Wilhelm Nero Pilate Barbellion - The Journal of a Disappointed Man

September 18.

The funeral. It is not death but the dreadful possibilities of life which are so depressing . 6 6 Italics added 1917.

September 21.

A Day in Autumn

A cool, breezy autumn day. The beach was covered with patches of soapy foam that shook tremulously in the wind – all the rocks and everything were drenched with water, and the spray came off the breaking waves like steam. A red sun went lower and lower and the shadows cast by the rocks grew very long and grotesque. Underneath the breaking waves, the hollows were green and dark like sea caverns. Herring gulls played about in the air balancing themselves as they faced the breeze, then sweeping suddenly around and downwards with the wind behind them. We all sat down on the rocks and were very quiet, almost monosyllabic. We pointed out a passing vessel to one another or chucked a bit of shingle into the sea. You would have said we were bored. Yet deep down in ourselves we were astir and all around us we could hear the rumours of divine passage, soft and mysterious as the flight of birds migrating in the dark.

The wind rose and tapped the line against the flag-staff at the Coastguard Station. It roared through my hair and past my ears for an hour on end till I felt quite windswept and bleak. On the way home we saw the wind darting hither and thither over the long grass like a lunatic snake. The wind! Oh! the wind – I have an enormous faith in the curative properties of the wind. I feel better already.

October 17.

Staying in Surrey. Exam, over and I feel fairly confident – after an agony for a few days before on account of the development of a cold which threatened to snatch the last chance out of my hands.

Justifiable Mendacity

Sitting on a gate on the N. Downs I saw a long way below me in the valley a man standing in a chalk pit and wielding a stick vigorously. For some reason or another the idea came to me that it would be interesting if he were in the act of killing a Snake – he so far away below and I above and unnoticed quietly watching him. At dinner to-night, this revised version of the story came out quite pat and natural and obviously interested the assembly. I added graphically that the man was too far away from me to be able to say what species of Snake it was he was killing. I possess the qualifications of an artistic liar. Yet I can't regard such a story as a lie – it was rather a justifiable emendation of an otherwise uninteresting incident.

October 24.

Une Caractère

… She is a tiny little old lady, very frail and very delicate, with a tiny voice like the noise of a fretsaw. She talks incessantly about things which do not interest you, until your face gets stiff with forcing a polite smile, and your voice cracked and your throat dry with saying, "Yes," and "Really."

To-night I attend the Zoological Society to read my first paper, so I am really in a fluster and want to be quiet. Therefore to prevent her from talking I write two letters which I represent as urgent. At 6.15 desperate, so went out for a walk in the dark London streets. Returned to supper and to Her. After the wife, the husband is intellectual pyrotechnics. Referring to the Museum, —

"Would you have there, I suppose, any insects, in a case like, what you might say to study to yourself when no one is by?" he inquired.

6.40. It is now one hour before I need leave for the meeting, and whether I sigh, cough, smoke, or read the paper, she goes on. She even refuses to allow me to scan the lines below photos in the Illustrated London News. I write this as the last sole resource to escape her devastating prattle and the ceaseless hum of her tiny gnat-like mind. She thinks (because I told her so) that I am preparing notes for the evening meeting.

Later : Spent an absolutely damnable day. Am sick, tired, bored, frantic with her voice which I have been able to share with no one except the intellectual giant, her husband, at tea time. In order to break the flow of chatter, I would rudely interrupt and go on talking, by this means keeping my end up for as long as I could, and enjoying a short respite from the fret-sawing voice. But I tired of this and it was of no permanent value. When I broke in, she still went on for a few sentences unable to stop, and lo! here was the spectacle of two persons alone together in a room both talking at the same time and neither listening. I persisted though – and she had to stop. Once started, I was afraid to stop – scared at the certain fact of the voice beginning to saw again. After a while the fountain of my artificial garrulity dried up, and the Voice at once leaped into the breach, resuming – amazing and incredible as it seems – at the precise point where it had left off. At 7 I am quite exhausted and sit on the opposite side of the hearth, staring with glassy eyes, arms drooping at my sides and mouth druling. At 7.05 her cough increases, and she has to stop to attend to it. With a fiendish smile I push back my chair, and quietly watch her cough… She coughs continuously now and can talk no longer. Thank God! 8 p.m., left for the meeting, where I read my paper in a state of awful nervousness… I read out all I had to say and kept them amused for about ten minutes. I was very excited when Dr. – got up and praised the paper, 7 7 The paper was "Distant Orientation in Batrachia" – detailing experiments on the homing faculty in newts. saying it was interesting, and hoping I should continue the experiments. The chairman, Sir John Rose Bradford, asked a question, I answered it and then sat down. After the meeting we went upstairs to the library, had tea and chatted with some of the big people… Zoology is certainly delightful, yet it seems to me the Zoologists are much as other people. I like Zoology. I wish I could do without Zoologists…

October 30.

Home once more. The Natural History Museum impressed me enormously. It is a magnificent building – too magnificent to work there – to follow one's profession in a building like that seems an altogether too grandiose manner of life. A pious zoologist might go up to pray in it – but not to earn his daily bread there.

October 31.

I'm in, in, in!!!!!!!!! being first with 141 marks to spare. Old M – [the servant] rushes up to my sister's bedroom with the news just after 7 a.m., and she says, "Fine, fine," and comes down in her nightgown to my bedroom, where we drink our morning cup of tea together – and talk! I'm delighted. What a magnificent obstacle race it has been! Still one ditch – the medical exam! Wired to friends.

November 1.

This is the sort of letter which is balm to me: – "My darling W – , – I need hardly tell you how absolutely delighted we were at the grand news of this morning. You must be feeling a huge glow of satisfaction with the knowledge of your object attained through untold difficulties. I don't wish to butter you up, or to gush, but I must honestly say that I feel tip-top proud of my old Beano. I admire your brains more than ever, and also your indomitable pluck and grit, and your quiet bravery in disappointment and difficulty…"

November 14.

The three most fascinating books in Science that I have so far read are (easily): – 1. Darwin's Expression of the Emotions . 2. Gaskell's Origin of Vertebrates . 3. Bergson's Le Rire .

Went to the dentist in the afternoon. Evening chiefly occupied in reading Le Rire . By my halidom, it is an extraordinarily interesting book!

November 29.

… I am always looking out for new friends – assaying for friendship… There is no more delightful adventure than an expedition into a rich, many-sided personality. Gradually over a long probation – for deep minds are naturally reticent – piece after piece is added to the geography of your friend's mind, and each piece pleases or entertains, while in return you let him steal away piece after piece of your own territory, perhaps saving a bit up here and there – such as an enthusiasm for Francis Thompson's poetry – and then letting it go unexpectedly. It's a delightful reciprocity.