"SACK-CLOTH AND HASHISH"
Herman H. Lackner
The
October 14. 1968
As one man's metes
are another man's bounds, so do people, places, insti-
tutions, experiences, and, of course, emotions mean
different things to dif-
ferent diarists. All other writing is directed
to other people -- to entertain,
to influence, to dun, to inflame or to sell a product or the writing itself.
Diaries, on the other hand, are inner-directed and as intimate and honest as
a person can be with himself. Being confidential, the best are written
without
reticence or inhibition to aid memory (without necessarily increasing its ac-
curacy), to vent spleen, to perfect literary style, to record convictions or
inventions (the John Deere Co. has successfully taken the diaries of Theophilus
Brown into court to protect its patents), and for unnumbered private reasons.
For the professional writer, journals are like money in the bank. They
are
easily and quickly converted into memoirs, as Frank Harris, Henry Miller, Mark
Twain and others have done so profitably, or into "anti-memoirs"
which Andre
Malraux describes as answering "a question which
memoirs do not pose, and not
answering those which they do".
The following
samplings of a random assortment of journals can only sug-
gest the many facets of orthodoxy, the mutuality of
zenith and nadir as in-
terpreted by such disparate journalists as
Tchaikovsky, who considered marriage
a penance worse than sack-cloth; and Queen Victoria, who considered it a dream
far exceeding the capabilities of hashish.
Queen
to herself for missing the day after her wedding. However, on her wedding
day
she was turned on. Listen to her tell it like it was. In part:
"
Mama brought me a nosegay of orange flowers. Wrote my journal and to Lord
M.
Had mv hair dressed. . . .
(Some pages later:)
"The procession
looked beautiful going down stairs. The flourish of
trumpets ceased as I entered the chapel and the organ began to play which had
a beautiful effect. The ceremony was very imposing and fine and simple and,
I think, ought to make an everlasting impression on everyone who promises at
the altar to keep what he or she promises. Dearest Albert repeated everything
distinctly. I felt so happy when the ring was put on by Albert. I then re-
turned to
heartily, the crowd was immense.
Sweet! But to every verse -- even a paean -- there is a reverse.
The Countess
Francoise Krasinska, a
her journal the most suitable sentiments of filial devotion, piety, girlish
glee
and, above all, enthusiasm for the social whirl. The style progresses
from
idyllic to rhapsodic to lachrymose, as the following entry explains:
fore God, we swore to each other faith and love until death. What a terrible
wedding! At five o’clock in the morning the Prince, my uncle, knocked at the
door. I was quite dressed and we went out stealthily; at the gate the Duke, my
husband-to-be, and Prince Martin were waiting for us. It was quite dark, the
wind blew fiercely, we walked to the church as a carriage
would have made a
noise. The church was dark and silent as a grave; at a side altar two
candles
were lighted; no living soul but the priest and a sacristan. Our
steps re-
sounded as in a cavern.
"The ceremony
did not last ten minutes and then we hastened away as if pur-
sued. The duke brought us to the gate, and Prince Martin had to compel him to
go away.
Now I am again in my room alone. Nobody Is blessing or
congratulating
me, and if it were not for the wedding ring, which I shall soon have to take
off and hide, I could not believe that I have returned from my wedding, that I
am a married woman, that I am his forever."
That she was his
forever did, indeed, sometimes escape the memory of the
Duke. The marriage was kept secret for many years lest news of it interfere
with the
groom's prospects of employment. The only trade for which he had been
trained was being a king, and agencies have only the scantiest listings in this
category. The ultimate reward of having their great-great grandchildren en-
sconced on thrones of their own would, had they lived
to see it, have assuaged
what Turgenev calls the "sumptuous long-suffering of the virtuous".
Turgenev is often
quoted in the Goncourt Journals. Who isn’t? The names
dropped by Suzy, the syndicated columnist, do not sound more like hail on a tin
roof than the joint journal kept by these brothers. On January 28, 1878,
Edmond de Goncourt wrote: "When we asked
Turgenev what was the keenest amorous
sensation he had ever known, he thought for a while and then said: ‘I was very
young at the time and a virgin with all the longings a boy has at fifteen. At
my mother’s house there was a pretty chambermaid with a stupid face. . . . I
was walking around the garden when suddenly that girl came straight up to me
and took hold of me — and remember that I was her master and she was just a
serf -- took hold of me by the hair at the back of my neck and said: Come!
What followed was a sensation similar to the sensations we have all of us ex-
perienced so many times. But that gentle gripping of
my hair with the single
word sometimes comes back to me, and just thinking about it makes me happy’.”
Not until years
later did Turgenev discover that this encounter had been
arranged by his mother as part of his education. Another thoughtful parent was
the father of Sergei Diaghillef
who, according to Nijinsky’s Journal, took his
adolescent son to a brothel with results which were as unfortunate to the boy’s
health as to his psyche. More relentlessly, albeit more
subtly, pursued was
Henri-Frederic Amiel, Professor of Aesthetics and
Moral Philosophy at
which was not included in the translation and digest
by Mrs. Humphrey Ward which
Victorian England found so elevating:
"September
25th, 1860. I have had neither wife nor mistress, nor passion,
nor affair; I have especially avoided sensual pleasure and let the golden age
pass; have I not been a fool? Such is the thought that besieges the celibate
of thirty-nine in his solitary room, on his sleepless pillow.
"October 6th
(his fortieth birthday). What am I to call the experience
of this evening? Was it disappointing? Was it intoxicating? Neither
the one
nor the other. For the first time I have received a woman's favors, and
frankly,
compared to what the imagination assumes or expects, they are a small matter.
It was like a bucket of cold water. At bottom I am stupefied at the relative
insignificance of this pleasure over which they make such a stir.
"October 7th.
Met X this morning, all smiles and graciousness. What ex-
hausts the man nourishes the woman."
Gandhi,
married at 13, vowed celibacy at 37 ‘though continuing to share a
bed with his wife and controlling his passions by limiting his diet to fruit
and
nuts. From this he deduced that "there is no limit to the possibilities of
re-
nunciation.”
Of a more worldly
and debonair turn of mind, James Boswell considered his
conquests too routine for more than passing mention. His journal paints his
prowess in broader strokes. Introspection must have been as agreeable to
him
as it was infrequent for nothing that he found disappointed him as we see by
his entries of 1763:
"How easily
and cleverly do I write just now! I am really
pleased with
myself; words come skipping to me like lambs upon Moffat Hill; and I turn my
periods smoothly and imperceptibly like a skillful wheelright
turning tops in
a turning loom. There’s fancy! There's simile! In short, I am
at present a
genius.”
"Called
on Mr. Garrick at
he said, ‘you will be a very great man’. . . . What he meant by my being a
great man I can understand. For really, to speak seriously, I think there
is
a blossom about me of something more distinguished than the generality of man-
kind."
Could one
interpolate the query of whether the critical faculty formed a
petal of this blossom?
On May 16 and 24
of the same year, he bridged the generation gap: "I
drank tea at Davies’s in
Samuel Johnson whom I have so long wished to see. Mr. Davies introduced
me to
him. Mr. Johnson is a man of dreadful appearance. He is a very big
man, is
troubled with sore eyes, the palsy, and the king’s evil. He is very
slovenly
in his dress and speaks with a most uncouth voice. Yet his great
knowledge and
strength of expression command vast respect and render him very excellent
company.
"I went and
waited upon Mr. Samuel Johnson who received me very courteously.
He has chambers in the
and very slovenly. He had some people with him and when they left I rose
too.
"I begged that he would favor
me with his company at my lodgings some evening.
He promised that he would. I then left him and he shook me cordially by
the
hand. Upon my word, I am very fortunate. I shall cultivate this
acquaintance.”
John Quincy Adams also wrote in his diary, on January 11, 1831, of one who
recognized
his own greatness. “Read about fifty pages of
There are no confessions. He tells nothing but what redounds to his own
credit -- always in the right. This is not uncommon to writers of their
own
lives."
Salvador Dali's self
appraisal is even more succinct than Boswell's. He
modestly published his journal under the title, "Diary of a
Genius". The pro-
logue contains the pith which is expanded without
restraint in the body of the
work:
"There has
developed a tendency to consider a genius as a human being more
or less the same in every sense as other ordinary mortals. This is
wrong. And
if this is wrong for me, the genius of the greatest spiritual order of our day,
a true modern genius, it is even more wrong; when applied to those who incarnated
the almost divine genius of the Renaissance such as Raphael.
"This book
will prove that the daily life of a genius, his sleep, his di-
gestion, his ecstasies, his nails, his colds, his
blood, his life, his death,
are essentially different from those of the rest of mankind. So this
unique
book is the first journal written by a genius."
Dali's entry of August 30, 1953, "The one thing the world will never have
enough of
is exaggeration", suggests a spiritual kinship with another to whom
showmanship was an absorbing avocation. Davy Crockett said:
"I'm that sane
David Crockett, fresh from the backwoods, half horse, half alligator, a little
touched with the snapping turtle- can wade the
upon a streak of lightning, and slip without a scratch down a honey-locust;
can whip
my weight in wild cats -- and if any gentleman pleases, for a ten dol-
lar bill, he may throw in a panther".
There are other
ways of hiding one's light under a bushel, but Davy
Crockett had no time for them. He kept up his journal until a few hours
before
his death on the last day of the siege of the
spirits is proven by this entry of February 27, 1836:
"The
cannonading began early this morning and ten bombs were thrown into
the fort, but fortunately landed without doing any mischief. So far it
has
been a sort of tempest in a teapot, not unlike a pitched battle in the Hall of
Congress where the parties array their forces, make fearful demonstrations on
both sides, then fire away with loud sounding speeches which contain about as
much meaning as the report of a howitzer charged with a blank cartridge."
Oliver Wendell
Holmes, Jr. was another who kept his cool in the heat of
battle. Or could it be that he was unable to write up his journal until
cir-
cumstances were more felicitous? In October,
1861, he describes his baptism of
fire at Ball's Bluff: "I was hit at 4:30 PM, the heavy firing having
begun
about an hour before — I felt as if a horse had kicked me and went over -- Srgt
Smith grabbed me and lugged me to the rear a little way and opened my shirt and
ecce! the two holes in my breast and the bullet
which he squeezed from the
right one -- Well -- I remember the sickening feeling of water thrown in my
face -- I was quite faint.
"When I got
to the bottom of the bluff the scow had just started with a
load but there was a small boat there. Then I thought 'Now wouldn't Sir
Philip
Sidney have that other feller put in the boat first?’ But the question,
as the
form in which it occurred shows, came from a mind still bent on a becoming and
consistent
carrying out of ideals of conduct -- not from the unhesitating in-
stinct of a still predominant and heroic will -- and
I am not sure whether I
propounded the question, but I let myself be put aboard.
"When I
thought that I was dying, the reflection that the majority vote
of the civilized world declared that, with my opinions, I was en route to Hell,
came up with painful distinctness. Perhaps the first impulse was tremulous
but then I said, 'By Jove! I’ll die like a soldier anyhow. I was shot in
the
breast doing my duty up to the hub -- Afraid? No! I'm proud.’
Then I thought
I couldn't be guilty of a deathbed recantation. Father and I had talked
of
that and agreed that it generally meant nothing but a cowardly giving way to
fear."
Jungle warfare in
the twentieth century comes through in an earthier
idiom. The following antithetic views come from the diaries of antithetic
men. On September first, 1942, War Correspondent Richard Tregaskis wrote:
"It is startling to think how
one's standards of value change under the con-
tinued impetus of living conditions such as ours on
bread and privies, considered the barest necessities at home, become lux-
uries. One thinks of warm water, the smooth
water-closet seat of civilization,
and a bed with sheets as things that exist only in a world of dreams."
Contrast this with
a glimpse of the Bolivian jungle in the August 30, 1965
entry of the late Che Guevara: "The
situation is becoming anguished; the ma-
cheteros are suffering from fainting spells.
Miguel and Ario were drinking
their own urine with the ominous results of diarrhea and cramps. Urbano,
Benigno, and Julie went down a canyon and found water
but, as the mules could
not come down, I decided to stay with them and with Nato
and Inti. The three
of us ate mare meat. The situation must weigh squarely on everybody and
who-
ever does not feel capable of sustaining it should say so. It is one of those
moments when great decisions must
be taken; this type of struggle gives us the
opportunity not only to turn ourselves into revolutionaries, the highest level
of the human species, but it also allows us to graduate as men; those who can-
not reach either one of these two stages should say so and leave the
struggle."
Since opposing
opinions are required to make a war, it is natural that the
same events will be seen in different lights by different protagonists. Sher-
man’s March from
posterity miss the blow by blow account.
General Sherman's
Special Field Order No. 120 of 9 November 1864 said, in
part: "The army will forage liberally on the country during the march.
To this
end each commander will organize a foraging party under the command of a dis-
creet officer to gather corn or forage of any kind,
meat, vegetables, corn-meal,
or whatever is needed by the command. . . . Soldiers must not enter the
dwelling
of the inhabitants nor commit any trespasses; but, during a halt or a camp,
they
may be permitted to gather turnips, potatoes, and other vegetables, and to
drive
in stock in sight of their camp. As for horses, mules, wagons, etc.,
belonging
to the inhabitants, the cavalry and artillery may appropriate freely and
without
limit."
On November 17, he
wrote: "We passed through the handsome town of
ton
flags, and the bands striking up patriotic airs. The white people came
out of
their houses to behold this sight. In spite of their deep hatred of the in-
vaders, and the negroes were simply frantic with joy.”
One of the
marchers in this army was my grandfather, Colonel Francis
Lackner, who wrote: "We were in
whole army abandoned it and marched southeast through the rebel country to
fighting, plenty to eat, and glorious weather, we enjoyed it hugely."
A few miles from
the same events was painted by Dolly Sumner Lunt, the
great grandmother of my
brother-in-law and guest this evening:
"
July 22nd 1864. We have heard the loud booming of cannon all day.
Suddenly I saw the servants running to the palings and I walked to the door,
when I saw such a stampede as I never witnessed before. The road was full of
carriages, wagons, men on horseback, all riding at full speed. Judge Floyd
stopped, saying: ‘Mrs. Burge, the Yankees are coming. Hide your-mules and
carriages and whatever valuables you have.’
"I went to
the smoke-house, divided out the meat to the servants and bid
them hide it. Our clothes were given to the servants to hide in their cabins;
china and silver were buried underground."
"July
24th, Sunday. No church. Our preacher’s horse stolen
by the
Yankees."
"August 2nd.
Just as I got out of bed this morning Aunt Julia (a slave)
called me to look down the road and see the soldiers. I peeped through the
blinds and there they were, sure enough, the Yankees. Six of them broke in and
demanded breakfast. Tonight Capt. Smith of an
twenty men are camped opposite in the field. They have all supped with me and
I shall breakfast with them. We have spent a pleasant evening with music and
talk."
"November
l9th. Slept in my clothes last night as I heard that the
Yankees went to neighbor
his house, drank his wine, and took his money. This morning I walked to
the
gate and saw the blue-coats filing up.
"I hastened
back to my frightened servants and told them that they had
better hide, and then went back to the gate to claim protection and a guard.
But like demons they rush in! My yards are full. To my smoke-house,
my dairy,
pantry, kitchen, and cellar like famished wolves they come, breaking locks and
whatever is in their way. My flour, meat, lard, butter, eggs, pickles --
both
in vinegar and brine -- wine, are all gone in a twinkling. My eighteen
fat
turkeys, my hens, chickens, and young pigs are hunted in my yard and shot down
as if they were rebels too. There go my mules, my sheep, and, worse than
all,
my boys.
"Sherman
himself and a greater portion of his army passed my house today.
If I live to the age of Methuselah, may God spare me from ever seeing such a
day again."
When Santayana
said that "the feminine soul abounds in intuition without
method and passion without justice", he could have been thinking of
activists
of any era but probably not of activist diarists such as the one who became
known as the Joan of Arc of Finland. Her journal entries for January 27
and
28, l9l8 show a forthright response to a situation which many would consider
delicate:
"The red
Bolshevik flag has been raised over Helsingfors!
Tonight I re-
ceived the secret signal to take my place in the
ranks.
"I started at
dawn with my rucksack full of bandages and drugs -- destin-
ation Borga.
Fortunately I had one of the Russian passports that were issued
to nurses
during the war so was allowed, after waiting a few hours, to board a
train heading eastward. Forty kilometers from Helsingfors the train came to a
standstill as there were rumours that the White army
was opposing the advancing
Reds. I was taken to the Red headquarters where I was exhaustively interro-
gated and cross-questioned as to who I was and where I was going but I did not
answer.
"At the long
table at which my adversaries sat, armed to the teeth, they
discussed my fate. They tried to force me to disclose the color of my politi-
cal convictions and my reasons for wanting to get over to the White side. A
square built fellow with a coarse, swollen face,
seemed to hit upon a solution.
He approached me with a smile and asked whether I would like a good meal. Still
I made no reply.
"At that the
fat, vulgar creature came close to me and, chucking me under
the chin, with his dirty hand, said in his sweetest voice: ‘Well, well, little
girl, you might be more friendly. We will have a jolly evening and a still
better night'.
"My reply was
a resounding box on the ear. I realized that it was an im-
polite action but I couldn't help it. Nor did I regret it.
"The
situation changed immediately. His face became distorted with rage
and, drawing himself up to his full height, he roared the order: ‘Shoot her’.
A handful of Reds dragged me out into the yard. I thought it was ludicrous —
so many of them against one woman. It was dusk and they placed me with my back
to a woodstack and tied my hands. How cowardly! Were
they afraid of opposi-
tion -- from a woman? One of them came up to me with
a dirty rag and wanted to
bind my eyes. I gave him a hard shove with my shoulder and pushed him aside.
I did not need to have my eyes bound. Long since I had got used to looking
death
straight in the face. I could not help feeling surprised, though, that
I should be so calm at the moment when my life would be ended.
"My
executioners took up their positions at a little distance, ten paces
from me. I could see that they were not used to their rifles, some hardly hav-
ing a decent weapon. Dirty jokes and allusions rained
about me. I did not
heed them. Now they raised their rifles — to aim -- one! two!
. . .
"Suddenly an
explosion was heard. From the station nearby there was an
uproar, cries and volleys, and the deafening rattle of machine guns. The
at-
tention of my executioners was diverted for a moment.
That was enough for me.
In a flash I slipped behind the wood pile, rolled in the snow to escape the
bullets whistling around me, picked myself up again and RAN.”
When Fyodor Dostoyevski found himself in the same situation --
reprieved
by a messenger of the Tsar after he had mounted the scaffold -- he wrote:
"Man
is a pliable animal, a being who gets accustomed to everything."
The first entry in
the journal from which the foregoing excerpt was taken
is dated May, 1914: "I have been given a diary for my confirmation. All
the
girls in my form have diaries. They keep writing them up, apparently with very
secret matters, for they chatter about them a great deal. Now that my Godmother
has given me a lovely fat book bound in leather, I suppose I must try to write
something in it". The author is Dagmar, Baroness
Ramsay, born in
family of Swedish ancestry. (This is less complicated than her husband, John
Donald Ramsay, whose Scotch ancestors lived in
but whose father was Viceroy of Poland.) Since her mother was a lady-in-waiting
to the Dowager Empress of
father was minister of transportation in the Tsar's cabinet, Dagmar Ramsay's
childhood was largely spent in
falling
out with the boss, in
vate car, taking a tutor along for the children.
At the outbreak of World War
I, although only sixteen, she volunteered as a Red Cress nurse and served at
the front until it dissolved in the Revolution. Her father and brother
having
been killed in the Revolution, her mother and sisters escaped to their home in
After frustrating
the Bolshevik urge to fold, mutilate and spindle as
noted above, Sister Dagmar, as she was known in her
nursing career, reported for
duty with a Finnish battalion which was being organized on
coast between Helsingfors and
army. This is a rugged coast of coves, channels, inlets, and hundreds of
little, pine-covered, rocky islands among which the battalion was scattered in
the face of larger and better supplied Red forces. Finally, with food and
am-
munition exhausted, they were literally driven into
the sea.
Did Pauline ever face perils like these?
Although the
Baltic is a fresh water sea it had never, within the memory
of the inhabitants of its littoral, frozen over. In more organized
periods be-
fore and since, ice-breakers have made it their business to ensure that this ap-
proach to
the miracle happened and the little band of patriots set out, dragging sledges
carrying the wounded. Eliza carrying her baby was not more eager to
attain
the further shore!
The harrowing trip
in the bitter cold, near capture by a Russian ice-
breaker, hunger and thirst — all are described in harshest detail, concluding
with these words: "The fog lifted and just in front of us, at our
very feet, we
caught sight of land! Dropping on our knees we kissed the frozen foreign
soil."
With a similar if
less exuberantly expressed satisfaction, Pere
records reaching his goal in June, 1673: "After proceeding forty leagues
on
this route, we arrived at the mouth of our river and, at 42½ degrees of lati-
tude, we safely entered the
can not express."
A month later, the
tireless Father searched his soul for the real purpose
of his explorations: "After a month's navigation descending the
and after preaching the gospel as well as I could to the nations that I met,
we start on the l7th of July from the
fore reascend the
rents. It is true that, had this voyage resulted in the salvation of even
one
soul I would consider all my troubles well rewarded."
Two hundred years
later, another Frenchman, at the end of a difficult
trip, asked himself the same questions. As a career naval officer, Pierre
Loti
may not have been trained to ask questions but, being sent on a diplomatic mis-
sion to
questions to even the most disciplined mind. Here is his account of the credi-
bility gap:
"
this morning. . . . Issue now some fifty little negro
slaves in red robes and
muslin surplices, for all the world like choir boys. They advance
clumsily,
huddled together like a flock of sheep. Then six magnificent white
horses, all
saddled and harnessed in silk, are led out rearing and prancing. Then a
gilt
coach in the style of Louise Quinze, unlooked for in
such a setting, quaintly
incongruous,
ridiculous even amid all this rude grandeur (the solitary carriage,
be it said, existing in
minutes more of waiting and silence. Suddenly a tremor of religious awe
passes
along the line of soldiers. The band, with its drums and huge brass instru-
ments strikes up a deafening and mournful air.
The fifty little black slaves
start running, running, seized by a sudden madness, spreading out fan-wise like
a flock of birds, like a swarm of bees. And, mounted on a superb white
horse,
led by four slaves, appears a tall, white, brown-faced mummy completely veiled
in muslin. Above his head is borne a red parasol of ancient shape such as
might
have belonged to the Queen of Sheba, and two huge negroes, one in a pink robe,
the other in a blue, wave fly-flaps before the august countenance. And
here
now, come to a stop quite near us, is the last authentic descendant of
Mohammed.
What good purpose can be served by a mission to such a sovereign, immobilized
like his people in old human dreams that have almost disappeared from the
earth?
We are absolutely incapable of understanding one another; the distance between
us is almost as great as that which would separate us from the Caliph of
Baghdad,
come suddenly to life again after a thousand years of sleep."
Had I kept a journal, it, too, would record at least a vicarious encounter
with the primitive mind. I have reconstructed the incident, for if I do not
drop my name among such illustrious diarists, who will?
The temperature
was slowly falling to one hundred, the stars were brilliant,
and a breeze was just between hope and reality as I sat with an American mis-
sionary in a dark and quiet courtyard, while he told
me of his triumphs and
failures in this remote corner of sub-Saharan
Although he already
knew French, the language of the establishment in
his first care on arriving at his post was to learn the native language, reduce
it to a phonetic script, and translate the New Testament into it. No sooner had
he
accomplished this than he discovered that his assigned territory embraced
other tribes with other languages. So again he set his shoulder to the
wheel,
learning languages and translating the New Testament into them. Then one
day,
as he was diligently translating, it came to him that, although he had learned
four languages, the people who spoke them had nothing to say to him nor he to
them. Alas! He made no converts but found his niche in this Moslem
world
through his fortuitous talent for extracting teeth without anaesthetic
and
through his skill in teaching typewriting to young people seeking government
jobs.
Exotic or unknown
places test the descriptive powers of travelers anxious
to preserve their first impressions. So far we have noted the diversity
of
reactions to similar situations. The remarkable feature of the following
two
excerpts is their similarity, although they were written more than three cen-
turies apart. In 1519, Bernal Diaz, one of
Cortez’ lieutenants, found Mexico
City all but unbelievable, and his wonder lost none of its vividness when he
wrote his chronicles after his retirement: "Gazing on such wonderful
sights,
we did not know what to say, or whether what appeared before us was real, for
on one side, on the land, there were great cities, and in the lake ever so many
more, and the lake itself was crowded with canoes, and in the Causeway were
many bridges at intervals, and in front of us stood the great City of Mexico,
and we -- we did not even number four hundred soldiers! We were amazed
and
said it was like enchantments on account of the great towers and temples and
buildings rising from the water, and all built of masonry. Some of our
soldiers
even asked whether the things that we saw were not all a dream."
On Christmas Day
in 1839, Fanny Calderon de la Barca, the wife of
first Minister to
we look
down upon the superb
world, with its framework of magnificent mountains, snow-covered volcano,
great lakes, and fertile plains — all surrounding the favored city of
zuma
city standing in the midst of the five great lakes, upon verdant and flower-
covered islands, with thousands of boats gliding swiftly along its streets and
its long lines of low houses diversified by the multitude of its pyramidal
temples." (It must be admitted that when Mme. Calderon came
down to earth
and back to her weekday prose, she admitted that: "Before arriving
in the city,
everything became arid and flat. On each side where the waters of the lagunas
once surrounded the city, forming canals through its streets, we now see half-
drained, melancholy, marshy lands, little enlivened by great flights of wild
duck and waterfowl.")
"Sweet are
the uses of adversity", when they can be turned to account in
a diary — especially if they form the background to later success. The
de-
pression of 1826 pulled the rug out from under Sir
Walter Scott because of the
failure of publishers in whom he had invested. His diary shows how
chivalry
can be bolstered by canny Scottish acumen:
"Abbottsford,
December 18th, 1825. My extremity has come. Letters from
London announce the failure of Hurst and Robinson so that Constable & Co.
must
follow and I must go down with poor James Ballantyne,
I suppose it will in-
volve my all. Men will think that pride has had
a fall. Let them indulge
their pride in thinking that my fall makes them higher. I have the satisfac-
tion to recollect that my prosperity has been of
advantage to many, and that
some, at least, will forgive my transient wealth on account of the innocence
of my intentions and my real wish to do good to the poor.
"What a life
mine has been! -- half educated, almost wholly neglected or
left to myself, stuffing my head with most nonsensical trash, undervalued in
society for a time by most of my companions, getting forward and held a bold
and
clever fellow, contrary to the opinion of all who thought me a mere dreamer,
broken-hearted for two years, my heart handsomely pieced again, but the crack
will remain to my dying day. Rich and poor four or five times, once on the
verge of ruin, yet opened new sources of wealth almost overflowing. . . .
"January
26th, 1826. Gibson comes with a joyful face announcing the credi-
tors had unanimously agreed to a private trust. This
is handsome and confi-
dential, and must warm my best efforts to get them
out of the scrape. I will
not doubt -- to doubt is to lose.
"February
3rd, 1826. From the 19th of January to the 2nd of February in-
clusive is exactly fifteen days, during which time,
with the intervention of
some days idleness to let imagination brood on the task a little, I have
written
a volume. I think, for a bet, I could have done it in ten days. This is work-
ing at the rate of 24,000 pounds a year; but then we
must not bake buns faster
than people have appetite to eat them. They are not essential to the market
like potatoes."
F. Scott
Fitzgerald, having come closer to the bottom, approached the
same problem from a different angle:
"
am in comparative affluence, but Monday and Tuesday I had two tins of potted
meat, two oranges, a box of Uneedas and two cans of
beer. For the food that
totaled 18¢ a day -- and when I think of the thousand meals I've sent back
untasted in the last two years! It was fun to be poor
-- especially if you
haven't enough liver-power for an appetite. It was funny coming into the hotel
and the
very deferential clerk not knowing that I was net wily thousands in
debt but had less than 40 cents cash in the world and probably a deficit in
the bank.
"Enough of
all this bankrupt’s comedy — I suppose it has been enacted
all over the
"The final
irony was when a drunk man in the shop where I bought
my can
of ale said in a voice obviously intended for me: ‘These city dudes from
the
east come down here with their millions. Why don’t they support us?’"
Even so cursory an
examination of the varied responses to similar stimuli
can have no pretension to representative coverage, much less to scholarship,
without allusion to that favorite topic of diarists — health. For the
same
reason although Anne Frank, Lewis Carroll, Byron, Thomas Merton, Thoreau, John
Barrymore or Louisa May Alcott may be reluctantly passed by, we must, at least,
take note of Samuel Pepys doing his thing. On
May 31, 1661, he noted; "My
health pretty well, but only wind do now and then torment me." Again,
on Novem-
ber 2 of the same year: "To church where,
there being a lazy preacher, I slept
out the sermon, and so home and to bed with some pain, having taken cold this
morning in sitting too long bare-legged to pare my corns."
Many writers
confide less matter-of-fact commentaries to their security
blankets (otherwise known as diaries) -- some peevish, some resigned, some in-
spired. Before Franz Kafka died of
tuberculosis, he was embittered by it. His
journal records its torments with macabre relish — the sleepless nights, the
hacking cough, the impossibility of marriage. Before Katherine Mansfield
died
of tuberculosis, she conquered it. The last entry in her journal, which
follows,
was torn out and then, apparently on second thought, put into an envelope ad-
dressed to her husbands Middleton Murray:
"
seems I may get things straightened out if I try to write.
"Ever since I
came to
thought I was dying. It is not imagination. My heart is so
exhausted and so
tied up that I can only walk to a taxi and back. I cannot work. But why? Be-
cause, although M’s treatment improved my blood and made me look well and did
have a good effect on my lungs, it made my heart not a snap better, and I only
won that improvement by living the life of a corpse in the Victoria
Palace
Hotel.
"But perhaps
to people who are not ill, all this is nonsense. They have
never travelled this road. How can they see where I am? All
the more reason
to go boldly forward alone.
"Now, Katherine, what do you mean by health? And what do you want it for?
"Answer: By
health I mean the power to live a full, adult, living, breath-
ing, life in close contact with what I love -- the
earth and the wonders there-
of -- the sea -- the sun. All that we mean when we speak of
the external world.
I want to enter it, to be part of it, to live in it, to learn from it, to lose
all that is superficial and acquired in me and to become a conscious, direct,
human being. I want, by understanding myself, to understand others. I want
to be all that I am capable of becoming so that I may be (and here I have stop-
ped and waited and waited and it’s no good – there’s
only one phrase that will
do) a child of the sun. About helping others, about carrying a light, and so
on, it seems false to say a single word. Let it be at that. A
child of the sun.
"Then I want
to work. At what? I want so to live that I work with
my
hands and my feelings and my brain. I want a garden, a small house, grass,
animals,
books, pictures, music. And out of this, the expression of this, I
want to be writing. (Though I may be writing about cabmen.
That's no matter.)
“But
warm, eager, living life -- to be rooted in life -- to learn, to
desire, to know, to feel, to think, to act. That is what I want. That is
what
I must try for.”