<|entry|><|vangogh|>
28 November 1888.
My ambition is to make my pictures worth what I spend on them; or something more, because one must think of past expenses. But we shall succeed even in this; and even if everything does not turn out all right, work is at least progressing all the while.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|vangogh|>
6 September 1888.
I am constantly meeting the Danish painter; but he is soon going home. He is an intelligent fellow and his character and manners are impeccable, though his painting is still very weak. You will probably see him when he passes through Paris. You were quite right to visit Bernard. If he is going to do his military service in Algiers--who knows but what I may go to keep him company there.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|vangogh|>
8 October 1888.
I do believe that what K. says is quite right, I do not pay sufficient attention to values. But later on they will have even more to complain about, and they will say things that are no less true. It is impossible to attach the same importance both to values and to colours. Theodore Rousseau understood the mixing of colours better than any one. But time has blackened his pictures and now they are unrecognizable. One cannot be at the Pole and at the Equator at once. One must choose one’s way; at least this is what I hope to do, and my way will be the road to colour.

If you think the picture “In Memory of Mauve” will pass muster, you ought to put it in a plain white frame and include it in the next batch of pictures you send to the Hague. If you should find among the other studies, one which you think would be suitable for T. you might send it too, without dedication, and then you could keep the study on which there is a dedication, and all you would have to do would be to scratch the words out. It is better to send him a picture without any dedication; for then if he should prefer not to have a picture of mine he can appear as if he did not know that we wished to present him with one and quietly send it back. In any case I must offer him something, just to prove that I am interested in the cause, and that I know how to value to the full the fact that he has taken it in hand. But, after all, do everything as chance ordains.... As Mauve and he were very great friends, in the excitement of the moment it seemed to me the most natural thing in the world to paint something for T. at the same time as I painted the picture “In Memory of Mauve.” And that is all I thought about the matter.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|vangogh|>
8 September 1888.
Your Moslem notion that death comes when it must, might be looked into a little more deeply. It seems to me that we have no proof of such a distinct control of destiny by a power above. On the contrary, it strikes me that a reasonable and hygienic mode of life can not only lengthen existence but can also render it both merry and bright, whereas the neglect of hygiene in addition to disturbing the even course of our life may also bring it to a premature end. Have I not with my own eyes witnessed the death of a noble creature, simply because he had no intelligent doctor to attend him? He was so clear and so calm through it all, and kept repeating: “If only I had another doctor!” And he died with a shrug of his shoulders, and an expression on his face which I shall never forget.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
28 January 1917.
Half inevitably, half by choice
Half inevitably, half by choice, I write this book now.

I am at a lowering impatient shoulder-shrugging life-point where I must express myself or lose myself or break.

And I am quite alone as I live my life.

And I am unhappy--a scornful unhappiness not of bitter positive grief which admits of engulfing luxuries of sorrow, but of muffled unrests and tortures of knowing I fit in nowhere, that I drift--drift--and it brings an unbearable dread, always more and more dread, into days and into wakeful nights.

And writing it turns the brunt of it a little away from me.

And to write is the thing I most love to do.

And I myself am the most immediate potent topic I can find in my knowledge to write on: the biggest, the littlest, the broadest, the narrowest, the loveliest, the hatefulest, the most colorful, the most drab, the most mystic, the most obvious, and the one that takes me farthest as a writer and as a person.

I write myself when I write the thoughts smouldering in me whether they be of Death, of Roses, of Christ’s Mother, of Ten-penny Nails.

One’s thoughts are one’s most crucial adventures. Seriously and strongly and intently to contemplate doing murder is everyway more exciting, more romantic, more profoundly tragic than the murder done.

I unfold myself in accursed and precious written thoughts. I cast the reflections of my inner selves on the paper from the insolent mirror of my Mind.

--my Mind--it is so free--

My Soul is not free: God hung a string of curses, like a little manacling chain, round its neck long and long ago. Always I feel it. My Heart is not free for it is dead: in a listless way and a trivial way, dead. And my Body--it is free but has a seeming of something wasted and useless like a dinner spread out on a table uneaten and growing cold.

--but my free Mind--

Though I were shut fast in a prison: though I were strapped in an electric chair: though I were gnawed and decayed by leprosy: I still could think, with thoughts free as gold-drenched outer air, thoughts delicate-luminous as young dawn, thoughts facile, seductive, speculative, artful, evil, sly, sublime.

You might cut off my two hands: but you could not keep me from remembering the Sad Gray Loveliness of the Sea when the Rain beats, beats, beats upon it.

You might admonish me by driving a red-hot spike between my two white shoulders: but you could not by that influence my Thoughts--you could not so much as change their current.

I am intently aware of my Mind from moment to moment--all the passing life-moments. The awareness is a troubled power, a heavy burden and a wild enchantment.--

Also what I feel I write.

I am my own law, my own oracle, my own one intimate friend, my own guide though I guide me to dead-walls, my own mentor, my own foe, my own lover.

I am in age one-and-thirty, a smouldering-flamed period which feels the wings of the Youth-bird beating strong and violent for flight--half-ready to fly away.

I am not a charming person. Quite seventy singly-used adjectives would better fit me.

But I have some charm of youth, and a charm of sex, and a charm of intellect and intuition, and some charms of personality.

I have a perfervid appreciation of those things in other persons. And my steel has sometime struck fire from their flint.

But always my steel has turned back drearily yet strongly to itself.
<|/entry|><|entry|>
22 January 1917.
A twisted moral
If I should meet God to know and speak to the first thing but one I should ask him would be, ‘What was your idea, God, in making me?’

I can believe he had some Purpose in it.

I’m in most ways a devilish person. There’s sevenfold more evil than good in me. It is evil of a mixed and menacing kind, the kind that goes dressed in brave and beauty-tinted clothes and is sane and sound. While the good in me is ill and forlorn and nervously afraid--a something of tear-blurred eyes and trembling fingers.

Yet God has made many things less plausible than me. He has made sharks in the ocean, and people who hire children to work in their mills and mines, and poison ivy and zebras--

--and he has made besides a Wonder of things: Thin Pink Mountain Dawns, Young English Poets, Hydrangeas in the sudden Blue of their first Bloom, human Singing Voices,--more things, always more--

When I think of them all a joyous thrill breaks over me like a little frenzied wave. It is delirium-of-bliss to feel oneself living though shadows be pitch-black.

God has a Purpose in making everything, I think.

I am half-curious about the Purpose that goes with me. He might have made me for his own amusement. He might have made me to discipline my Soul with some blights and goads or to punish it for bacchanalian ease and pleasure in the long-distant centuries-old past. He might have made me to season or scourge other lives, as I may touch them, with Mary-Mac-Lane-ness. He might have made me to point a twisted moral.

I muse about it with doubts.

But if I knew my Purpose I belike would not swerve a hair’s-breadth from my own course which is an unhallowedly selfish one.

If I could myself see a way of truth I would walk in it. I have it in me to worship. I long to worship. And I am game, wearily and coldly game: when I start I go on through to the end.

But I see no way of truth--none for me. And God is eternally absent and reticent. So I go on in the way where I find myself. And muse about it. And damn it faintly as I make nothing of it.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
10 February 1661.
(Lord’s day). Took physique all day, and, God forgive me, did spend it in reading of some little French romances. At night my wife and I did please ourselves talking of our going into France, which I hope to effect this summer. At noon one came to ask for Mrs. Hunt that was here yesterday, and it seems is not come home yet, which makes us afraid of her. At night to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
28 May 1663.
Up this morning, and my wife, I know not for what cause, being against going to Chelsey to-day, it being a holy day (Ascension Day) and I at leisure, it being the first holy day almost that we have observed ever since we came to the office, we did give Ashwell leave to go by herself, and I out to several places about business. Among others to Dr. Williams, to reckon with him for physique that my wife has had for a year or two, coming to almost L4. Then to the Exchange, where I hear that the King had letters yesterday from France that the King there is in a of living again, which I am glad to hear. At the coffee-house in Exchange Alley I bought a little book, “Counsell to Builders,” by Sir Balth. Gerbier. It is dedicated almost to all the men of any great condition in England, so that the Epistles are more than the book itself, and both it and them not worth a turd, that I am ashamed that I bought it. Home and there found Creed, who dined with us, and after dinner by water to the Royall Theatre; but that was so full they told us we could have no room. And so to the Duke’s House; and there saw “Hamlett” done, giving us fresh reason never to think enough of Betterton. Who should we see come upon the stage but Gosnell, my wife’s maid? but neither spoke, danced, nor sung; which I was sorry for. But she becomes the stage very well. Thence by water home, after we had walked to and fro, backwards and forwards, six or seven times in the Temple walks, disputing whether to go by land or water. By land home, and thence by water to Halfway House, and there eat some supper we carried with us, and so walked home again, it being late we were forced to land at the dock, my wife and they, but I in a humour not willing to daub my shoes went round by the Custom House. So home, and by and by to bed, Creed lying with me in the red chamber all night.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
16 January 1901.
I feel about forty years old.

Yet I know my feeling is not the feeling of forty years. These are the feelings of miserable, wretched youth.

Every day the atmosphere of a house becomes unbearable, so every day I go out to the sand and barrenness. It is not cold, neither is it mild. It is gloomy.

I sit for two hours on the ground by the side of a pitiably small narrow stream of water. It is not even a natural stream. I dare say it comes from some mine among the hills. But it is well enough that the stream is not natural--when you consider the sand and barrenness. It is singularly appropriate.

And I am singularly appropriate to all of them. It is good, after all, to be appropriate to something--to be in touch with something, even sand and barrenness. The sand and barrenness is old--oh, very old. You think of this when you look at it.

What should I do if the earth were made of wood, with a paper sky!

I feel about forty years old.

And again I say I know my feeling is not the feeling of forty years. These are the feelings of miserable, wretched youth.

Still more pitiable than the sand and barrenness and the poor unnatural stream is the dry, warped cemetery where the dry, warped people of Butte bury their dead friends. It is a source of satisfaction to me to walk down to this cemetery and contemplate it, and revel in its utter pitiableness.

“It is more pitiable than I and my sand and barrenness and my poor unnatural stream,” I say over and over, and take my comfort.

Its condition is more forlorn than that of a woman young and alone. It is unkempt. It is choked with dust and stones. The few scattered blades of grass look rather ashamed to be seen growing there. A great many of the headstones are of wood and are in a shameful state of decay. Those that are of stone are still more shameful in their hard brightness.

The dry, warped friends of the dry, warped people of Butte are buried in this dusty, dreary, wind-havocked waste. They are left here and forgotten.

The Devil must rejoice in this graveyard.

And I rejoice with the Devil.

It is something for me to contemplate that is more pitiable than I and my sand and barrenness and my unnatural stream.

I rejoice with the Devil.

The inhabitants of this cemetery are forgotten. I have watched once the burying of a young child. Every day for a fortnight afterward I came back, and I saw the mother of the child there. She came and stood by the small new grave. After a few days more she stopped coming.

I knew the woman and went to her house to see her. She was beginning to forget the child. She was beginning to take up again the thread of her life where she had let it go. The thread of her life is involved in the divorces and fights of her neighbors.

Out in the warped graveyard her child is forgotten. And presently the wooden headstone will begin to decay. But the worms will not forget their part. They have eaten the small body by now, and enjoyed it. Always worms enjoy a body to eat.

And also the Devil rejoiced.

And I rejoiced with the Devil.

They are more pitiable, I insist, than I and my sand and barrenness--the mother whose life is involved in divorces and fights, and the worms eating at the child’s body, and the wooden headstone which will presently decay.

And so the Devil and I rejoice.

But no matter how ferociously pitiable is the dried-up graveyard, the sand and barrenness and the sluggish little stream have their own persistent individual damnation. The world is at least so constructed that its treasures may be damned each in a different manner and degree.

I feel about forty years old.

And I know my feeling is not the feeling of forty years. They do not feel any of these things at forty. At forty the fire has long since burned out. When I am forty I shall look back to myself and my feelings at nineteen--and I shall smile.

Or shall I indeed smile?
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
11 March 1914.
There is a certain resemblance between Katherine Mansfield's stories and those of Anton Tchehov. But this resemblance is often exaggerated by critics, who seem to believe that Katherine Mansfield learned her art from Tchehov. That is a singularly superficial view of the relation, which was one of kindred temperaments. In fact, Katherine Mansfield's technique is very different from Tchehov's. She admired and understood Tchehov's work as few English writers have done; she had a deep personal affection for the man, whom, of course, she never knew. But her method was wholly her own, and her development would have been precisely the same had Tchehov never existed.

= xiv =

Introduction

hors concours, though they find it as difficult as any critic to say wherein her superiority consists. And perhaps a more remarkable fact is that her stories have met with an unusual popular success. For all her art, perhaps more truly because her art was of a peculiarly instinctive kind, Katherine Mansfield's stories are read and loved by innumerable simple people, who find in her characters a living reality which is rare in the literature they read. And it may be that the simplest criticism of her work is the truest; and that the most adequate judgment upon her writing is that of the printer whom I have quoted: "But these kids are real!"
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
17 April 1666.
Up, and to the office, where all the morning. At noon dined at home, my brother Balty with me, who is fitting himself to go to sea. So after dinner to my accounts and did proceed a good way in settling them, and thence to the office, where all the afternoon late, writing my letters and doing business, but, Lord! what a conflict I had with myself, my heart tempting me 1000 times to go abroad about some pleasure or other, notwithstanding the weather foule. However I reproached myself with my weaknesse in yielding so much my judgment to my sense, and prevailed with difficulty and did not budge, but stayed within, and, to my great content, did a great deale of business, and so home to supper and to bed. This day I am told that Moll Davis, the pretty girle, that sang and danced so well at the Duke’s house, is dead.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
[Prompt: How are you feeling, honestly?]
15 June 1668.
(Monday). Up, and with Mr. Butts to look into the baths, and find the King and Queen’s full of a mixed sort, of good and bad, and the Cross only almost for the gentry. So home and did the like with my wife, and did pay my guides, two women, 5s.; one man, 2s. 6d.; poor, 6d.; woman to lay my foot-cloth, 1s. So to our inne, and there eat and paid reckoning, L1 8s. 6d.; servants, 3s.; poor, 1s.; lent the coach man, 10s. Before I took coach, I went to make a boy dive in the King’s bath, 1s. I paid also for my coach and a horse to Bristol, L1 1s. 6d. Took coach, and away, without any of the company of the other stage-coaches, that go out of this town to-day; and rode all day with some trouble, for fear of being out of our way, over the Downes, where the life of the shepherds is, in fair weather only, pretty. In the afternoon come to Abebury, where, seeing great stones like those of Stonage standing up, I stopped, and took a countryman of that town, and he carried me and shewed me a place trenched in, like Old Sarum almost, with great stones pitched in it, some bigger than those at Stonage in figure, to my great admiration: and he told me that most people of learning, coming by, do come and view them, and that the King did so: and that the Mount cast hard by is called Selbury, from one King Seall buried there, as tradition says. I did give this man 1s. So took coach again, seeing one place with great high stones pitched round, which, I believe, was once some particular building, in some measure like that of Stonage. But, about a mile off, it was prodigious to see how full the Downes are of great stones; and all along the vallies, stones of considerable bigness, most of them growing certainly out of the ground so thick as to cover the ground, which makes me think the less of the wonder of Stonage, for hence they might undoubtedly supply themselves with stones, as well as those at Abebury. In my way did give to the poor and menders of the highway 3s. Before night, come to Marlborough, and lay at the Hart; a good house, and a pretty fair town for a street or two; and what is most singular is, their houses on one side having their pent-houses supported with pillars, which makes it a good walk. My wife pleased with all, this evening reading of “Mustapha” to me till supper, and then to supper, and had musique whose innocence pleased me, and I did give them 3s. So to bed, and lay well all night, and long, so as all the five coaches that come this day from Bath, as well as we, were gone out of the town before six.
<|/entry|><|entry|>
17 June 1668.
(Wednesday). Rose, and paying the reckoning, 12s. 6d.; servants and poor, 2s. 6d.; musick, the worst we have had, coming to our chamber-door, but calling us by wrong names, we lay; so set out with one coach in company, and through Maydenhead, which I never saw before, to Colebrooke by noon; the way mighty good; and there dined, and fitted ourselves a little to go through London, anon. Somewhat out of humour all day, reflecting on my wife’s neglect of things, and impertinent humour got by this liberty of being from me, which she is never to be trusted with; for she is a fool. Thence pleasant way to London, before night, and find all very well, to great content; and there to talk with my wife, and saw Sir W. Pen, who is well again. I hear of the ill news by the great fire at Barbados. By and by home, and there with my people to supper, all in pretty good humour, though I find my wife hath something in her gizzard, that only waits an opportunity of being provoked to bring up; but I will not, for my content-sake, give it. So I to bed, glad to find all so well here, and slept well.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
5 March 1917.
Swift go my days
Swift, Swift go my days.

By rights I think time should drag with me, for I am wasting my portion of life as I live it.

But my days pass Swift--Swift, Swift.

They come, they fly away--before I know.

I’m thinking it is Tuesday: but while I’m thinking--Wednesday has come: and gone: and Thursday is rushing in. Tuesday, blue-and-gold or gray-and-silver, with its mornings and nights and bits of food and openings of doors and thinkings: Wednesday with the same equipment: Thursday the same.

Each day comes and goes like a flash of filmed silvered garbled light.

But there is time in each for me to touch the enchanted Everydayness: time for the turbulent sly delight of tasting, smelling, feeling the eternal humors and romances in each small thing near me--my Clock, my Window, my Jar of Cold Cream, my Two Thumbs. There is time in each day for it to make me pay a wearing glimmering feverish homage to the mystic daily godhead.

My life exacts terrific homages from me.

I am wearing out--frailly, tiredly, from a desolate uneasy love of living.

It is why my days go Swift when by rights time should drag leadenly in punishment for barbarous futileness.

There is not time-space enough in any of the days sufficient to love the virile green and the murderous red and the sweet pale surprising purple in the sunset above the west desert: nor space to love the smell of a sudden August rain: nor the flaming delicate Idea of the poet John Keats.

While I’m starting to love each of those to its height of love-worthiness--the to-day is gone: and the to-morrow, which must see a new love-game started for each Thing, is come.

But while I say ‘is come’: it’s gone.

So Swift go my days--oh Swift, Swift!
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
21 March 1901.
Some people think, absurdly enough, that to be Scotch or descended from the Scottish clans is to be rather strong, rather conservative, firm in faith, and all that. The idea is one that should be completely exploded by this time. I think that the Scotch as a nation are the most difficult of all to characterize. Their traits and tendencies cover a wider field than those of any other. To be Scotch is to be anything. There is no man so narrow as a Scotchman. There is no man so broad as a Scotchman. There is no mind so versatile as a Scotch mind. At the same time only a Scotch mind is capable of clinging with bull-dog tenacity to one idea. A Scotch heart out of all, and through all, can be true as death. A Scotch heart--the same one--can be cunning and treacherous as false human hearts are made. To be English is to have limits; the Germans, the French, the Russians--they have all some inevitable attributes to modify their genius.

But one may be anything--anything, if one is Scotch.

Always I think of the cruel, hardened, ferocious, weather-beaten, kilted Clan MacLean wandering over bleak winter hills, fighting the powerful MacDonalds and MacGregors--and generally wiping them from the earth,--marching away with merrily shrieking pipes from fields of withered, blood-soaked heather--and all this merely to gather intensified life for me. I feel that the causes of my tragedy began long, long ago from remote germs.

My Scotch blood added to my genius sense has made me into a dangerous chemical compound. By analyzing I have brought an almost clear portrait of myself up before my mind’s eyes.

When I was a child I did not analyze knowingly, but the child was this same genius, though I am one of the kind that changes widely and decidedly in the years. This weary unhappiness is not a matter of development.

When I was a child I felt dumbly what I feel now less dumbly. At the age of five I used sometimes to weep silently in the night--I did not know why. It was that I felt my aloneness, my foreignness to all things. I felt the heavy, heavy weight of life--and I was only five.

I was only five, and it seems a thousand years ago. But sometimes back through the long, winding, unused passages of my mind I hear that silent sobbing of the child and the unarmed wailing of a tiny, tired soul.

It mingles with the bitter Nothingness of the grown young woman, and oh, with it all--with it all I am so unhappy!

There is something subtly Scotch in all this.

But Scotch or Indian or Japanese, there is no stopping of the pain.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
23 January 1669.
Up, and again to look after the setting things right against dinner, which I did to very good content. So to the office, where all the morning till noon, when word brought me to the Board that my Lord Sandwich was come; so I presently rose, leaving the Board ready to rise, and there I found my Lord Sandwich, Peterborough, and Sir Charles Harbord; and presently after them comes my Lord Hinchingbroke, Mr. Sidney, and Sir William Godolphin. And after greeting them, and some time spent in talk, dinner was brought up, one dish after another, but a dish at a time, but all so good; but, above all things, the variety of wines, and excellent of their kind, I had for them, and all in so good order, that they were mightily pleased, and myself full of content at it: and indeed it was, of a dinner of about six or eight dishes, as noble as any man need to have, I think; at least, all was done in the noblest manner that ever I had any, and I have rarely seen in my life better anywhere else, even at the Court. After dinner, my Lords to cards, and the rest of us sitting about them and talking, and looking on my books and pictures, and my wife’s drawings, which they commend mightily; and mighty merry all day long, with exceeding great content, and so till seven at night; and so took their leaves, it being dark and foul weather. Thus was this entertainment over, the best of its kind, and the fullest of honour and content to me, that ever I had in my life: and shall not easily have so good again. The truth is, I have some fear that I am more behind-hand in the world for these last two years, since I have not, or for some time could not, look after my accounts, which do a little allay my pleasure. But I do trust in God I am pretty well yet, and resolve, in a very little time, to look into my accounts, and see how they stand. So to my wife’s chamber, and there supped, and got her cut my hair and look my shirt, for I have itched mightily these 6 or 7 days, and when all comes to all she finds that I am lousy, having found in my head and body about twenty lice, little and great, which I wonder at, being more than I have had I believe these 20 years. I did think I might have got them from the little boy, but they did presently look him, and found none. So how they come I know not, but presently did shift myself, and so shall be rid of them, and cut my hair close to my head, and so with much content to bed.
<|/entry|><|entry|>
31 January 1669.
(Lord’s day). Lay long talking with pleasure, and so up and I to church, and there did hear the Doctor that is lately turned Divine, I have forgot his name, I met him a while since at Sir D. Gawden’s at dinner, Dr. Waterhouse! He preaches in a devout manner of way, not elegant nor very persuasive, but seems to mean well, and that he would preach holily; and was mighty passionate against people that make a scoff of religion. And, the truth is, I did observe Mrs. Hollworthy smile often, and many others of the parish, who, I perceive, have known him, and were in mighty expectation of hearing him preach, but could not forbear smiling, and she particularly upon me, and I on her. So home to dinner: and before dinner to my Office, to set down my journal for this week, and then home to dinner; and after dinner to get my wife and boy, one after another, to read to me: and so spent the afternoon and the evening, and so after supper to bed. And thus endeth this month, with many different days of sadness and mirth, from differences between me and my wife, from her remembrance of my late unkindness to her with Willet, she not being able to forget it, but now and then hath her passionate remembrance of it as often as prompted to it by any occasion; but this night we are at present very kind. And so ends this month.

February 1st. Up, and by water from the Tower to White Hall, the first time that I have gone to that end of the town by water, for two or three months, I think, since I kept a coach, which God send propitious to me; but it is a very great convenience. I went to a Committee of Tangier, but it did not meet, and so I meeting Mr. Povy, he and I away to Dancre’s, to speak something touching the pictures I am getting him to make for me. And thence he carried me to Mr. Streeter’s, the famous history-painter over the way, whom I have often heard of, but did never see him before; and there I found him, and Dr. Wren, and several Virtuosos, looking upon the paintings which he is making for the new Theatre at Oxford: and, indeed, they look as if they would be very fine, and the rest think better than those of Rubens in the Banqueting-house at White Hall, but I do not so fully think so. But they will certainly be very noble; and I am mightily pleased to have the fortune to see this man and his work, which is very famous; and he a very civil little man, and lame, but lives very handsomely. So thence to my Lord Bellassis, and met him within: my business only to see a chimney-piece of Dancre’s doing, in distemper, with egg to keep off the glaring of the light, which I must have done for my room: and indeed it is pretty, but, I must confess, I do think it is not altogether so beautiful as the oyle pictures; but I will have some of one, and some of another. Thence set him down at Little Turnstile, and so I home, and there eat a little dinner, and away with my wife by coach to the King’s playhouse, thinking to have seen “The Heyresse,” first acted on Saturday last; but when we come thither, we find no play there; Kinaston, that did act a part therein, in abuse to Sir Charles Sedley, being last night exceedingly beaten with sticks, by two or three that assaulted him, so as he is mightily bruised, and forced to keep his bed. So we to the Duke of York’s playhouse, and there saw “She Would if She Could,” and so home and to my office to business, and then to supper and to bed. This day, going to the play, The. Turner met us, and carried us to her mother, at my Lady Mordaunt’s; and I did carry both mother and daughter with us to the Duke of York’s playhouse, at next door.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
22 November 1668.
(Lord’s day). My wife and I lay long, with mighty content; and so rose, and she spent the whole day making herself clean, after four or five weeks being in continued dirt; and I knocking up nails, and making little settlements in my house, till noon, and then eat a bit of meat in the kitchen, I all alone. And so to the Office, to set down my journall, for some days leaving it imperfect, the matter being mighty grievous to me, and my mind, from the nature of it; and so in, to solace myself with my wife, whom I got to read to me, and so W. Hewer and the boy; and so, after supper, to bed. This day my boy’s livery is come home, the first I ever had, of greene, lined with red; and it likes me well enough.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
24 December 1916.
"When will she play with it?" I asked grandmother.

"By-and-by, darling."

It was spring. Our garden was full of big white lilies. I used to run out and sniff them and come in again with my nose all yellow.

"Can't she go out?"

At last, one very fine day, she was wrapped in the warm shawl and grandmother carried her into the cherry orchard, and walked up and down under the falling cherry flowers. Grandmother wore a grey dress with white pansies on it. The doctor's carriage was waiting at the door, and the doctor's little dog, Jackie, rushed at me and snapped at my bare legs. When we went back to the nursery and the shawl was taken away, little white petals like feathers fell out of the folds. But Gwen did not look, even then. She lay in grandmother's arms, her eyes just open to show a line of blue, her face very white, and the one tuft of goldy hair standing up on her head.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
13 November 1916.
All day, all night grandmother's arms were full. I had no lap to climb into, no pillow to rest against.

The Doll's House

belonged to Gwen. But Gwen did not notice this ; she never put up her hand to play with the silver brooch that was a half-moon with five little owls sitting on it; she never pulled grandmother's watch from her bodice and opened the back by herself to see grandfather's hair ; she never buried her head close to smell the lavender water, or took up grandmother's spectacle case and wondered at its being really silver. She just lay still and let herself be rocked.

Down in the kitchen one day old Mrs. M'Elvie came to the door and asked Bridget about the poor little mite, and Bridget said, " Kep' alive on bullock's blood hotted in a saucer over a candle." After that I felt frightened of Gwen, and I decided that even when she did play with the doll's house I would not let her go upstairs into the bedroom — only downstairs, and then only when I saw she could look.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
1 September 1916.
Late one evening I sat by the fire on my little carpet hassock and Grandmother rocked, singing the song she used to sing to me, but more gently. Suddenly she stopped and I looked up. Gwen opened her eyes and turned her little round head to the fire and looked and looked at, and then — turned her eyes up to the face bending over her. I saw her tiny body stretch out and her hands flew up, and " Ah ! Ah ! Ah ! " called the Grandmother.

Bridget dressed me next morning. When I went into the nursery I sniffed. A big vase of the white lilies was standing on the table. Grandmother sat in her chair to one side with Gwen in her lap, and a funny little man with his head in a black bag was standing behind a box of china eggs.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
17 January 1916.
"Now!" he said, and I saw my grandmother's face change as she bent over little Gwen.

"Thank you," said the man, coming out of the bag. The picture was hung over the nursery fire. I thought it looked very nice. The doll's house was in it — verandah and balcony and all. Gran held me up to kiss my little sister.

Recollections of College

J.'s application is a perpetual reminder to me. Why am I not writing too? Why, feeling so rich, with the greater part of this to be written before I go back to England, do I not begin? If only I have the courage to press against the stiff swollen gate all that lies within is mine; why do I linger for a moment? Because I am idle, out of the habit of work and spendthrift beyond belief. Really it is idleness, a kind of immense idleness — hateful and disgraceful.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
29 December 1663.
Up and to the office, where all the morning sitting, at noon to the ‘change, and there I found and brought home Mr. Pierse the surgeon to dinner. Where I found also Mr. Luellin and Mount, and merry at dinner, but their discourse so free.... that I was weary of them. But after dinner Luellin took me up to my chamber to give me L50 for the service I did him, though not so great as he expected and I intended. But I told him that I would not sell my liberty to any man. If he would give me any thing by another’s hand I would endeavour to deserve it, but I will never give him himself thanks for it, not acknowledging the receiving of any, which he told me was reasonable. I did also tell him that neither this nor any thing should make me to do any thing that should not be for the King’s service besides. So we parted and left them three at home with my wife going to cards, and I to my office and there staid late. Sir W. Pen came like a cunning rogue to sit and talk with me about office business and freely about the Comptroller’s business of the office, to which I did give him free answers and let him make the best of them. But I know him to be a knave, and do say nothing that I fear to have said again. Anon came Sir W. Warren, and after talking of his business of the masts and helping me to understand some foul dealing in the business of Woods we fell to other talk, and particularly to speak of some means how to part this great familiarity between Sir W. Batten and Sir J. Minnes, and it is easy to do by any good friend of Sir J. Minnes to whom it will be a good service, and he thinks that Sir J. Denham will be a proper man for it, and so do I. So after other discourse we parted, and I home and to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
15 July 1660.
Lay long in bed to recover my rest. Going forth met with Mr. Sheply, and went and drank my morning draft with him at Wilkinson’s, and my brother Spicer.----After that to Westminster Abbey, and in Henry the Seventh’s Chappell heard part of a sermon, the first that ever I heard there. To my Lord’s and dined all alone at the table with him. After dinner he and I alone fell to discourse, and I find him plainly to be a sceptic in all things of religion, and to make no great matter of anything therein, but to be a perfect Stoic. In the afternoon to Henry the Seventh’s Chappell, where I heard service and a sermon there, and after that meeting W. Bowyer there, he and I to the Park, and walked a good while till night. So to Harper’s and drank together, and Captain Stokes came to us and so I fell into discourse of buying paper at the first hand in my office, and the Captain promised me to buy it for me in France. After that to my Lord’s lodgings, where I wrote some business and so home. My wife at home all the day, she having no clothes out, all being packed up yesterday. For this month I have wholly neglected anything of news, and so have beyond belief been ignorant how things go, but now by my patent my mind is in some quiet, which God keep. I was not at my father’s to-day, I being afraid to go for fear he should still solicit me to speak to my Lord for a place in the Wardrobe, which I dare not do, because of my own business yet. My wife and I mightily pleased with our new house that we hope to have. My patent has cost me a great deal of money, about L40, which is the only thing at present which do trouble me much. In the afternoon to Henry the Seventh’s chapel, where I heard a sermon and spent (God forgive me) most of my time in looking upon Mrs. Butler. After that with W. Bowyer to walk in the Park. Afterwards to my Lord’s lodgings, and so home to bed, having not been at my father’s to-day.

16th, This morning it proved very rainy weather so that I could not remove my goods to my house. I to my office and did business there, and so home, it being then sunrise, but by the time that I got to my house it began to rain again, so that I could not carry my goods by cart as I would have done. After that to my Lord’s and so home and to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
[Prompt: What is the weather inside you?]
24 May 1919.
I looked and felt vague as a king.

"Spades and buckets is round the point with the lobster catch." The hammer tapped. He explained that all the lovers would be sent away alive in sacks if they were not given a sharp stang with one of these. It was an ordinary grey and red garden trowel. L.M. went off to save their lives, but not joyfully. She walked heavy, her head down, beating the trowel against her side.

We were alone. The watcher appeared. He stood always in profile, his felt hat turned up at the side, a patch on the eye nearest us. His curved pipe fell from his jaws.

"Hi, Missy," he shouted to me. "Why don't you give us a bit of a show out there?"

The little man remonstrated. The sea was like a mass of half-set jelly. On the horizon it seemed ages fell.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
18 December 1919.
She murmured : " Purple chiffon front neck sleeves." I don't know. Finally I asked her to take it away.

" What is it, Katie? Am I interrupting your work? "

"Yes, we'll call it that."

Being Alone

Being Alone Saturday: This joy of being alone. What is it? I feel so gay and at peace — the whole house takes the air. Lunch is ready. I have a baked egg, apricots and cream, cheese straws and black coffee. How delicious ! A baby meal ! Mother shares it with me. Athenaeum is asleep and then awake on the studio sofa. He has a silver spoon of cream — then hides under the sofa frill and puts out a paw for my finger. I gather the dried leaves from the plant in the big white bowl, and because I must play with something, I take an orange up to my room and throw it and catch it as I walk up and down. . . .
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
[Prompt: How are you feeling, honestly?]
12 February 1668.
Up, and to the office, where all the morning drawing up my narrative of my proceedings and concernments in the buying of prize-goods, which I am to present to the Committee for Accounts; and being come to a resolution to conceal nothing from them, I was at great ease how to draw it up without any inventions or practise to put me to future pain or thoughts how to carry on, and now I only discover what my profit was, and at worst I suppose I can be made but to refund my profit and so let it go. At noon home to dinner, where Mr. Jackson dined with me, and after dinner I (calling at the Excise Office, and setting my wife and Deb. at her tailor’s) did with Mr. Jackson go to find my cozen Roger Pepys, which I did in the Parliament House, where I met him and Sir Thomas Crew and Mr. George Montagu, who are mighty busy how to save my Lord’s name from being in the Report for anything which the Committee is commanded to report to the House of the miscarriages of the late war. I find they drive furiously still in the business of tickets, which is nonsense in itself and cannot come to any thing. Thence with cozen Roger to his lodgings, and there sealed the writings with Jackson, about my sister’s marriage: and here my cozen Roger told me the pleasant passage of a fellow’s bringing a bag of letters to-day, into the lobby of the House, and left them, and withdrew himself without observation. The bag being opened, the letters were found all of one size, and directed with one hand: a letter to most of the Members of the House. The House was acquainted with it, and voted they should be brought in, and one opened by the Speaker; wherein if he found any thing unfit to communicate, to propose a Committee to be chosen for it. The Speaker opening one, found it only a case with a libell in it, printed: a satire most sober and bitter as ever I read; and every letter was the same. So the House fell a-scrambling for them like boys: and my cozen Roger had one directed to him, which he lent me to read. So away, and took up my wife, and setting Jackson down at Fetter Lane end, I to the old Exchange to look Mr. Houblon, but, not finding him, did go home, and there late writing a letter to my Lord Sandwich, and to give passage to a letter of great moment from Mr. Godolphin to him, which I did get speedy passage for by the help of Mr. Houblon, who come late to me, and there directed the letter to Lisbon under cover of his, and here we talked of the times, which look very sad and distracted, and made good mirth at this day’s passage in the House, and so parted; and going to the gate with him, I found his lady and another fine lady sitting an hour together, late at night, in their coach, while he was with me, which is so like my wife, that I was mighty taken with it, though troubled for it. So home to supper and to bed. This day Captain Cocke was with the Commissioners of Accounts to ask more time for his bringing in his answer about the prize goods, and they would not give him 14 days as he asks, but would give only two days, which was very hard, I think, and did trouble me for fear of their severity, though I have prepared my matter so as to defy it.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
9 January 1922.
Snow. The vegetable garden fence was all
but gone. H came and said there was between
6-7 feet of snow. He was very cheerful and friendly.
Off his guard, speaking of Miss S he declared,
" Well, the fact is she is not normal. And anyone who is not normal I call mad. She is unconventional, that is to say, and people who are that are no good to anyone except themselves." When he said " mad," a look came into his eyes — a flash of power — and he swung the stethoscope, then picked up my fan and rattled it open.

Read and knitted and played cards. A long letter from S. I want to believe all he says about my story. He does see what I meant. He does not see it as a set of trivial happenings just thrown together. This is enough to be deeply grateful for — more than others will see. But I have this continual longing to write something with all my power, all my force in it.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
10 January 1922.
Dreamed I was back in New Zealand.

Got up to-day. It was fine. The sun shone and melted the last trace of snow from the trees, from the roof. The drops were not like raindrops, but bigger, softer, more exquisite. They made one realise how one loves the fertile earth and hates this snow-bound cold substitute.

"The Doll's House"

The men worked outside on the snowy road, trying to raise the telegraph pole. Before they began they had lunch out of a paper, sitting astride the pole. It is very beautiful to see people sharing food. Cutting bread and passing the loaf, especially cutting bread in that age-old way, with a clasp-knife. Afterwards one got up in a tree and sat among the branches working from there, while the other lifted. The one in the tree turned into a kind of bird, as all people do in trees — chuckled, laughed out, peered from among the branches, careless. At-tend! Ar-ret! Al-lez!

January 11. In bed again. Heard from Pinker. The Dial has taken The Doll's House. Wrote and finished A Cup of Tea. It took about 4-5 hours. In the afternoon M. came. She looked fascinating in her black suit, something between a Bishop and a Fly. She spoke of my "pretty little story" in the Mercury. All the while she was here I was conscious of a falsity. We said things we meant; we were sincere, but at the back there was nothing but falsity. It was very horrible. I do not want ever to see her or hear from her again. When she said she would not come often, I wanted to cry Finito! No, she is not my friend.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
12 January 1922.
A vile cold day. The parcel came from M. But when one compares it with A.'s exquisite coat. . . .

J. and I ' typed.' I hate dictating ; but the story still seems to me to be good. Is it?

All the whole time at the back of my mind slumbers not nor sleeps the idea of Paris, and I begin to plan what I will do when. Can it be true? What shall I do to express my thanks? I want to adopt a Russian baby, call him Anton, and bring him up as mine, with K. for a godfather and Mme. Tchehov for a godmother. Such is my dream.

I don't feel so sinful this day as I did, because I have written something and the tide is still high. The ancient landmarks are covered. Ah ! but to write better ! Let me write better, more deeply, more largely.

Baleful icicles hang in a fringe outside our window pane.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
20 April 1664.
Up and by coach to Westminster, and there solicited W. Joyce’s business all the morning, and meeting in the Hall with Mr. Coventry, he told me how the Committee for Trade have received now all the complaints of the merchants against the Dutch, and were resolved to report very highly the wrongs they have done us (when, God knows! it is only our owne negligence and laziness that hath done us the wrong) and this to be made to the House to-morrow. I went also out of the Hall with Mrs. Lane to the Swan at Mrs. Herbert’s in the Palace Yard to try a couple of bands, and did (though I had a mind to be playing the fool with her) purposely stay but a little while, and kept the door open, and called the master and mistress of the house one after another to drink and talk with me, and showed them both my old and new bands. So that as I did nothing so they are able to bear witness that I had no opportunity there to do anything. Thence by coach with Sir W. Pen home, calling at the Temple for Lawes’s Psalms, which I did not so much (by being against my oath) buy as only lay down money till others be bound better for me, and by that time I hope to get money of the Treasurer of the Navy by bills, which, according to my oath, shall make me able to do it. At home dined, and all the afternoon at a Committee of the Chest, and at night comes my aunt and uncle Wight and Nan Ferrers and supped merrily with me, my uncle coming in an hour after them almost foxed. Great pleasure by discourse with them, and so, they gone, late to bed.
<|/entry|><|entry|>
22 April 1664.
Having directed it last night, I was called up this morning before four o’clock. It was full light enough to dress myself, and so by water against tide, it being a little coole, to Greenwich; and thence, only that it was somewhat foggy till the sun got to some height, walked with great pleasure to Woolwich, in my way staying several times to listen to the nightingales. I did much business both at the Ropeyarde and the other, and on floate I discovered a plain cheat which in time I shall publish of Mr. Ackworth’s. Thence, having visited Mr. Falconer also, who lies still sick, but hopes to be better, I walked to Greenwich, Mr. Deane with me. Much good discourse, and I think him a very just man, only a little conceited, but yet very able in his way, and so he by water also with me also to towne. I home, and immediately dressing myself, by coach with my wife to my Lord Sandwich’s, but they having dined we would not ‘light but went to Mrs. Turner’s, and there got something to eat, and thence after reading part of a good play, Mrs. The., my wife and I, in their coach to Hide Parke, where great plenty of gallants, and pleasant it was, only for the dust. Here I saw Mrs. Bendy, my Lady Spillman’s faire daughter that was, who continues yet very handsome. Many others I saw with great content, and so back again to Mrs. Turner’s, and then took a coach and home. I did also carry them into St. James’s Park and shewed them the garden. To my office awhile while supper was making ready, and so home to supper and to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
14 February 1916.
I begin to think of an unfinished memory which has been with me for years. It is a very good story if only I can tell it right, and it is called "Lena." It plays in New Zealand and would go in the book. If only I can get right down to it.

Dear brother, as I jot these notes, I am speaking to you. To whom did I always write when I kept those huge complaining diaries? Was it to myself? But now as I write these words and talk of getting down to the New Zealand atmosphere, I see you opposite to me, I see your thoughtful, seeing eyes. Yes, it is to you. We were travelling — sitting opposite to each other and moving very fast. Ah, my darling, how have I kept away from this tremendous joy? Each time I take up my pen you are with me. You are mine. You are my playfellow, my brother, and we shall range all over our country together. It is with you that I see, and that is why I see so clearly. That is a great mystery. My brother, I have doubted these last few days. I have been in dreadful places. I have felt that I could not come through to you. But now, quite suddenly, the mists are rising, and I see and I know you are near

me. You are more vividly with me now this moment than if you were alive and I were writing to you from a short distance away. As you speak my name, the name you call me by that I love so — "Katie!" — your lip lifts in a smile — you believe in me, you know I am here. Oh, Chummie! put your arms round me. I was going to write: Let us shut out everybody. But no, it is not that. Only we shall look on at them together. My brother, you know, with all my desire, my will is weak. To do things — even to write absolutely for myself and by myself — is awfully hard for me. God knows why, when my desire is so strong. But just as it was always our delight to sit together — you remember? — and to talk of the old days, down to the last detail — the last feeling — looking at each other and by our eyes expressing when speech ended how intimately we understood each other — so now, my dear one, we shall do that again. You know how unhappy I have been lately. I almost felt: Perhaps "the
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
12 January 1916.
new man " will not live. Perhaps I am not yet risen

But now I do not doubt. It is the idea (it has always been there, but never as it is with me to-night) that I do not write alone. That in every word I write and every place I visit I carry you with me. Indeed, that might be the motto of my book. There are daisies on the table and a red flower, like a poppy, shines through. Of daisies I will write. Of the dark. Of the wind — and the sun and the mists. Of the shadows. Ah ! of all that you loved and that I too love and feel. To-night it is made plain. However often I write and

" The Aloe"

rewrite I shall not really falter, dearest, and the book shall be written and ready.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
15 February 1916.
I have broken the silence. It took long. Did I fail you when I sat reading? Oh, bear with me a little. I will be better. I will do all, all that we would wish. Love, I will not fail. To-night it is very wild. Do you hear? It is all wind and sea. You feel that the world is blowing like a feather, springing and rocking in the air like a balloon from Lindsay's. I seem to hear a piano sometimes, but that's fancy. How loud the wind sounds! If I write every day faithfully a little record of how I have kept faith with you — that is what I must do. Now you are back with me. You are stepping forward, one hand in your pocket. My brother, my little boy brother! Your thoughtful eyes! I see you always as you left me. I saw you a moment alone — by yourself — and quite lost, I felt. My heart yearned over you then. Oh, it yearns over you to-night and now! Did you cry! I always felt: He never, never must be unhappy. Now I will come quite close to you, take your hand, and we shall tell this story to each other.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
23 July 1921.
Finished An Ideal Family yesterday. It seems to me better than The Doves, but still it's not good enough. I worked at it hard enough, God knows, and yet I didn't get the deepest truth out of the idea, even once. What is this feeling? I feel again that this kind of knowledge is too easy for me; it's even a kind of

trickery. I know so much more. This looks and smells like a story, but I wouldn't buy it. I don't want to possess it — to live with it. NO. Once I have written two more, I shall tackle something different — a long story: At the Bay, with more difficult relationships. That's the whole problem.

" Out of the pocket of the mackintosh she took an ample bag, which she opened and peered into and shook. Her eyebrows were raised, her lips pressed together. . . ."

" And a very long shining blue-black hairpin gleaming on the faded carpet. . . ."

" She shuddered. And now when she looked at his photograph, even the white flower in his buttonhole looked as though it were made of a curl of muttonfat. . . ."

" And she saw Mr. Bailey in a blue apron standing at the back of one of those horrible shops. He had one hand on his hip, the other grasped the handle of a long knife that was stuck into a huge chopping block. At the back of him there hung a fringe of small rabbits, their feet tied together, a dark clot of blood trembling from their noses. . . ."
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
4 May 1664.
Up, and my new Taylor, Langford, comes and takes measure of me for a new black cloth suit and cloake, and I think he will prove a very carefull fellow and will please me well. Thence to attend my Lord Peterborough in bed and give him an account of yesterday’s proceeding with Povy. I perceive I labour in a business will bring me little pleasure; but no matter, I shall do the King some service. To my Lord’s lodgings, where during my Lady’s sickness he is, there spoke with him about the same business. Back and by water to my cozen Scott’s. There condoled with him the loss of my cozen, his wife, and talked about his matters, as atturney to my father, in his administering to my brother Tom. He tells me we are like to receive some shame about the business of his bastarde with Jack Noble; but no matter, so it cost us no money. Thence to the Coffee-house and to the ‘Change a while. News uncertain how the Dutch proceed. Some say for, some against a war. The plague increases at Amsterdam. So home to dinner, and after dinner to my office, where very late, till my eyes (which begin to fail me nowadays by candlelight) begin to trouble me. Only in the afternoon comes Mr. Peter Honiwood to see me and gives me 20s., his and his friends’ pence for my brother John, which, God forgive my pride, methinks I think myself too high to take of him; but it is an ungratefull pitch of pride in me, which God forgive. Home at night to supper and to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
9 December 1920.
I don't want to be sentimental. But while one hangs, suspended in the air, held, — while I watched the spray, I was conscious for life of the white sky with a web of torn grey over it ; of the slipping, sliding, slithering sea ; of the dark woods blotted against the cape; of the flowers on the tree I was passing; and more — of a huge cavern where my selves (who were like ancient sea-weed gatherers) mumbled, indifferent and intimate . . . and this other self apart in the carriage,

Dickens

grasping the cold knob of her umbrella, thinking of a ship, of ropes stiffened with white paint and the wet, lapping oilskins of sailors. . . . Shall one ever be at peace with oneself? Ever quiet and uninterrupted — without pain — with the one whom one loves under the same roof? Is it too much to ask?
<|/entry|><|entry|>
29 February 1920.
Oh, to be a writer, a real writer given up to it and to it alone! Oh, I failed to-day; I turned back, looked over my shoulder, and immediately it happened, I felt as though I too were struck down. The day turned cold and dark on the instant. It seemed to belong to summer twilight in London, to the clang of the gates as they close the garden, to the deep light painting the high houses, to the smell of leaves and dust, to the lamp-light, to that stirring of the senses, to the languor of twilight, the breath of it on one's cheek, to all those things which (I feel to-day) are gone from me for ever. ... I feel to-day that I shall die soon and suddenly : but not of my lungs.

There are moments when Dickens is possessed by this power of writing : he is carried away. That is bliss. It certainly is not shared by writers to-day. The death of Cheedle : dawn falling upon the edge of night. One realises exactly the mood of the writer and how he wrote, as it were, for himself, but it was not his will. He was the falling dawn, and he was the physician going to Bar. And again when . . .

Le temps des lilas et le temps des roses Ne reviendra plus ce printemps-ci, Le temps des lilas et le temps des roses Est passé — le temps des œillets aussi.
<|/entry|><|entry|>
19 May 1920.
Le vent a changé — les cieux sont moroses Et nous n'irons pas couper et cueillir Les lilas en fleurs et les belles roses; Le printemps est triste et ne peut fleurir.

O joyeux et doux printemps de l'année Qui vint, l'an passé, nous ensoleiller; Notre fleur d'amour est si bien fanée Las! que ton baiser ne peut l'éveiller.

Et toi, que fais-tu? pas de fleurs écloses Point de gai soleil ni d'ombrages frais; Le temps des lilas et le temps des roses Avec notre amour est mort à jamais.

Life's a queer thing. I read this to-day, and in my mind I heard it sung in a very pure voice to a piano, and it seemed to me to be part of the great pain of youthful love.

Wickedness

I kissed her. Her cheek felt cold, white, and somehow moist. It was like kissing a church candle. I looked into her eyes : they were pale, flickering with dim, far-off lights. She smelled faintly of incense. Her skirt was rubbed and bulged at the knees.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
22 March 1885.
The other day I received a visit from M. K., R.’s friend, who, by the by, came back last Sunday. I must really call on him one day, and look at his work; for I have not yet seen anything he has done. He is a Yankee who probably does better work than most of his countrymen; but in spite of it all--a Yankee! Does that not cover everything? I shall be able to judge of his capacities only when I have seen his pictures and drawings.
<|/entry|><|entry|>
3 January 1885.
It seems to me as if Messrs. B. and V. cared nothing for the good opinion of artists. But, to be quite open, I thought the news was bad, and I could not help breaking into a cold sweat on hearing of it. I have been thinking about it ever since; for this conversation with the said gentlemen is to a certain extent a symptom of the fact that Impressionism has not taken deep enough root.

As for me, I immediately stopped painting pictures, and continued work upon a series of pen-drawings; for, I said to myself, a breach with these gentlemen might make a reduction in my expenses a desirable thing from your point of view. I am not so very much attached to my pictures, and will drop them without a murmur; for, luckily, I do not belong to those who, in the matter of works of art, can appreciate only pictures. As I believe, on the contrary, that a work of art may be produced at much less expense, I have begun a series of pen-drawings.
<|/entry|><|entry|>
3 June 1885.
The people here take too much advantage of the fact that with my canvases I need a little more room than other customers, who do not happen to be painters, and they improve the occasion by extorting exorbitant payments from me.... It is always a nuisance to have to cart all one’s materials and pictures about with one, and it considerably impedes one’s movements.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
29 December 1661.
(Lord’s day). Long in bed with my wife, and though I had determined to go to dine with my wife at my Lady’s, (chiefly to put off dining with Sir W. Pen to-day because Holmes dined there), yet I could not get a coach time enough to go thither, and so I dined at home, and my brother Tom with me, and then a coach came and I carried my wife to Westminster, and she went to see Mrs. Hunt, and I to the Abbey, and there meeting with Mr. Hooper, he took me in among the quire, and there I sang with them their service, and so that being done, I walked up and down till night for that Mr. Coventry was not come to Whitehall since dinner again. At last I went thither and he was come, and I spoke with him about some business of the office, and so took leave of him, and sent for my wife and the coach, and so to the Wardrobe and supped, and staid very long talking with my Lady, who seems to doat every day more and more upon us. So home and to prayers, and to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
18 January 1660.
To my office and from thence to Will’s, and there Mr. Sheply brought me letters from the carrier and so I went home. After that to Wilkinson’s, where we had a dinner for Mr. Talbot, Adams, Pinkny and his son, but his son did not come. Here we were very merry, and while I was here Mr. Fuller came thither and staid a little, while.

After that we all went to my Lord’s, whither came afterwards Mr. Harrison, and by chance seeing Mr. Butler----coming by I called him in and so we sat drinking a bottle of wine till night. At which time Mistress Ann----came with the key of my Lord’s study for some things, and so we all broke up and after I had gone to my house and interpreted my Lord’s letter by his character----I came to her again and went with her to her lodging and from thence to Mr. Crew’s, where I advised with him what to do about my Lord’s lodgings and what answer to give to Sir Ant. Cooper and so I came home and to bed. All the world is at a loss to think what Monk will do: the City saying that he will be for them, and the Parliament saying he will be for them.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|mansfield|>
2 February 1914.
I feel a bit more cheerful to-day because I don't look quite so revolting as I have done.

No, the day ended in being as bad as ever. For one thing my illness is really severe. I have been embroidering my kimono with black wool. Bah! What rot! What do I care for such rubbish!
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
3 February 1914.
I can do nothing. Have tidied my desk and taken some quinine and that's all. But I know I shall go, because otherwise I'll die of despair. My head is so hot, but my hands are cold. Perhaps I am dead and just pretending to live here. There is, at any rate, no sign of life in me.
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
15 February 1914.
Went to London with J.

She was, probably, the original of Miss Moss in "Pictures." In 1913 K.M. had acted as a super in various cinematograph productions.

A Journey to France
<|/entry|><|entry|><|mansfield|>
20 February 1914.
England is like a dream. I am sitting at the window of a little square room furnished with a bed, a wax apple, and an immense flowery clock. Outside the window there is a garden full of wallflowers and blue enamel saucepans. The clocks are striking five and the last rays of sun pour under the swinging blind. It is very hot — the kind of heat that makes one's cheek burn in infancy. But I am so happy I must just send you a word on a spare page of my diary, dear.

I have had some dreadful adventures on my way here because the place is within the Zone of the armies and not allowed to women. The last old fat man who saw my passport, 'M. le Colonel', very grand with a black tea-cosy and gold tassel on his head, and smoking what lady novelists call a ' heavy Egyptian cigarette,' nearly sent me back.

But, my dear, it's such wonderful country — all rivers and woods and large birds that look blue in the sunlight. I keep thinking of you and L. The French soldiers are pour rire. Even when they are wounded they seem to lean out of their sheds and wave their bandages at the train. But I saw some prisoners to-day — not at all funny. Oh, I have so much to tell you I'd better not begin. We shall see each other some day, won't we, darling?
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|pepys|>
25 June 1663.
Up both of us pretty early and to my chamber, where he and I did draw up a letter to Sir G. Carteret in excuse and preparation for Creed against we meet before the Duke upon his accounts, which I drew up and it proved very well, but I am pleased to see with what secret cunning and variety of artifice this Creed has carried on his business even unknown to me, which he is now forced by an accident to communicate to me. So that taking up all the papers of moment which lead to the clearing of his accounts unobserved out of the Controller’s hand, which he now makes great use of; knowing that the Controller has not wherewith to betray him. About this all the morning, only Mr. Bland came to me about some business of his, and told me the news, which holds to be true, that the Portuguese did let in the Spaniard by a plot, and they being in the midst of the country and we believing that they would have taken the whole country, they did all rise and kill the whole body, near 8,000 men, and Don John of Austria having two horses killed under him, was forced with one man to flee away. Sir George Carteret at the office (after dinner, and Creed being gone, for both now and yesterday I was afraid to have him seen by Sir G. Carteret with me, for fear that he should increase his doubt that I am of a plot with Creed in the business of his accounts) did tell us that upon Tuesday last, being with my Lord Treasurer, he showed him a letter from Portugall speaking of the advance of the Spaniards into their country, and yet that the Portuguese were never more courageous than now; for by an old prophecy, from France, sent thither some years, though not many since, from the French King, it is foretold that the Spaniards should come into their country, and in such a valley they should be all killed, and then their country should be wholly delivered from the Spaniards. This was on Tuesday last, and yesterday came the very first news that in this very valley they had thus routed and killed the Spaniards, which is very strange but true. So late at the office, and then home to supper and to bed. This noon I received a letter from the country from my wife, wherein she seems much pleased with the country; God continue that she may have pleasure while she is there. She, by my Lady’s advice, desires a new petticoat of the new silk striped stuff, very pretty. So I went to Paternoster Row’ presently, and bought her one, with Mr. Creed’s help, a very fine rich one, the best I did see there, and much better than she desires or expects, and sent it by Creed to Unthanke to be made against tomorrow to send by the carrier, thinking it had been but Wednesday to-day, but I found myself mistaken, and also the taylor being out of the way, it could not be done, but the stuff was sent me back at night by Creed to dispose of some other way to make, but now I shall keep it to next week.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|maclane|>
6 February 1917.
Food and fire
The first beauty in my life is John Keats.

In John Keats is my faith in some resurrection.

Without John Keats human nature feels to be something broken, menacing, unspeakably despicable and lost--lost in the shade. With John Keats the lights break across it and reflect the blazing yellow sun again from eyes and foreheads and fingers and shining hair.

There are world-and-human things which it thrills me to think about and dwell on: Nathan Hale on the British gallows: the charge of Pickett’s Confederate infantry at Gettysburg: Henry V, prince among kings and men, at Agincourt: Charlotte Corday in prison: Columbus with his felon crews sailing westward: Susan B. Anthony--a woman made in a strange still heroic splendor half-incredible: Alexander Hamilton: Arnold Winkelried: the sea-worn Pilgrim women disembarking into bitter Novemberness.

Those thrill me because they are brave persons and brave things full of idealistic strife: but they still are made of very struggling-garbled world-stuff--they are mere human fabric--till I think of John Keats: and at once they grow informing and eternal.

In his light the detailed world burns and glows!

John Keats! John Keats!--

Other poets have written Nightingales and Grecian Urns and Sonnets and Mirth-and-Passion things: but he wrote them in his glorious and wistful pain. He wrote the sweet headaches of his spirit into his delicate beaten-gold verse: the precious fevers of his mental veins: the bone-aches and muscle-aches of his thoughts: the darling skin-damps and palm-damps of his divine fancy:--all in the Song of his lilied youth.

There is no poet but writes his poetry out of inner travails and immense wistfulness. But they all write just beside their travail, not in it: just beside their wistfulness, not with it. A poet who feels the throat of his soul aching and swollen and inflamed writes--not just that astral diphtheria, not till another time: but instead the fine smothering of a hope, perhaps, the oblique suffocating of a love. A poet whose brain-hands throb with some horrible dulcet-ish tiredness from handling the heavy bright tools of his craft writes instead the throbbing of his brain-soles and brain-insteps from walking small odd hard rutted daily ways.

It rouses me--it heats my eyeballs with salty honeyed warmth as I read: but it is not John Keats: who writes his own immediate magic sickness in perfect sudden obvious blood-warm golden Now!

It is always old, old-fashioned ailment, worn of ages. The drowsy ache of the Nightingale goes a thousand years back and a thousand years to come: the restless ecstasy of a thousand thousand Nightingales, one for each who reads, in any age, all ages. Long, long after the jeweled English language is gone, dead as Homer’s, Keats’s Nightingale will flutter lyric-winged in the nervous jeweled lovely Now.

‘Weep for Adonis,’ wailed the differently-lovely Shelley, ‘he is dead.’ But he isn’t dead. He is terribly living, passionately living.

Each day of my life I feel him living. He breathes. He breathes close to me, pantingly, like a swimmer breasting waves or a playing child in a summer day.--John Keats!

Just Beneath My Skin he is my God-of-the-World, my Fetich and my Lover. He has been my Lover for seven gold years.

He is the first beauty in my flawed futile life. He is the most beautiful thing in the living and dying world. John Keats--John Keats!--

In everyone else I can feel mixed motives, tough tangled silk threads of self woven into wonderful wefts of days and deeds: in everybody, from Iscariot to Toussaint L’Ouverture, from Jeanne d’Arc to Victoria Woodhull, from Paul of Tarsus to Aaron Burr.

Only John Keats stands out alone, a true-breathing Poet, an Inmost Heart bleeding outward.

The lyric poet is the true poet. The lyric poet achieves no end in his art. He turns fragments of light and life into terms of beauty and sends them flying forth on flaming word-wings which translate the smooth human flesh they brush-by into delicious flesh-of-gold, flesh-of-petals, flesh-of-fire! But he makes no morals, teaches no lessons, finishes nothing. It’s as it should be. Nothing is finished. The mixed world is all unfinished, a glorified Mistake. The race is a millionfold Mistake: lives it, breathes it, battens on it--coarsely and finely and lamentably and musically and bravely. So that all poetry which wanders from the lyric is only a play or a picture or an airship or a cause which aims at fait-accompli, attaining an object: it is limited and man-made: its beauty is lopped off like boughs and branches after a storm: its wings are clipped. Its distanceless spaces, little and large, are visibly engineered by mathematic hands. But the lyric poetry is the true luminous and bloody interpreting of humanness.

John Keats wrote by the lights of his living and he lived all his days in joyous lyric anguish.

Once he wrote, ‘Ever let the Fancy roam, Pleasure never is at home.’ It is a factful of himself--lawless, radical and non-civilized, agleam in the mixed world. It is everybody--poets, burglars, nursemaids: everybody. He wrote it in a hundred other ways, but it is all in that: it is the lyric epitome of every day. Pleasure never is at home.

And ‘Heard melodies are sweet,’ he wrote, ‘but those unheard are sweeter’--

There spoke the wild delicate wiseness of his brain and the passionate delicate wonder of his heart.--John Keats! John Keats!

But everything he wrote, the Grecian Urn itself, is immeasurably less lyric than himself writing it and being it.

He is rich bright-wet living lyric for this Me in this Now though he has lain dead in Rome nearly the full hundred years.

My garbled life and my thinking hunger feed upon him.

He was the one human one who walked on in the way before him: not around the jagged little stones and icy little pools that were in it: but straight on through them all, though his lyric feet were quivering shuddering sensitive, sensitive beyond knowledge of commoner feet that walk around.

It fattens my leanest self to keep that in my constant remembrance.

The thought of his brave radiant loveliness reassures me to myself, by the hour.

I am futile: but he is mysteriously omnipotently useful and I catch some of it from him.

I am half-full of vanity: but he is of a lustrous priceless vanity himself that justifies mine and all the world’s.

I am fearing and false: but he is so brave, so true to infinite form, that by it he leavens the lump of the whole world’s mendacious cowardice.

My brain is full of wilding darknesses, snarled and knotted gifts and penchants: but into his strong brain the strong fresh yellow rain-washed sun shines straight down--through the wide twin-brightness of his Eyes. I look down his Eyes--twin public wells (he belongs publicly and privately to all this mixed mad world, and anyone may look!--)--I look into that titanic vibrant brain, and mine catches some of it: a blest and precious Disease, oh, a rare Disease!

My Heart--my Heart feels strange and tired and dead, a bit of dead-sea fruit: but his heart, warm and real and boundlessly unsatisfied, is always the deep quick fragrant Rose of this World.

A Hero!--a Poet-at-arms!--John Keats!

‘He has outsoared the shadow of our night,’ wrote that Shelley, and wrote no truer word.

I have read so many of the strange and splendid things--bits of them: Vergil and Homer and Villon and Goethe and all the English poets, and prose writers like Carlyle who in places out-poet poets,--and moderner ones and the new poets, imagists and others: John Keats feels a noticeably braver thing, and always, always a little way beyond. He is purely lyric.

When he loved a woman he loved the dubious fascinating Fanny Brawn-- sordid-brained, worldly: to him a mixed living devilish-glowing goddess. A higher-souled woman would neither have so tortured nor so held him. He was purely lyric. He cared truly nothing for the verdicts of critics and reviewers: and in the sweet-lipped boyish beauty of his youth they truly and easily killed him. It would be like that--it had to be. He was so purely lyric.

He died in the sweet fierce dazzling cause of Beauty.

I have so many thoughts and my thoughts are always my own. There are endless written thoughts deeper than mine--finer, stronger, anything-you-like. But mine answer for me: no written thoughts affect them, though they thrill my reading hours. Only John Keats’s thoughts can enter in and crush and cripple mine.

Because everybody is a little bit like John Keats I have a starry thin edge of faith inside me. He is food for my hunger of thought, fire for my passion of life.--John Keats!

He is the resurrection and the life.--

From my desk he gazes at me in a frame of old-gold. Every day the sunset on the glass blurs his large mournful joyous eyes with strangest agonized sunset tears: he shows me the sweet, sweet intoxication of his lyric grief.

He died young, unfinished--and oh, but it’s a shivering ecstasy to think of all those lyrics in him he never wrote!--the sweeter melodies--‘Unheard.’
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
21 August 1915.
Over the blue, swinging water, came a three-masted sailing-ship — with nine, ten, eleven sails. Wonderfully beautiful! She came riding by as though every sail were taking its fill of the sun and the light.

And: "Oh how I'd love to be on board!" said Anne.

(The captain was below, but the crew lay about,

idle and handsome. "Have some strawberries!" we

said, slipping and sliding on the rocking decks, and shaking the baskets. They ate them in a kind of dream. . . .)

And the ship sailed on. Leaving us in a kind of dream, too. With the empty baskets. . . .
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
28 December 1660.
Office day. There all the morning. Dined at home alone with my wife, and so staid within all the afternoon and evening; at my lute, with great pleasure, and so to bed with great content.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
12 September 1665.
Up, and walked to the office, where we sat late, and thence to dinner home with Sir J. Minnes, and so to the office, where writing letters, and home in the evening, where my wife shews me a letter from her brother speaking of their father’s being ill, like to die, which, God forgive me! did not trouble me so much as it should, though I was indeed sorry for it. I did presently resolve to send him something in a letter from my wife, viz. 20s. So to bed.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
[Prompt: What do you want?]
10 August 1888.
The pitiless Mistral is blowing! but I have to keep myself constantly ready; for I have to paint during the short intervals and then everything must be in order for the battle to be fought. The canvas has not yet been sent, and the matter is most urgent. Do please order ten or at least five metres at once. It is pressing. To-day I bought some here in order, weather permitting, to be ready to-morrow or the day after. I am wholly absorbed in my work, and I will certainly not give in if only I can keep in the vein. All these large pictures are good, but very trying. Enclosed I send you a letter I wrote yesterday. In it you will see what I think of the portrait of G. which he has sent me. It is too black and too sad. Even so, I must confess that I like him. But he will change and must come here. One should not work Prussian blue into one’s drawing of a face; for then it ceases to be flesh and becomes wood. I think and hope, however, that the other Brittany pictures are better, as regards colour, than this portrait, which after all was painted in a hurry.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
13 November 1883.
Almost at the same moment as I was dispatching my studies, Gauguin’s and your parcel arrived. I was overjoyed, my heart became really all aglow when I saw your two faces. Your portrait, as you must know, pleased me greatly. But you don’t require to be told that I like everything you do. Before I came on the scene nobody, perhaps, appreciated your work as much as I do now. Let me urge you to make a special study of portrait painting; work at it as hard as you can and do not give in; we must in time conquer the public by means of the portrait--in my opinion the future lies there. But do not let us become involved in hypotheses.
<|/entry|><|entry|>
1 July 1883.
I have ruthlessly to destroy a large picture of Christ with the angel in Gethsemane, and another representing a poet standing under the starry heavens; for, although the colour was good in both, the drawing was not studied in the first place from the model, which in such cases is essential.

Maybe, my last studies are not impressionistic at all, but that I cannot help. I paint what I paint, in complete subjection to nature, and without thinking of anything else.

I cannot work without models. I do not mean that I never turn my back boldly upon nature ...;{R} but I am frightened to death of losing accuracy of form. Perhaps later on, after ten years of study, I shall try; but really and truly, I am so devoured by curiosity for the possible and the actual, that I have neither the wish nor the courage to seek an ideal which could arise out of my abstract studies. Others may be more gifted for the painting of abstract studies, and you are certainly one of these, as is also Gauguin. Maybe, I shall be the same, some day, when I am old; meanwhile I feed on nature. At times I do indeed exaggerate or alter a theme; but I never invent a whole picture--on the contrary, I actually find it at hand and complete--all I have to do is to extract it from nature.

My house will seem less empty to me now that I have these pictures of you both. How glad I should be to have you here, even this winter! It is true that the journey is rather expensive. But could we not risk the expense and try to recover it by painting? In the winter it is so difficult to work in the North. Possibly it is so here, as well; I cannot speak from experience on this point. I shall have to wait and see; but the better to understand the Japanese it is deuced necessary to know the South, where life is led more in the open air. Besides this, a good many places here have something mysteriously sublime and noble about them, which would please you immensely.

I ought to have sent you some sketches long ago, in return for those you sent me. But just lately, during the lovely weather, I have been wholly occupied by a few canvases about 36 in. by 27½ in. in size,[28] which simply exhaust me, and which I intend using for the decoration of my house.

If your father had a son who sought and found gold in stones or on the pavement, he would certainly not think lightly of this talent. Well, in my opinion, you possess a talent which is, at least, equally valuable. Your father might deplore the fact that what you found was not brand new and glittering gold, already stamped like the coin of the realm; but he would, nevertheless, collect all your findings and sell them only at a good price. Well, then, that is what he should do with your pictures and drawings, which are just as valuable as marketable commodities as stones or metal; for to paint a picture is just as difficult as to find a small or large diamond. At present the world recognizes the value of a gold piece, or of a genuine pearl. Unfortunately, however, those who paint pictures and those who believe in the painting of pictures, are extremely rare. Still there are a few such people, and in any case we cannot do better than bide our time patiently, even though we have to wait a long while.

The idea of forming a sort of freemasonry among artists does not please me particularly; I am a great enemy of all regulations and institutions, etc. I am in search of something very different from dogmas, for they never by any chance set things in order, and only lead to endless disputes. That is a sign of decay. As, for the present, a union of painters exists only in very vague outline why not leave things as they are at least provisionally? It is much nicer when an organization of the sort we have in our minds crystallizes all of its own accord. The more things are discussed, the less will be done. If you wish to take a part in helping the cause, all you have to do is to continue working away with me and Gauguin; the affair is now started; do not let us say a word more about it. If it is to come it will do so without any elaborate negotiations, but simply by means of calm and well-considered action.
<|/entry|><|entry|>
27 September 1883.
I am sending five studies, and must also include at least two attempts at somewhat more important pictures--a portrait of myself and a landscape painted in a most terrible north wind. There are also a study of a small garden with flowers of all colours, a study of grey, dusty coal, and finally another still life, “A Pair of Peasant’s Shoes,” and a little landscape, a trifle, just a small stretch of country.

In the event of these studies not meeting with any appreciation, and one or the other of our friends not being able to take a fancy to any of them, please keep those that are liked and return the others together with the pictures sent in exchange for those that are retained.

There is no hurry, and when business is done by barter, it is but right and proper for both sides to try and offer only good work.

If in the morning it is sufficiently dry to be rolled up, I shall also send you a landscape containing figures unloading sand, and in addition to that the rough sketch of a picture which is full of a mature will.
<|/entry|><|entry|>
7 June 1884.
What about the gentleman so diligently engaged in art whom I found in your last letter, and who looked so like me--was he supposed to be me or somebody else? As far as the face is concerned he looks very like me; but in the first place I always smoke a pipe, and then I positively dread sitting on a thin ledge of rock overlooking the sea, for I suffer from giddiness. In the name of these presents I therefore protest most solemnly against the other resemblances I have already mentioned.{S}
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
15 May 1919.
It's raining, but the air is soft, smoky, warm. Big drops patter on the languid leaves, the tobacco flowers lean over. Now there is a rustle in the ivy. Wingley has appeared from the garden next door; he bounds from the wall. And delicately, lifting his paws, pointing his ears, very afraid that big wave will overtake him, he wades over the lake of green grass.

"Mr. Despondency's daughter, Muchafraid, went through the water singing."

She said: "I don't feel in the least afraid. I feel like a little rock that the rising tide is going to cover. You won't be able to see me... big waves... but they'll go down again. I shall be there — winking bright."

Oh, what sentimental toshery!
<|/entry|><|entry|>
10 June 1919.
I have discovered that I cannot burn the candle at one end and write a book with the other.

Life without work — I would commit suicide. Therefore work is more important than life.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
[Prompt: What small thing mattered today?]
8 January 1917.
To wander and hang and float about
My damnedest damningest quality is Wavering--Wavering--

I might say I prefer the dawn to the twilight or the twilight to the dawn.

Neither would be true.

I love the dawn--I love the twilight.

What I unconsciously prefer is the long negative Wavering space-of-day between the two.

I might say I prefer heaven to hell or hell to heaven.

Neither would be true.

My garbled gyral nature, partaking uneasily of both, prefers to wander and hang and float about between the two.

I might say I prefer strength to weakness or weakness to strength.

Neither would be true.

What I prefer is a hellish hovering, an endless torturing Tenterhook between the two.

And that Wavering preference is against my will, against my reason, against my judgment, against my taste and liking--against my life, my welfare, my salvation: against the clear lights of my spirit.

I know I work intently and industriously at the articles of my damnation in the Wavering--Wavering--

I know it would be better to die at once: failing that, to live but to live positively as a beggar, a whore, a thief or a milliner. Knowing that, I know also I Waver: I know I shall prefer to Waver: I know I shall constantly Waver.

I am constant--I am remarkably profoundly constant--in my Wavering.

In the morning as I dress I draw on a stocking--a long black or white glistening stocking. I know I do it only because the mixed big world, which refuses to Waver, is pushing--pushing me. I would choose if I could--though loathing my choice--to stay with my bare foot and my stocking in my hand, Wavering. Between drawing it on and pausing barefoot, Wavering. I prefer not to draw on the stocking: I prefer not to be barefoot: I prefer Wavering--Wavering--

When I’m hungry I choose: not to let food alone: not to eat it: to have it by me and Waver, Waver emptily. Not to enjoy its anticipation: not to contemplate it. No--no! To Waver! I reach and take the food because the world in its pushing pushes me.

If the world stopped pushing--

One reason it will be pleasant to be dead: I can then no longer Waver.

Worms will eat me unwaveringly. Or they may then do the Wavering. But I shall no more pause with a bare foot and an empty stocking, a dish of food and a gnawing midriff.

Here I sit as yet, alive and Wavering.

The Wavering is not the pale cast of thought: it is not my way of analysis: it is only Wavering--Wavering--

Wavering is not among the blue-green Stones in my antique necklace: not by that name--not as one Stone.

It is a marked and hateful and hellish gift of this present Me who house my Soul.

It is half of this Mary MacLane--who is I--: and I know.

I am constant alone--noticeably tensely constant--in my Wavering: and less constant in Wavering than in the ghoulish preference.

An odd and subtle doom.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
14 January 1901.
I have in me the germs of intense life. If I could live, and if I could succeed in writing out my living, the world itself would feel the heavy intensity of it.

I have the personality, the nature, of a Napoleon, albeit a feminine translation. And therefore I do not conquer; I do not even fight. I manage only to exist.

Poor little Mary MacLane!--what might you not be? What wonderful things might you not do? But held down, half-buried, a seed fallen in barren ground, alone, uncomprehended, obscure--poor little Mary MacLane! Weep, world,--why don’t you?--for poor little Mary MacLane!

Had I been born a man I would by now have made a deep impression of myself on the world--on some part of it. But I am a woman, and God, or the Devil, or Fate, or whosoever it was, has flayed me of the thick outer skin and thrown me out into the midst of life--has left me a lonely, damned thing filled with the red, red blood of ambition and desire, but afraid to be touched, for there is no thick skin between my sensitive flesh and the world’s fingers.

But I want to be touched.

Napoleon was a man, and though sensitive his flesh was safely covered.

But I am a woman, awakening, and upon awakening and looking about me, I would fain turn and go back to sleep.

There is a pain that goes with these things when one is a woman, young, and all alone.

I am filled with an ambition. I wish to give to the world a naked Portrayal of Mary MacLane: her wooden heart, her good young woman’s-body, her mind, her soul.

I wish to write, write, write!

I wish to acquire that beautiful, benign, gentle, satisfying thing--Fame. I want it--oh, I want it! I wish to leave all my obscurity, my misery--my weary unhappiness--behind me forever.

I am deadly, deadly tired of my unhappiness.

I wish this Portrayal to be published and launched into that deep salt sea--the world. There are some there surely who will understand it and me.

Can I be that thing which I am--can I be possessed of a peculiar rare genius, and yet drag out my life in obscurity in this uncouth, warped, Montana town?

It must be impossible! If I thought the world contained nothing more than that for me--oh, what should I do? Would I make an end of my dreary little life now? I fear I would. I am a philosopher--and a coward. And it were infinitely better to die now in the high-beating pulses of youth than to drag on, year after year, year after year, and find oneself at last a stagnant old woman, spiritless, hopeless, with a declining body, a declining mind,--and nothing to look back upon except the visions of things that might have been--and the weariness.

I see the picture. I see it plainly. Oh, kind Devil, deliver me from it!

Surely there must be in a world of manifold beautiful things something among them for me. And always, while I am still young, there is that dim light, the Future. But it is indeed a dim, dim light, and ofttimes there’s a treachery in it.
<|/entry|><|entry|>
15 January 1901.
So then, yes. I find myself at this stage of womankind and nineteen years, a genius, a thief, a liar--a general moral vagabond, a fool more or less, and a philosopher of the peripatetic school. Also I find that even this combination can not make one happy. It serves, however, to occupy my versatile mind, to keep me wondering what it is a kind Devil has in store for me.

A philosopher of my own peripatetic school--hour after hour I walk over the desolate sand and dreariness among tiny hills and gulches on the outskirts of this mining town; in the morning, in the long afternoon, in the cool of the night. And hour after hour, as I walk, through my brain some long, long pageants march: the pageant of my fancies, the pageant of my unparalleled egotism, the pageant of my unhappiness, the pageant of my minute analyzing, the pageant of my peculiar philosophy, the pageant of my dull, dull life,--and the pageant of the Possibilities.

We three go out on the sand and barrenness: my wooden heart, my good young woman’s-body, my soul. We go there and contemplate the long sandy wastes, the red, red line on the sky at the setting of the sun, the cold gloomy mountains under it, the ground without a weed, without a grass-blade even in their season--for they have years ago been killed off by the sulphur smoke from the smelters.

So this sand and barrenness forms the setting for the personality of me.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|><|maclane|>
10 January 1917.
It’s not death
It’s not Death I fear, nor Life.

I horridly fear something this side of Death but out-pacing Life a little: a nervousness in my Stomach--a very Muddy Street--a Lonely Hotel Room.
<|/entry|>


<|entry|>
10 December 1668.
Up, and to the Office, where busy all the morning: Middleton not there, so no words or looks of him. At noon, home to dinner; and so to the Office, and there all the afternoon busy; and at night W. Hewer home with me; and we think we have got matter enough to make Middleton appear a coxcomb. But it troubled me to have Sir W. Warren meet me at night, going out of the Office home, and tell me that Middleton do intend to complain to the Duke of York: but, upon consideration of the business, I did go to bed, satisfied that it was best for me that he should; and so my trouble was over, and to bed, and slept well.
<|/entry|><|entry|>
22 December 1668.
At the office all the morning, and at noon to the ‘Change, thinking to meet with Langford about my father’s house in Fleet Streete, but I come too late, and so home to dinner, and all the afternoon at the office busy, and at night home to supper and talk, and with mighty content with my wife, and so to bed.
<|/entry|><|entry|>
25 December 1668.
(Christmas-day). Up, and continued on my waistcoat, the first day this winter, and I to church, where Alderman Backewell, coming in late, I beckoned to his lady to come up to us, who did, with another lady; and after sermon, I led her down through the church to her husband and coach, a noble, fine woman, and a good one, and one my wife shall be acquainted with. So home, and to dinner alone with my wife, who, poor wretch! sat undressed all day, till ten at night, altering and lacing of a noble petticoat: while I by her, making the boy read to me the Life of Julius Caesar, and Des Cartes’ book of Musick

--the latter of which I understand not, nor think he did well that writ it, though a most learned man. Then, after supper, I made the boy play upon his lute, which I have not done twice before since he come to me; and so, my mind in mighty content, we to bed.
<|/entry|><|entry|>
26 December 1668.
Lay long with pleasure, prating with my wife, and then up, and I a little to the Office, and my head busy setting some papers and accounts to rights, which being long neglected because of my eyes will take me up much time and care to do, but it must be done. So home at noon to dinner, and then abroad with my wife to a play, at the Duke of York’s house, the house full of ordinary citizens. The play was “Women Pleased,” which we had never seen before; and, though but indifferent, yet there is a good design for a good play. So home, and there to talk, and my wife to read to me, and so to bed.
<|/entry|>