W. N. P. Barbellion’s diary, 1915

I have grown so ridiculously hypercritical and fastidious that I will refuse a man's invitation to dinner because he has watery blue eyes, or hate him for a…

The Fire Bogey "This Box contains Manuscripts. One guinea will be paid to any one who in case of danger from fire saves it from damage or loss." Signed: W.N.P.…

An Average Day After a morning of very mixed emotions and more than one annoyance ... at last sat down to lunch and a little peace and quiet with R----. We began by…

At a Public Dinner ... The timorous man presently took out his cigarette-case and was going to take out a cigarette, when he recollected that he ought first to…

Hearing Beethoven To the Queen's Hall and heard Beethoven's Fifth and Seventh Symphonies. Before the concert began I was in a fever. I kept on saying to myself, "I…

Spent Xmas week at work in her studio, transcribing my Journals while she made drawings. All unbeknown to her I was copying out entries of days gone by--how…

What an amazing Masque is Rotten Row on a Sunday morning! I sat on a seat there this morning and watched awhile. It was most exasperating to be in this kaleidoscope…

Looking for Lice at the Zoo The other day went to the Zoological Gardens, and, by permission of the Secretary, went round with the keepers and searched the animals…

What a boon is Sunday! I can get out of bed just when the spirit moves me, dress and bath leisurely, even with punctilio. How nice to dawdle in the bath with a…

I often sit in my room at the B.M. and look out at the traffic with a glassy, mesmerised face--a fainéant. How different from that extremely busy youth who came to…

Life is a dream and we are all somnambuloes. We know that for a fact at all times when we are most intensely alive--at crises of unprecedented change, in sorrow or…

The Punch and Judy Show Spent a most delightful half-an-hour to-day reading an account in the Encyclopædia Britannica (one of my favourite books--it's so "gey…

I waste much time gaping and wondering. During a walk or in a book or in the middle of an embrace, suddenly I awake to a stark amazement at everything. The bare…

Johnson v. Yves Delage I expect we have all of us at one time or another heard ourselves addressing to annoying, objectionable acquaintances some such stinging…

It is fortunate I am ill in one way for I need not make my mind up about this War. I am not interested in it--this filth and lunacy. I have not yet made up my mind…

Often in the middle of a quite vivid ten seconds of life, I find I have switched myself off from myself to make room for the person of a disinterested and usually…

A Test of Happiness The true test of happiness is whether you know what day of the week it is. A miserable man is aware of this even in his sleep. To be as cheerful…

"Why," asks Samuel Butler, "should not chicken be born and clergymen be laid and hatched? Or why, at any rate, should not the clergyman be born full grown and in…

Beethoven's Fifth Symphony If music moves me, it always generates images--a procession of apparently disconnected images in my mind. In the Fifth Symphony, for…

There is an absurd fellow ... who insists on taking my pirouettes seriously. I say irresponsibly, "All men are liars," and he replies with jejuneness and exactitude…

This mysterious world makes me chilly. It is chilly to be alive among ghosts in a nightmare of calamity. This Titanic war reduces me to the size and importance of a…

Generosity may be only weakness, philanthropy (beautiful word), self-advertisement, and praise of others sheer egotism. One can almost hear a eulogist winding…

The following is a description of Lermontov by Maurice Baring: "He had except for a few intimate friends an impossible temperament; he was proud, over-bearing,…

The time will come--it's a great way off--when a joke about sex will be not so much objectionable as unintelligible. Thanks to Christian teaching, a nude body is…

The Pool: A Retrospect From above, the pool looked like any little innocent sheet of water. But down in the hollow itself it grew sinister. The villagers used to…

It is only by accident that certain of our bodily functions are distasteful. Many birds eat the faeces of their young. The vomits of some Owls are formed into…

Got up early and walked around the Farm before breakfast. Everything promises to be delightful--young calves, broods of ducklings, and turkeys, fowls, cats and…

A brilliantly sunny day. This funny old farm-house where we are staying quite delights me. It is pleasant, too, to dawdle over dressing, to put away shaving tackle…

Sitting at tea in the farm house to-day E---- cried suddenly, pointing to a sandy cat in the garden: "There,--he's the father of the little kittens in the barn and…

In the Beech Wood all the morning. Heigh-ho! it's grand to lie out as straight as a line on your back, gaze upwards into the tree above, and with a caressing eye…

Each day I drop a specially selected Buttercup in past the little "Peeler," at the apex of the "V" to lie among the blue ribbons of her camisoles--those dainty…

We have made a little nest in the wood and I lead her into it by the hand over the briars and undergrowth as if conducting her to the grand piano on a concert…

At a quarter past eight, this morning, the horse and trap were awaiting me outside, and bidding her "Goodbye" I got in and drove off--she riding on the step down so…

R---- cannot make me out. He says one day I complain bitterly at not receiving a Portuguese sonnet once a week, and the next all is well and Love reigneth. "Verily…

Spent the afternoon at the Royal Army Medical College in consultation with the Professor of Hygiene. Amid all the paraphernalia of research, even when discussing a…

... It annoys me to find the laissez-faire attitude of our relatives. Not one with a remonstrance for us and yet all the omens are against our marriage. In the…

If sometimes you saw me in my room by myself, you would say I was a ridiculous coxcomb. For I walk about, look out of the window then at the mirror--turning my head…

Saw my brother A---- off at Waterloo en route for Armageddon. Darling fellow. He shook hands with P---- and H----, and P---- wished him "Goodbye, and good luck."…

Sleep Sleep means unconsciousness: unconsciousness is a solemn state--you get it for example from a blow on the head with a mallet. It always weightily impresses me…

I've had such a successful evening--you've no idea! The pen simply flew along, automatically easy, page after page in perfect sequence. My style trilled and…

The Clever Young Man Argued with R---- this morning. He is a type specimen of the clever young man. We both are. Our flowers of speech are often forced hot-house…

Am getting married at ---- Register Office on September 15th. It is impossible to set down here all the labyrinthine ambages of my will and feelings in regard to…

House pride in newly-wed folk, for example, H. and D. to-day at Golder's Green or the Teignmouth folk, is very trying to the bachelor visitor. They will carry a…

The most intimate and extensive journal can only give each day a relatively small sifting of the almost infinite number of things that flow thro' the consciousness.…

Two Adventures On a 'bus the other day a woman with a baby sat opposite, the baby bawled, and the woman at once began to unlace herself, exposing a large, red…

Harvey who discovered the circulation of the blood also conducted a great many investigations into the Anatomy and development of insects. But all his MSS. and…

By Jove! I hope I live! ... Why does an old crock like myself go on living? It causes me genuine amazement. I feel almost ashamed of myself because I am not yet…

Suffering from indigestion. The symptoms include: Excessive pandiculation, Excessive oscitation, Excessive eructation, Dyspnœa, Sphygmic flutters, Abnormal porrigo,…

Lice or "Creeping Ferlies" I probably know more about Lice than was ever before stored together within the compass of a single human mind! I know the Greek for…

Am spending my summer holidays in the Lakes at Coniston with G---- and R----.... I am simply consumed with pride at being among the mountains at last! It is an…

Climbed a windy eminence on the other side of the Lake and had a splendid view of Helvellyn--like a great hog's back. It is fine to walk over the elastic turf with…

Fourteen days hence I shall be a married man. But I feel most dejected about it. When I fell down the other day, I believe I slightly concussed my spinal column,…

I fear I have been overdoing it in this tempting mountain region. Walking too far, etc. So I am slacking. It was fortunate I did not get concussion of the brain--I…

Bathed in the Lake from the boat. It was brilliantly fine. R---- dipped her paddles in occasionally just to keep the boat from grounding. Then I clambered over the…

My 26th birthday. In London again. Went straight to the Doctor and reported myself. I quite expected him to forbid the marriage as I could scarcely hobble to his…

Am staying at ---- for a few days to rest and try to be better by that fateful 11th, when I am married. Later: My first experience of a Zeppelin raid. Bombs dropped…

Very nervy to-day. Hobbled down the road to see the damage done by the bombs.

A swingeing cold in the head thro' running about on the night of the raid. Too feeble to walk far, so Mrs. ---- went into the town for me and purchased my…

This evening we walked thro' the Churchyard reading tombstone inscriptions. What a lot of men have had wives! I can't make out what has come over folk recently: the…

There is a ridiculous Cocker spaniel at the house where we are staying. He must have had a love affair and been jilted, or else he's a sort of village idiot. The…

In London once more, living at her flat and using her furniture. The Chalcidoidea The Chalcidoidea are minute winged insects that parasitise other insects, and in…

Down with influenza.

A Zeppelin raid last night. I am down with a temperature, but our little household remained quite calm, thank God. We heard guns going off, and I had a fit of…

Still in bed. No raid last night. There were two raids on Wednesday, one at 9.30, and another at midnight. The first time the caretaker of the flats came up very…

Bad heart attack.

Heart intermits. Every three or four minutes. M---- said that I ought to be getting used to it by now! Phew!! Very nervy and pusillanimous. Taking strychnine in…

Staying at R----. Had a ghastly journey down, changing trains twice at Clapham Junction and at Croydon, heart intermitting all the time in every position. Poor…

Better to-day. After much persuasion, I have got E---- to let the flat so that we can get away into the country outside the Zeppelin zone.

Back in London again. Am better, bolstered up with arsenic and strychnine. Too nervously excited to do any work.

The letting of our flat is now in the hands of an agent, and E----, poor dear, is quite resigned to abandoning all her precious wallpapers, etc.

The flat is let and we are now living in rooms at ----, 20 miles out of London, to the Westward.

It is a great relief to be down in the country. Zeppelins terrify me. Have just had a delightful experience in reading Conrad's new book, Victory--a welcome relief…

To-day, armed with a certificate from my Doctor in a sealed envelope and addressed "to the Medical Officer examining Mr. W.N.P. Barbellion," I got leave to attend…

As soon as I woke up in this clear, country air this morning, I thought: ---- ----. I have decided never to find out what it is. I shall find out in good time by…

I believe it's creeping paralysis. My left leg goes lame after a short walk. Fortunately E---- does not take alarm.

Spent the last two days, both of us, in a state of unrelieved gloom. The clouds never lifted for a moment--it's awful. I scarcely have spoken a word.... And…

I wonder if she knows. I believe she does but I am afraid to broach the matter in case she doesn't. I think she must know something otherwise she would show more…