by the board. Yesterday come out the King’s Declaration of War against the French, but with such mild invitations of both them and the Dutch to come over hither with promise of their protection, that every body wonders at it. Thence home with my Lord Bruncker for discourse sake, and thence by hackney coach home, and so my wife and I mighty pleasant discourse, supped and to bed. The great wound I had Wednesday last in my thumb having with once dressing by Mrs. Turner’s balsam been perfectly cured, whereas I did not hope to save my nail, whatever else ill it did give me. My wife and I are much thoughtfull now-a-days about Pall’s coming up in order to a husband.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
8 August 1660.
We met at the office, and after that to dinner at home, and from thence with my wife by water to Catan Sterpin, with whom and her mistress Pye we sat discoursing of Kate’s marriage to Mons. Petit, her mistress and I giving the best advice we could for her to suspend her marriage till Mons. Petit had got some place that may be able to maintain her, and not for him to live upon the portion that she shall bring him. From thence to Mr. Butler’s to see his daughters, the first time that ever we made a visit to them. We found them very pretty, and Coll. Dillon there, a very merry and witty companion, but methinks they live in a gaudy but very poor condition. From thence, my wife and I intending to see Mrs. Blackburne, who had been a day or two again to see my wife, but my wife was not in condition to be seen, but she not being at home my wife went to her mother’s and I to the Privy Seal. At night from the Privy Seal, Mr. Woodson and Mr. Jennings and I to the Sun Tavern till it was late, and from thence to my Lord’s, where my wife was come from Mrs. Blackburne’s to me, and after I had done some business with my Lord, she and I went to Mrs. Hunt’s, who would needs have us to lie at her house to-night, she being with my wife so late at my Lord’s with us, and would not let us go home to-night. We lay there all night very pleasantly and at ease...
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
6 October 1914.
The waiter prodded a keyhole with a bunch of keys, wrenched one round, flung the grey-painted door open and stood against it, waiting for her to pass in. He

held his feather duster upright in his hand like a smoky torch.

"Here is a nice little room for Madame," said the waiter insinuatingly. As she entered, he brushed past her, opened the groaning window and unhooked the shutters.

Evening October. They are walking up and down the garden in Acacia Road. It is dusky; the Michaelmas daisies are bright as feathers. From the old fruit-tree at the bottom of the garden — the slender tree rather like a poplar — there falls a little round pear, hard as a stone.

"Did you hear that, Katie? Can you find it? By Jove — that familiar sound."
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
15 November 1916.
1 On the opposite page is a long list of the chief figures in the history of English Literature, working backwards from the eighteenth century. Evidently, Katherine Mansfield had been trying to test her knowledge. In the final result, the list, though it is much corrected, is singularly accurate.

The Principal

he will have a stroke and die of paralysis. . . . They told us he was a very learned man, but I could not help seeing him in a double-breasted frock-coat, a large pseudo-clerical pith helmet, a large white handkerchief falling over the back of his neck, standing and pointing out with an umbrella a probable site of a probable encampment of some wandering tribe, to his wife, an elderly lady with a threatening heart who had to go everywhere in a basket-chair arranged on the back of a donkey, and his two daughters, in thread gloves and sand shoes — smelling faintly of some antimosquito mixture.
<|/entry|><|entry|>
14 March 1916.
As he lectured I used to sit, building his house, peopling it — filling it with Americans, ebony and heavy furniture — cupboards like tiny domes and tables with elephants' legs presented to him by grateful missionary friends. I never came into contact with him but once, when he asked any young lady in the room to hold up her hand if she had been chased by a wild bull, and as nobody else did I held up mine (though of course I hadn't). "Ah," he said, "I am afraid you do not count. You are a little savage from New Zealand"—which was a trifle exacting, for it must be the rarest thing to be chased by a wild bull up and down Harley Street, Wimpole Street, Welbeck Street, Queen Anne, round and round Cavendish Square. . . .
<|/entry|><|entry|>
10 December 1916.
And why didn't I learn French with M. Huguenot? What an opportunity missed! What has it not cost me! He lectured in a big narrow room that was painted all over — the walls, door, and window-frames, a grey shade of mignonette green. The ceiling was white, and just below it there was a frieze of long looped chains of white flowers. On either side of the marble mantelpiece a naked small boy staggered under a big platter of grapes that he held above his head. Below the windows, far below there was a stable court paved in cobble stones, and one could hear the faint clatter of carriages coming out or in, the noise of water gushing out of a pump into a big pail — some youth, clumping about and whistling. The room was never very light, and in summer M.H. liked the blinds to be drawn half-way down the window. . . . He was a little fat man.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
[Prompt: Who occupied your thoughts today?]
15 April 1916.
I was thinking yesterday of my wasted, wasted early girlhood. My college life, which is such a vivid and detailed memory in one way, might never have contained a book or a lecture. I lived in the girls, the professor, the big, lovely building, the leaping fires in winter and the abundant flowers in summer. The views out of the windows, all the pattern that was — weaving. Nobody saw it, I felt, as I did. My mind was just like a squirrel. I gathered and gathered and hid away, for that long "winter" when I should rediscover all this treasure — and if anybody came close I scuttled up the tallest, darkest tree and hid in the branches. And I was so awfully fascinated in watching Hall Griffin and all his tricks — thinking about him as he sat there, his private life, what he was like as a man, etc., etc. (He told us he and his brother once wrote an enormous poem called the Epic of the Hall Griffins.) Then it was only at rare intervals that something flashed through all this busyness, something about Spenser's Faery Queen or Keats's Isabella and the Pot of Basil, and those flashes were always when I disagreed flatly with H.G. and wrote in my notes — This man is a fool. And Cramb, wonderful Cramb! The figure of Cramb was enough, he was "history" to me. Ageless and fiery, eating himself up again and again, very fierce at what he had seen, but going a bit blind because he had looked so long. Cramb striding up and down, filled me up to the brim. I couldn't write down Cramb's thunder. I simply wanted to sit and hear him. Every gesture, every stopping of his walk, all his tones and looks are as vivid to me as though it were yesterday — but of all he said I only remember phrases — "He sat there and his wig fell off —" "Anne Bullen, a lovely pure creature stepping out of her quiet door into the light and clamour," and looking back and seeing the familiar door shut upon her, with a little click as it were, — final.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|maclane|>
[Prompt: Set down the truth of this day.]
5 January 1917.
In my black dress and my still room
I have fits of Laughter all to myself.

The world is full of funny things. All to myself I Laugh at them. I lounge at my desk in the small night hours, and I finger a pencil or a box or a rubber or a knife and rest my chin on my hand, and sit on my right foot, and Laugh intermittently at this or that.

Ha! ha! ha! I say inwardly: with all my Heart: relishingly.

I laugh at the thought of a mouse I once encountered lying dead--so neat, so virtuous--though soft and o’er-long dead--with its tail folded around it--in a porcelain tea-pot: a strong inimical anomaly to all who viewed it. It had a look of a saint in effigy in a whited sepulcher. Looked at as a mouse it seemed out of place. Looked at as a saint it was perfect.

I Laugh at the recollection of a lady I once met who had thick black furry eyebrows incongruous to her face, which she took off at night and laid on her bureau. They were at once ‘detached’ and detachable: itself a subtle phenomenon. She referred to her mind as her ‘intellects’ and talked with a quaint bogus learnedness, and in remarkable grammar, of the Swedenborgian doctrines. Looked at as a person she was inadequate. Looked at as a conundrum she was gifted and profound.

I Laugh at that extraordinary tailor in the Mother Goose rhyme--him ‘whose name was Stout,’ who cut off the petticoats of the little old woman ‘round about,’ herself having recklessly fallen asleep on the public highway. The tale leaves me the impression that such were the straitly economic ideas of the tailor that he obtained all his cloth by wandering about with his shears until he happened upon persons slumbering thus publicly and vulnerably. Looked at in any light that tailor is ever surprising, ever original, ever rarely delectable.

I Laugh at William Jennings Bryan.

How William Jennings Bryan may look to the country and world-at-large I have never much considered.

It is all in the angle of view: St. Simeon Stilites may seem rousingly funny to some: Old King Cole may have been a frosty dullard to those who knew him best.

To me William Jennings Bryan means bits of my relishingest brand of gay mournful Laughter.

The ensemble and detail of William Jennings Bryan and his career as a public man, viewed impersonally--as one looks at the moon--is something hectic as hell’s-bells.

I remember William Jennings Bryan when his star first rose. It was before Theodore Roosevelt was more than a name: before the battleship Maine was sunk at Havana: before Lanky Bob wrested the heavyweight title from Gentleman Jim at Carson: before aëroplanes were and automobiles were more than rare thin-wheeled restless buggies: before the song ‘My Gal She’s a High-born Lady’ had yet waned: before one Carrie Nation had hewn her way to fame with a hatchet. I was a short-skirted little girl devouringly reading and observing everything, and I took note of all those. So I took note of William Jennings Bryan nominated for president by the Democratic convention in eighteen-ninety-six. The zealous Democratic newspapers referred to him, though he was then thirty-six, as the Boy Orator of the Platte. Looked at as a grown man, advocating free coinage of silver at sixteen-to-one--a daring dashing Democrat, he was a plausible thing and even romantic. Looked at as a Boy Orator he turned at once into a bald and aged lad oddly flavored with an essence of Dare-devil Dick, of the boy on the burning deck, of a kind of political Fauntleroy madly matured.

Long years later with the top of his hair and his waistline buried deep in his past he became Secretary of State: and at the same time a Chautauqua Circuit lecturer--entertaining placid satisfied audiences alternately with a troupe of Swiss Yodlers. Of all things, yodlers. Politics makes strange bedfellows and always did. But never before has the American Department of State combined and vied with the yodler’s art to entertain and instruct. Looked at as a monologist he might pass if sufficiently interpolated with ah-le-ee! and ah-le-o-o! Looked at as Secretary of State he is grilling and gruelling to the senses: a frightful figure quite surpassing a mouse softly dead in a tea-pot, a pair of detachable fuzzy Swedenborg-addicted eyebrows, a presumptuously economical tailor.

And he entertained the foreign ministers at a state dinner, did this unusual man, and he gave them to drink--what but grape-juice, grape-juice in its virginity. Plain water might have seemed the crystalline expression of a rigid puritanic spirit. Budweiser Beer, bitter and bourgeois, might have been possible though surprising. But grape-juice, served to seasoned Latin Titles and Graybeards and Gold-Braid, long tamely familiar with the Widow Clicquot: that in truth seems, after all the years, boyishly oratorical, wildly and darkly Nebraskan. Looked at as an appetizing wash for a children’s white-collared and pink-sashed party, or for anybody on a summer afternoon, grape-juice is satisfactory. In the careless hands of William Jennings Bryan with his soul so unscrupulously at peace, the virgin grape-juice becomes a vitriolic thing: a defluent purple river crushing one’s helpless spirit among its rocks and rapids.

--a terrible American, William Jennings Bryan. He is for ‘peace at any price.’ There were some, long and long ago, who suffered and endured one starveling winter in camp at Valley Forge that William Jennings Bryan might wax Nebraskanly fat: and he is valiantly for peace: at any price--

For that my Laughter is tinged with fulfilling hatred.

Rich hot-livered Laughter must have in it essential love or hatred.

To William Jennings Bryan everything he has done in his political career must seem all right.

It is all right, undoubtedly. Just that.

--that Silver-tongued Boy Orator

those Yodlers

that Peerless Leader

that Grape-juice--

They come breaking into my melancholy night-hours with an odd high-seasoned abruptness.

I wonder what God thinks of him.

It might be God thinks well of him.

But I--in my black dress and my still room--I say inwardly and willy-nilly, and with all my Heart and relishingly:

Ha! ha! ha!
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
4 December 1668.
Up, and with W. Hewer by water to White Hall, and there did wait as usual upon the Duke of York, where, upon discoursing something touching the Ticket-Office, which by letter the Board did give the Duke of York their advice, to be put upon Lord Brouncker, Sir J. Minnes did foolishly rise up and complain of the Office, and his being made nothing of; and this before Sir Thomas Littleton, who would be glad of this difference among us, which did trouble me mightily; and therefore I did forbear to say what I otherwise would have thought fit for me to say on this occasion, upon so impertinent a speech as this doting fool made--but, I say, I let it alone, and contented myself that it went as I advised, as to the Duke of York’s judgment, in the thing disputed. And so thence away, my coach meeting me there and carrying me to several places to do little jobs, which is a mighty convenience, and so home, where by invitation I find my aunt Wight, who looked over all our house, and is mighty pleased with it, and indeed it is now mighty handsome, and rich in furniture. By and by comes my uncle, and then to dinner, where a venison pasty and very merry, and after dinner I carried my wife and her to Smithfield, where they sit in the coach, while Mr. Pickering, who meets me there, and I, and W. Hewer, and a friend of his, a jockey, did go about to see several pairs of horses, for my coach; but it was late, and we agreed on none, but left it to another time: but here I do see instances of a piece of craft and cunning that I never dreamed of, concerning the buying and choosing of horses. So Mr. Pickering, to whom I am much beholden for his kindness herein, and I parted; and I with my people home, where I left them, and I to the office, to meet about some business of Sir W. Warren’s accounts, where I vexed to see how ill all the Comptroller’s business is likely to go on, so long as ever Sir J. Minnes lives; and so troubled I was, that I thought it a good occasion for me to give my thoughts of it in writing, and therefore wrote a letter at the Board, by the help of a tube, to Lord Brouncker, and did give it him, which I kept a copy of, and it may be of use to me hereafter to shew, in this matter. This being done, I home to my aunt, who supped with us, and my uncle also: and a good-humoured woman she is, so that I think we shall keep her acquaintance; but mighty proud she is of her wedding-ring, being lately set with diamonds; cost her about L12: and I did commend it mightily to her, but do not think it very suitable for one of our quality. After supper they home, and we to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
[Prompt: What small thing mattered today?]
22 February 1661.
All the morning at the office. At noon with my wife and Pall to my father’s to dinner, where Dr. Thos. Pepys and my coz Snow and Joyce Norton. After dinner came The. Turner, and so I home with her to her mother, good woman, whom I had not seen through my great neglect this half year, but she would not be angry with me. Here I staid all the afternoon talking of the King’s being married, which is now the town talk, but I believe false. In the evening Mrs. The. and Joyce took us all into the coach home, calling in Bishopsgate Street, thinking to have seen a new Harpsicon----that she had a making there, but it was not done, and so we did not see it. Then to my home, where I made very much of her, and then she went home. Then my wife to Sir W. Batten’s, and there sat a while; he having yesterday sent my wife half-a-dozen pairs of gloves, and a pair of silk stockings and garters, for her Valentine’s gift. Then home and to bed.
<|/entry|>