W. N. P. Barbellion’s diary, 1917

The New Year came in like a thief in the night--noiselessly; no bells, no syrens, no songs by order of the Government. Nothing could have been more appropriate than…

I am over 6 feet high and as thin as a skeleton; every bone in my body, even the neck vertebrae, creak at odd intervals when I move. So that I am not only a…

Death What a delightful thing the state of Death would be if the dead passed their time haunting the places they loved in life and living over again the dear…

Out of doors to-day it's like the roaring forties! Every tree I passed in the lane was a great wind instrument, bellowing out a passionate song, and the sky was…

Still freezing and blowing. Coming back from the village, tho' I was tired and hobbling badly, decided to walk up the lane even if it meant crawling home on hands…

Still blowing and bitterly cold. Along the path fields in the Park I stopped to look at a thick clump of Firs standing aloof on some high ground and guarded by an…

Last night, I pulled aside the window curtain of our front door and peeped out. Just below the densely black projecting gable of the house I saw the crescent moon…

Showers of snow at intervals, the little flakes rocking about lazily or spiralling down, while the few that eventually reached the ground would in a moment or so be…

Looking back, I must say I like the splendid gusto with which I lived thro' yesterday: that mettlesome fashion in which I took the lane, and at the top, how I swung…

Crowd Fever After four months' sick leave, returned to work and London. An illness like mine rejuvenates one--for the time being! A pony and jingle from the old…

This morning on arriving at S. Kensington, went straight to a Chemist's shop, but finding someone inside, I drew back, and went on to another. "Have you any morphia…

Am busy re-writing, editing and bowdlerising my journals for publication against the time when I shall have gone the way of all flesh. No one else would prepare it…

Chinese Lanterns The other morning as I dressed, I could see the sun like a large yellow moon rising on a world, stiff, stark, its contours merely indicated beneath…

The Strangeness of my Life Consider the War: and the current adventures of millions of men on land, sea and air; and the incessant labours of millions of men in…

It is curious for me to look at my tubes and microscope and realise that I shall never require them again for serious use. Life is a dreadful burden to me at the…

I ask myself: what are my views on death, the next world, God? I look into my mind and discover I am too much of a mannikin to have any. As for death, I am a little…

At home ill again. Yesterday was a day of utter dreariness. All my nerves were frozen, my heart congealed. I had no love for anyone ... no emotion of any sort. It…

An affectionate letter from H---- that warmed the cockles of my heart--poor frozen molluscs. A---- has written only once since August.

I am, I suppose, a whey-faced, lily-livered creature ... yet even an infantry subaltern has a chance.... My dear friend ---- has died and a Memorial Exhibition of…

Death Have been reading Sir Oliver Lodge's Raymond. I do not deny that I am curious about the next world, or about the condition of death. I am and always have…

Have had a relapse. My hand I fear is going. Food prices are leaping up. Woe to the unfit and the old and the poor in these coming days! We shall soon have nothing…

The Graph of Temperament In this Journal, my pen is a delicate needle point, tracing out a graph of temperament so as to show its daily fluctuations: grave and gay,…

Archæopteryx and Mudflats Yesterday I collected two distinct and several twinges and hereby save them up. They were more than that--they were pangs, and pangs that…

How revolting it is to see some barren old woman love-sick over a baby, bestowing voluptuous kisses on its nose, eyes, hands, feet, utterly intoxicated and…

The nurse has been here now for over five weeks. One day has been pretty much the same as another. I get out of bed usually about tea-time and sit by the window and…

This and another volume of my Journal are temporarily lodged in a drawer in my bedroom. It appears to me that as I become more static and moribund, they become more…

We discuss post mortem affairs quite genially and without restraint. It is the contempt bred of familiarity I suppose. E---- says widows' weeds have been so…

I sit all day in my chair, moving 8 feet to my bed at night, and 8 feet from it to my chair in the morning--and wait. The assignation is certain. "Life is a…

It is odd that at this time of the breaking of nations, Destiny, with her hands so full, should spare the time to pursue a non-combatant atom like me down such a…

My hand gets a little better. But it's a cat and mouse game, and so humiliating to be the mouse. ... Parental affection comes to me only in spasms, and if they…

Reading Pascal again. If Shelley was "gold dusty from tumbling among the stars," Pascal was bruised and shaken. The one was delighted, and the other frightened. I…

I don't believe in the twin-soul theory of marriage. There are plenty of men any one of whom she might have married and lived with happily, and simpler men than I…

As long as I can hold a pen, I shall, I suppose, go on trickling ink into this diary! I am amusing myself by reading the Harmsworth Encyclopædia in 15 volumes,…

A Jeremiad When I resigned my appointment last month, no one knows what I had to give up. But I know. Tho' if I say what I know no one is compelled to believe me…

E---- and I were very modern in our courtship. Our candour was mutual and complete--parents and relatives would be shocked and staggered if they knew.... You see I…

My Gastrocnemius I become dreadfully emaciated. This morning, before getting off the bed I lifted my leg and gazed wistfully along all its length. My flabby…

My beloved wife comes home this evening after a short, much needed holiday.

My gratuity has turned out to be unexpectedly small. I hoped at least for one year's salary. And the horrible thing is I might live for several years longer! No one…

My darling sweetheart, you ask me why I love you. I do not know. All I know is that I do love you, and beyond measure. Why do you love me--surely a more inscrutable…

Your love, darling, impregnates my heart, touches it into calm, strongly beating life so that when I am with you, I forget I am a dying man. It is too difficult to…

But am I dying? I have no presentiments--no conviction--like the people you read of in books. Am I, after all, in love? "I dote yet doubt; suspect yet strongly…

My bedroom is on the ground floor as I cannot mount the stairs. But the other day when they were all out, I determined to clamber upstairs if possible, and search…

I am getting ill again, and can scarcely hold the pen. So good-bye Journal--only for a time perhaps. Have read this blessed old Journal out to E----. It required…

Leap-frog Some girls up the road spent a very wet Sunday morning playing leap-frog in their pyjamas around the tennis lawn. It makes me envious. To think I never…

My 28th birthday. Dear old R---- (the man I love above all others) has been in a military hospital for months. It is a great hardship to have our intercourse almost…

I could never have believed so great misery compatible with sanity. Yet I am quite sane. How long I or any man can remain sane in this condition God knows.... It is…

Last night, E---- sitting on the bed by me, burst into tears. It was my fault. "I can stand a good deal but there must come a breaking point." Poor, poor girl, my…

The immediate future horrifies me.

Poushkin (as we have named the cat) is coiled up on my bed, purring and quite happy. It does me good to see him. But consider: A paralytic, a screaming infant, two…

I am grateful to-day for some happy hours plucked triumphantly from under the very nose of Fate, and spent in the warm sun in the garden. They carried me out at 12,…

In fits of maudlin self-compassion I try to visualise Belgium, Armenia, Serbia, etc., and usually cure myself thereby.

It is winter--no autumn this year. Of an evening we sit by the fire and enjoy the beautiful sweet-smelling wood-smoke, and the open hearth with its big iron bar…

Self-disgust.