The pleasures of this life

’If this had been begun ten years ago, and faithfully kept!!! - heigho! there are too many things I wish never to have remembered, as it is.’ This is George Gordon Byron, who died, aged only 36, two centuries ago today, writing about his decision to start keeping a diary. Popularly known as Lord Byron, he was the most flamboyant and colourful of romantic figures, and is considered one of Britain’s greatest poets. Unfortunately, he only kept up the diary habit for a few months, and though he wrote a journal at three more periods in his life, each one lasted but a short while.

Byron was born in London in 1788, physically disabled by a clubfoot, but was taken to live in Scotland when young by his mother, Catherine Gordon. At the age of 10, he inherited the title, house and grounds of Newstead Abbey from his great-uncle, who had been granted them by Henry VIII. Thereafter, he was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he formed a close friendship with John Cam Hobhouse. In January 1809, he took his seat in the House of Lords, but then embarked on a tour of Europe, often accompanied by Hobhouse, which included a sojourn in Greece.

Byron returned to England in 1811, and to Newstead where his ailing mother had just died. In 1812, his book Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage made him a society celebrity and brought him into contact with Lady Caroline Lamb, who became one of his many mistresses (and who wrote of him, he was ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’). It is widely accepted, also, that Byron had an affair with his married half-sister Augusta Leigh, and that he fathered her daughter Elizabeth. Though Byron married Anne Isabella Milbanke in early 1815, partly to try and shake off scandal, his relationship with Leigh continued. (Milbanke’s daughter, Augusta Ada, and Byron’s only legitimate child, became a mathematician but died young, at the same age as her father, 36).

Much encumbered by debts and with his wife accusing him of incest, Byron left England in 1816 never to return. He journeyed to Switzerland first, and then Italy where he lived for six years - in Venice, Ravenna, Pisa, Genoa - selling Newstead Abbey to pay off his debts. He continued writing his long satiric poem, Don Juan, which was first published in 1819. Famously, he was friends in Italy with Percy Bysshe Shelley (and his sister, Mary), and together they started a newspaper The Liberal. Shelley drowned in 1922, and the following year, Byron, bored with his life, bought a boat and sailed to Greece to help with the nationalist fight against the Ottoman empire. He spent thousands of pounds of his own money for the cause, and began to lead a rebel army, only to fall sick and die of a fever, on 19 April 1824.

There is no shortage of information about Byron available on the internet, at Wikipedia, for example, the English History website, The Literature Network, and the BBC. Thomas Moore’s early biography (Byron had named the Irish poet as his literary executor in 1822), Letters and Journals of Lord Byron, published in 1830, is also widely available, at Internet Archive, or more accessibly at Virginia Tech’s Lord Byron website. Confusingly, at Internet Archive, one can also find 17 volumes of Moore’s The Works of Lord Byron: with his letters and journals, and his life, all published in the 1930s too.

For years, Byron had been writing an autobiographical memoir, but on his death, this was deemed too scandalous for publication, and his publisher, John Murray along with several of Byron’s friends burned the manuscript. However, four of Byron’s journal/diary jottings were edited by Moore and published in his voluminous works (and can be found through the links above). Though fragmentary, the diaries sparkle with Byron’s literary skill. The diaries of others, of course, also contain much about Byron, not least those written by Hobhouse, Mary Shelley and Thomas Moore (see also Doomed to sing).

There are four separate, but rather short, periods for which Byron’s journals survive (Peter Cochran’s website provides accessible pdfs for each diary): between November 1813 and April 1814 (the London Journal); in September 1816 (the Alpine Journal); in January and February 1821 (the Ravenna Journal); and between June and December 1823 (the Cephalonia Journal). Here are a few extracts, all taken from Moore’s Letters and Journals.

14 November 1813
’If this had been begun ten years ago, and faithfully kept!!! - heigho! there are too many things I wish never to have remembered, as it is. Well, - I have had my share of what are called the pleasures of this life, and have seen more of the European and Asiatic world than I have made a good use of. They say ‘virtue is its own reward,’ - it certainly should be paid well for its trouble. At five-and-twenty, when the better part of life is over, one should be something; - and what am I? nothing but five-and-twenty - and the odd months. What have I seen? the same man all over the world, - ay, and woman too. Give me a Mussulman who never asks questions, and a she of the same race who saves one the trouble of putting them. But for this same plague - yellow-fever - and Newstead delay, I should have been by this time a second time close to the Euxine. If I can overcome the last, I don’t so much mind your pestilence; and, at any rate, the spring shall see me there, - provided I neither marry myself nor unmarry any one else in the interval. I wish one was - I don’t know what I wish. It is odd I never set myself seriously to wishing without attaining it - and repenting. I begin to believe with the good old Magi, that one should only pray for the nation, and not for the individual; - but, on my principle, this would not be very patriotic.

No more reflections. - Let me see - last night I finished ‘Zuleika,’ my second Turkish Tale. I believe the composition of it kept me alive - for it was written to drive my thoughts from the recollection of -

“Dear, sacred name, rest ever unreveal’d.”

At least, even here, my hand would tremble to write it. This afternoon I have burned the scenes of my commenced comedy. I have some idea of expectorating a romance, or rather a tale, in prose; - but what romance could equal the events - [. . .]

To-day Henry Byron called on me with my little cousin Eliza. She will grow up a beauty and a plague; but, in the mean time, it is the prettiest child! dark eyes and eyelashes, black and long as the wing of a raven. I think she is prettier even than my niece, Georgina, - yet I don’t like to think so neither; and, though older, she is not so clever. [. . .]

I have declined presenting the Debtor’s Petition, being sick of parliamentary mummeries. I have spoken thrice ; but I doubt my ever becoming an orator. My first was liked; the second and third - I don’t know whether they succeeded or not. I have never yet set to it con amore; one must have some excuse to oneself for laziness, or inability, or both, and this is mine. ‘Company, villanous company, hath been the spoil of me;’ - and then, I have ‘drunk medicines,’ not to make me love others, but certainly enough to hate myself.

Two nights ago, I saw the tigers sup at Exeter ‘Change, Except Veli Pacha’s lion in the Morea, - who followed the Arab keeper like a dog, - the fondness of the hyaena for her keeper amused me most. Such a conversazione! There was a ‘hippopotamus,’ like Lord ____ in the face; and the ‘Ursine Sloth’ hath the very voice and manner of my valet - but the tiger talked too much. The elephant took and gave me my money again - took off my hat - opened a door - trunked a whip - and behaved so well, that I wish he was my butler. The handsomest animal on earth is one of the panthers; but the poor antelopes were dead. I should hate to see one here: - the sight of the camel made me pine again for Asia Minor. “Oh quando te aspiciam?” ’

19 April 1814
There is ice at both poles, north and south - all extremes are the same - misery belongs to the highest and the lowest only, - to the emperor and the beggar, when unsixpenced and unthroned. There is, to be sure, a damned insipid medium - an equinoctial line - no one knows where, except upon maps and measurement.

“And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death.”

I will keep no further journal of that same hesternal torch-light; and, to prevent me from returning, like a dog, to the vomit of memory, I tear out the remaining leaves of this volume, and write, in ipecacuanha, - “that the Bourbons are restored!!!” “Hang up philosophy.” To be sure, I have long despised myself and man, but I never spat in the face of my species before - “O fool! I shall go mad.” ’

17 September 1816
‘Rose at five; left Diodati about seven, in one of the country carriages (a char-a-banc), our servants on horseback. Weather very fine; the lake calm and clear; Mont Blanc and the Aiguille of Argentines both very distinct; the borders of the lake beautiful. Reached Lausanne before sunset; stopped and slept at __. Went to bed at nine; slept till five o’clock.’

18 September 1816
‘Called by my courier; got up. Hobhouse walked on before. A mile from Lausanne, the road overflowed by the lake; got on horseback, and rode till within a mile of Vevay. The colt young, but went very well. Overtook Hobhouse, and resumed the carriage, which is an open one. Stopped at Vevay two hours (the second time I had visited it); walked to the church; view from the churchyard superb; within it General Ludlow (the regicide’s) monument - black marble - long inscription - Latin, but simple; he was an exile two-and-thirty years - one of king Charles’s judges. Near him Broughton (who read King Charles’s sentence to Charles Stuart) is buried, with a queer and rather canting, but still a republican, inscription. Ludlow’s house shown; it retains still its inscription - ‘Omne solum forti patria.’ Walked down to the lake side; servants, carriage, saddle -horses - all set off and left us plantes la, by some mistake, and we walked on after them towards Clarens; Hobhouse ran on before, and overtook them at last. Arrived the second time (first time was by water) at Clarens. Went to Chillon through scenery worthy of I know not whom; went over the Castle of Chillon again. On our return met an English party in a carriage; a lady in it fast asleep - fast asleep in the most anti-narcotic spot in the world - excellent! I remember at Chamouni, in the very eves of Mom Blanc, hearing another woman, English also, exclaim to her party, ‘Did you ever see anything more rural?’ - as if it was Highgate, or Hampstead, or Brompton, or Hayes - ‘Rural!’ quotha? - Rocks, pines, torrents, glaciers, clouds, and summits of eternal snow far above them - and ‘rural!’

After a slight and short dinner we visited the Chateau de Clarens; an English woman has rented it recently (it was not let when I saw it first); the roses are gone with their summer; the family out, but the servants desired us to walk over the interior of the mansion. Saw on the table of the saloon Blair’s Sermons, and somebody else (I forget who’s) sermons, and a set of noisy children. Saw all worth seeing, and then descended to the ‘Bosquet de Julie,’ &c. &c.; our guide full of Rousseau, whom he is eternally confounding with St. Preux, and mixing the man and the book. Went again as far as Chillon to revisit the little torrent from the hill behind it. Sunset reflected in the lake. Have to get up at five to-morrow to cross the mountains on horseback; carriage to be sent round; lodged at my old cottage - hospitable and comfortable; tired with a longish ride on the colt, and the subsequent jolting of the char-a-banc, and my scramble in the hot sun.

Mem. The corporal who showed the wonders of Chillon was as drunk as Blucher; he was deaf also, and thinking every one else so, roared out the legends of the caste so fearfully. However, we saw things from the gallows to the dungeons (the potence and the cachots), and returned to Clarens with more freedom than belonged to the fifteenth century.’

19 September 1816
‘Rose at five. Crossed the mountains to Montbovon on horseback, and on mules, and, by dint of scrambling, on foot also; the whole route beautiful as a dream, and now to me almost as indistinct. I am so tired; for though healthy, I have not the strength I possessed but a few years ago. At Montbovon we breakfasted; afterward, on a steep ascent, dismounted; tumbled down; cut a finger open; the baggage got loose and fell down a ravine, till stopped by a large tree; recovered baggage; horse tired and drooping; mounted mule. At the approach of the summit of Dent Jument dismounted again with Hobhouse and all the party. Arrived at a lake in the very bosom of the mountains; left our quadrupeds with a shepherd, and ascended farther; came to some snow in patches, upon which my forehead’s perspiration fell like rain, making the same dints as in a sieve; the chill of the wind and the snow turned me giddy, but I scrambled on and upwards. Hobhouse went to the highest pinnacle; I did not, but paused within a few yards (at an opening of the cliff). In coming down, the guide tumbled three times; I fell a laughing, and tumbled too - the descent luckily soft, though steep and slippery: Hobhouse also fell, but nobody hurt. The whole of the mountains superb. A shepherd on a very steep and high cliff playing upon his pipe; very different from Arcadia, where I saw the pastors with a long musket instead of a crook, and pistols in their girdles. Our Swiss shepherd’s pipe was sweet, and his tune agreeable. I saw a cow strayed; am told that they often break their necks on and over the crags. Descended to Montbovon; pretty scraggy village, with a wild river and a wooden bridge. Hobhouse went to fish - caught one. Our carriage not come; our horses, mules, &c. knocked up; ourselves fatigued.

The view from the highest points of to-day’s journey comprised on one side the greatest part of Lake Leman; on the other, the valleys and mountain of the canton of Fribourg, and an immense plain, with the lakes of Neufchatel and Morat, and all which the borders of the Lake of Geneva inherit; we had both sides of the Jura before us in one point of view, with Alps in plenty. In passing a ravine, the guide recommended strenuously a quickening of pace, as the stones fall with great rapidity and occasional damage; the advice is excellent, but, like most good advice, impracticable, the road being so rough that neither mules, nor mankind, nor horses, can make any violent progress. Passed without fractures or menace thereof.

The music of the cow’s bells (for their wealth, like the patriarch’s, is cattle) in the pastures, which reach to a height far above any mountains in Britain, and the shepherds shouting to us from crag to crag, and playing on their reeds where the steeps appeared almost inaccessible, with the surrounding scenery, realized all that I have ever heard or imagined of a pastoral existence: much more so than Greece or Asia Minor; for there we are a little too much of the sabre and musket order, and if there is a crook in one hand, you are sure to see a gun in the other: but this was pure and unmixed - solitary, savage, and patriarchal. As we went, they played the ‘Rans des Vaches’ and other airs, by way of farewell. I have lately repeopled my mind with nature.’

4 January 1821
‘ “A sudden thought strikes me.” Let me begin a Journal once more. The last I kept was in Switzerland, in record of a tour made in the Bernese Alps, which I made to send to my sister in 1816, and I suppose that she has it still, for she wrote to me that she was pleased with It. Another, and longer, I kept in 1813-1814, which I gave to Thomas Moore in the same year.’

The Diary Junction

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 19 April 2014.

Beautiful blueberries

Happy 70th birthday Jon Krakauer, US author of several best-selling true-story books. I have no idea whether Krakauer is a diarist himself, but in two of his books - one about a young man who died on a solitary adventure in Alaska, and the other about Pat Tillman, a famous football player-turned-soldier killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan - he makes very good use of his subjects’ diaries.

Jon Krakauer was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, on 12 April 1954, but was raised in Corvallis, Oregon, from the age of two. His father was a doctor and mountaineer, and he took Jon climbing from the age of eight. Jon studied at Hampshire College, where he graduated in environmental studies. He married Linda Mariam Moor in 1980. They lived in Seattle, Washington, before moving to Boulder, Colorado. But Krakauer divided his time between Colorado, Alaska, and the Pacific Northwest, supporting himself primarily as a carpenter and commercial salmon fisherman, but also writing for Outside magazine.

Some of Krakauer’s essays and articles on mountain-climbing were collected in his first book, Eiger Dreams: Ventures Among Men and Mountains, published in 1990. Then, in 1993, he wrote a 9,000 word article for Outside on Christopher McCandless an American hiker and idealist who ventured into the Alaskan wilderness and died four months later, probably from starvation. Krakauer went on to write a very successful book about McCandless - Into the Wild (Macmillan 1996) - partly based on a diary that was found with his body, and which documented his struggles to stay alive.

In 1996, Krakauer climbed Mt. Everest, but four of his party, who reached the summit with him, died in a storm. An analysis of the tragedy for Outside was highly regarded, and is said to have led to a general re-evaluation of the commercialisation of what had once been a romantic, solitary sport. His book on Everest, Into Thin Air (Villard, 1997), became another best-seller, and was widely translated.

A third non-fiction best-seller followed in 2003 with Under the Banner of Heaven (Doubleday), about offshoots of Mormonism, and the practice of polygamy within them; and a fourth best-seller came in 2009: Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman (Doubleday). Tillman was an American football player who gave up sport to enlist in the army, in 2002, following the September 11 attacks. He served in Iraq and Afghanistan. The army initially reported that he had been killed in action, but it later became clear that his death by friendly fire had been covered up. Krakauer’s book draws on Tillman’s journals and letters.

In the first paragraph of the first chapter Krakauer writes: ‘During Pat Tillman’s stint in the Army he intermittently kept a diary. In a diary entry dated July 28, 2002 - three weeks after he arrived at boot camp - he wrote, “It is amazing the turns one’s life can take. Major events or decisions that completely change a life. In my life there have been a number.” He then catalogued several. Foremost on his mind at the time, predictably, was his decision to join the military. But the incident he put at the top of the list, which occurred when he was eleven years old, comes as a surprise. “As odd as this sounds,” the journal revealed, “a diving catch I made in the 11-12 all-stars was a take-off point. I excelled the rest of the tournament and gained incredible confidence. It sounds tacky but it was big.”

And here are several extracts from the first of Krakauer's best-sellers, Into the Wild, all of them quotes from McCandless’s diary. The first three are from a diary McCandless kept soon after leaving university and heading off on his solitary travels. During this period, he called himself Alexander, and wrote about himself in the third person. The rest of the entries are from the weeks preceding his death in Alaska in August 1992, probably from starvation, although Krakauer argues that McCandless poisoned himself by eating the wrong kind of berries. Sean Penn wrote and directed a film adapted from the book in 2007.

5 December 1990
‘At last! Alex finds what he believes to be the Weltreco Canal and heads south. Worries and fears return as the canal grows ever smaller. . . Local inhabitants help him portage around a barrier . . . Alex finds Mexicans to be warm, friendly people. Much more hospitable than Americans.’

6 December 1990
‘Small but dangerous waterfalls litter the canal.’

9 December 1990
‘All hopes collapse! The canal does not reach the ocean but merely peters out into a vast swamp. Alex is utterly confounded. Decides he must be close to the ocean and elects to try and work way through swamp to sea. Alex becomes progressively lost to point where he must push canoe through reeds and drag it through mud. All is in despair. Finds some dry ground to camp in swamp at sundown. Next day, on 12/10, Alex resumes quest for an opening to the sea, but only becomes more confused, traveling in circles. Completely demoralized and frustrated he lays in his canoe at day’s end and weeps. But then by fantastic chance he comes upon Mexican duck hunting guides who can speak English. He tells them his story and his quest for the sea. They say there is no outlet to the sea. But then one among them agrees to tow Alex back to his basecamp, and drive him and the canoe to the ocean. It is a miracle.’

28 May 1992
‘Gourmet Duck!’

1 June 1992
‘5 Squirrel.’

2 June 1992
‘Porcupine, Ptarmigan, 4 Squirrel, Grey Bird.’

3 June 1992
‘Another Porcupine! 4 Squirrel, Grey Bird.’

9 June 1992
‘MOOSE!

Although McCandless was enough of a realist, Krakauer observes, to know that hunting game was an unavoidable component of living off the land, he had always been ambivalent about killing animals. Believing that it was morally indefensible to waste any part of an animal that had been shot for food, McCandless spent days toiling to preserve what he had killed before it spoiled.’

10 June 1992
‘Butchering extremely difficult. Fly and mosquito hordes. Remove intestines, liver, kidneys, one lung, steaks. Get hindquarters and leg to stream.’

11 June 1992
‘Remove heart and other lung. Two front legs and head. Get rest to stream. Haul near cave. Try to protect with smoker.’

12 June 1992
‘Remove half rib-cage and steaks. Can only work nights. Keep smokers going.’

13 June 1992
‘Get remainder of rib-cage, shoulder and neck to cave. Start smoking.’

14 June 1992
‘Maggots already! Smoking appears ineffective. Don’t know. Looks like disaster. I now wish I had never shot the moose. One of the greatest tragedies of my life.’

A couple of days later McCandless writes:
‘Consciousness of food. Eat and cook with concentration . . . Holy Food.’

And then on the back pages of the book that served as his journal, he declared:
‘I am reborn. This is my dawn. Real life has just begun. Deliberate living: Concious attention to the basics of life, and a constant attention to your immediate environment and its concerns, example -> A job, a task, a book; anything requiring efficent concentration (Circumstance has no value. It is how one relates to a situation that has value. All true meaning resides in the personal relationship to a phenomenon, what it means to you).

The Great Holiness of FOOD, the Vital Heat.
Positivism, the Insurpassable Joy of the Life Aesthetic.
Absolute Truth and Honesty.
Reality.
Independence.
Finality - Stability - Consistency’

5 July 1992
‘Disaster . . . Rained in. River look impossible. Lonely, scared.’

McCandless’s inability to cross the river (now much more swollen than when he had first crossed it earlier in the year), which would have allowed him to hike back to the highway, appears to have led to his death some weeks later. 

Krakauer quotes a few more journal entries, but, he says, the signs are ominous.

30 July 1992
‘EXTREMELY WEAK. FAULT OF POT. SEED. MUCH TROUBLE JUST TO STAND UP. STARVING. GREAT JEOPARDY.’

2 August 1992
‘TERRIBLE WIND’

5 August 1992
‘DAY 100! MADE IT!. BUT IN WEAKEST CONDITION OF LIFE. DEATH LOOMS AS SERIOUS THREAT. TOO WEAK TO WALK OUT. HAVE LITERALLY BECOME TRAPPED IN THE WILD - NO GAME.’

12 August 1992 [the last dated entry]
‘Beautiful Blueberries.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 12 April 2014.

Breeches have vanished!

‘Tide low, big lumbering vessels crowding up the little dock, a juvenile Celt waiting there, perchance in the desperate hope that some one intent on bathing might also appear, and keep him company. Getting on a bit of a floating raft we undressed placing clothes on the edge of a large clumsy vessel beside. Our swim over & pleasant enow, out we got, Celtic boy dressed & left; we mounting from raft to the bank side leisurely prepare to do the same. But ere long I discover that my pants are not! Breeches have vanished! Then ensued much searching & speculation, groping in the black recesses of the vessel below & finally I get into the water again & grope by the ships side, thinking that the breeks have fallen in.’ This is from the diaries of comic illustrator, Thomas Butler Gunn, who died 120 years ago today. Although English born, he spent a good deal of his adult life in New York, where he joined a set of characters loosely associated with Pfaff’s, a drinking establishment known for its literary and artistic clientele.

Gunn was born in 1826 in Banbury but moved with his family to the St. Pancras area of London in the 1830s and then to New Kent Road. He was articled to an architectural practise in Soho Square and he began contributing illustrations to various publications, not least Punch. Backed by his father, in 1949, he sailed to New York with two cousins, and began looking for work as an illustrator. While building up a network of potential customers, he also took poorly-paid work as an architect’s draughtsman. Moreover, he began to work as an editor and to write himself, publishing, in 1857, the comic Physiology of New York Boarding-Houses.

In 1854, Gunn returned to England to see his family and to propose to his childhood friend Hannah Bennett, though they did not marry at the time. He returned to New York in 1855. As the country moved towards civil war, in 1860 Gunn was sent to Charleston, South Carolina, as an artist-reporter by John Bigelow, editor of the New York Evening Post. And then, in 1962, he was engaged as correspondent by Charles Anderson Dana of the New-York Tribune. He joined General Heintzelman’s military camp, and reported on the Yorktown and Williamsburg battles. Further assignments followed, but in 1963, on receiving news from Hannah about his father’s ill-health, he returned to England.

Gunn’s father died in November that same year, and in December, finally, Hannah and Gunn married. They set up home on the outskirts of Banbury, and had one child who was still born. Gunn continued to write for newspapers often on historical themes, his articles sometimes being published in America; and he wrote verse. He died on 7 April 1904. A little further information is available from Wikipedia, Lehigh University, or the Missouri History Society.

Throughout his years in the US, Gunn kept diaries, indeed it is thanks to these diaries that his name is remembered today. Some 22 volumes are held by the Missouri History Society, and every page of every the volume is available as an image with a transcription: see Lehigh University, Digital Public Library of America, and Wikimedia Commons.

According to The Vault at Pfaff’s (An Archive of Art and Literature by the Bohemians of Antebellum New York): ‘The diaries . . . contain a wealth of information about the New York literary scene in general and the Pfaff’s bohemians in particular.’ Mentioned in the diaries, among others, are Frank Bellew, Sol Eytinge Jr., Fanny Fern, Thomas Nast, James Parton, Fitz James O'Brien, Alfred Waud and Walt Whitman. Here are several extracts.

2 September 1852
‘Thursday. Over to New York with Barth, quitting him at Barnums. To Office & to work. Barth came again at 1 or so. Dined together at Goslings, parting at Castle Garden, he across the bright water and I back to Lantern Office. [John] Brougham returned from Washington. Got no money from them. Returned to Office & [Alfred] Waud coming up, agreed to accompany him to Brooklyn for a bathe in the East River. Fagan called & left. To Brooklyn with Waud, - a dark moonless night. Calling on Davis, he at supped & disinclined to leave, we sought the place. Tide low, big lumbering vessels crowding up the little dock, a juvenile Celt waiting there, perchance in the desperate hope that some one intent on bathing might also appear, and keep him company. Getting on a bit of a floating raft we undressed placing clothes on the edge of a large clumsy vessel beside. Our swim over & pleasant enow, out we got, Celtic boy dressed & left; we mounting from raft to the bank side leisurely prepare to do the same. But ere long I discover that my pants are not! Breeches have vanished! Then ensued much searching & speculation, groping in the black recesses of the vessel below & finally I get into the water again & grope by the ships side, thinking that the breeks have fallen in. All in vain, - much objuration bestowed upon the Celtic boy, self-felecitation that my coat (& its contents,) had not gone also. At length, half an hour having passed thus, [Alfred] Waud is about to start to his room for a pair of his own, when we are horribly startled by a howl from immediately below us, in the dark abysm of the ship. It was Davis! - he had climbed aboard at the stern sailor-like & had possessed himself of my breeks, awaiting the discovery and all that ensued afterwards. [Alfred] Waud crossed to New York with me, we had an oyster stew in Broadway, then each on our several ways to bed.’

15 May 1859
‘Sunday. Reading and [phonography] all the sunny cool morning. [Jesse] Haney came after dinner, about to start for Philadelphia and presently Rawson Gill. Out, & with Haney to the Jersey City terminus, seeing him into the cars. To 16th Street, via 6th Avenue, supped at Mrs [Catharine] Potters with old acquaintances. Out with [William] Leslie, quitted him and to [E.H.] Chapin’s. Walking uptownwards, when nearly opposite Edwards’ was accosted by [Moses] Morse (who Married Mrs [Rebecca] Kidder) and whom I recollected. Strolled to Union Square with him.

He [Moses Morse] told how he had quitted Poughkeepsie and in conjunction with a Mr Wright started a Drawing and Painting Academy in this city, which was prospering. Said he had two children and spake of Master Will Kidder. I asked him of Lotty [Kidder], he told of her living at Westfarms and spake of [Arthur] Alleyne or Granville (his real name they say) as her husband, though he professed not to know whether any divorce had separated her from little [John] Whytal of whom he knew nothing. She had been rather more of a help to Granville than he to her, or late, said Morse, and was “getting on very well,” taught music and singing to a lady and “had a sewing-machine.” The ex-Mrs [Rebecca] Kidder was on a visit to some friends, down east. Exchanging addresses, we parted. A not-satisfactory man this Morse. [Charles] Damoreau used to pronounce him a lazy man, a sort of demi-intellectual sybarite. He (Morse) must have understood Mrs K. pretty thoroughly, wherefore how came he to marry her? Probably she suited him or he might have been unwilling to risk or endure the disagreables of a break-off. Many men, of a sort, drop into matrimony that way, nor care so much about the purity of their wives before marriage.

To Edwards! The Dane, [Carl] Knudsen there. Carrying away Reade’s “Love one little &c” belonging to [James] Parton, I find stray marginal notes, quite unconsciously autobiographical in their self-revelations, by the indomitable Fanny [Fern]. As also phonographic ones by Mort Thomson to the effect of “Gracy [Eldredge] I love you,” “Dear Gracy etc.” penciled wherever the text becomes passionately amorous. Now as [Jesse] Haney as well as I can read [phonography], Mort’s audience is perchance larger than he might desire. It’s understood that Mrs [Sophy] Thomson is very proud of the coming match. [Frank] Cahill, unless specially needed for some purpose, when he is gushingly received, gets the cold shoulder at Fan’s. Mort is on duty pretty well every night. Grace is understood, in stable phrase, to “feel her oats” a good deal - entertains the conviction that she could get married any day she likes. Likely enough. There may be a break-off in the match, yet, though I think it unlikely.’

11 July 1860
‘Wednesday. Writing till 6, queer and sickish in the morning. Phillips (of the Illustrated News) came up at 1, lunched with me and stayed half an hour. At 6 to 16th street, supped with [Jesse] Haney. In his room with him and Larrison subsequently. Out with Haney to Palace Garden; music, singing, dancing, promenading, cigars and lager. Met Eldredge and his wife and Perkins. Leaving, strolled down Broadway and into 745. Sally [Edwards] and Eliza [Edwards] there, the former practising [sic] on the piano, Matty [Edwards] being with Jack [Edwards], on an evening’s visit to Captain Worth and family, whom it appeared on the girl [Matty Edwards] and her brother [Jack Edwards]’s entrance, they had followed to the Rees’ residence in Brooklyn. Jack brought news of a fire at Washington Market, so after staying an hour at the house (we went in at 10) [Jesse] Haney and I set off to witness the conflagration. Dropping in at [132] Bleecker Street to change coat, and pausing at [N.G.] Shepherd’s door to invite his company I saw the evil face of [Fitz James] O’Brien in his room. (He appeared at our breakfast-table next morning.) To the fire. Three acres space of sheds and shanties burning, the top of the market proper covered with human beings, the flames lighting up the figures and faces, the streets, river and shipping with a wondrously picturesque effect. Making our way through the crowd and puddles and over the hose-pipes of the firemen, which lay strewn around like the entrails of megatherii or other extinct monsters, we went aboard the Barclay St ferry-boat and so to Hoboken, getting a fine view of the conflagration, both in crossing and returning. It was a cool, clear night, a tranquil crescent moon in the sky, her luster paling before that of the temporary smoke of the most exquisite colors, here and there diversified by a great wave of ruddy flame marked the scene of the night. The masts of the shipping in front stood out black and ragged, looking curiously irregular out of perpendicular. Disembarking, again on the New York side, we mounted the piles of the ferry-wharf and surveyed the burning area. Not many projecting objects were standing, it appeared a bed of bright fire, a row of men sharp and blackly-defined on a pier before us and more farther on, seemingly in the midst of the conflagration. When we got out into the street again, the steam fire-engines were at work, puffing like a Mississippi steam boat. We made two attempts to get into close quarters with the fire, threading the intricacies of butcher’s shops, amid the suspended carcases [sic] of sheep, by potato sacks, where rough men conversed or boys lay sleeping, through crowds of firemen and lookers-on, but could not penetrate very far, being checked, good-humouredly enough, by the police. Ahead of us was a blur and smother of conflagration, in front, an engine with a row of men, seemingly up in the air, working heavily, the machine rocking to their labour with a ricketty thud, disorderly monotonous to the ear. Homewards by an overcrowded 3rd Avenue Car. The last southward view we had of the fire, presented an ominous, angry, dusky red aspect, volumes of sullen firy smoke, such as might crown the citadel of Dante’s Dis, obscuring all the horizon. Got home about 2. Rawson Gill has gone to Central America again. His brother [Adolphus Gouverneur] is at Niagara with their mother [Elizabeth Gouverneur Griffin].’

The Divine Angler

‘The Divine Angler. There was presented to me a Person, Angling upon the Brink of a River, to catch Fish; but his Labour was fruitless. So that he gave off, being hopeless. Then came another Person and said, Be not Discouraged, but follow me: Behold, and see, I have got an Angle that hath such a Bait, as all the Fish in the River will fall upon it.’ This is from the spiritual diaries of Jane Lead, born four centuries ago this month, whose vision-inspired writings did much to further the teachings of the German mystic, Jakob Böhme.

Jane Ward was born in March 1624, at Letheringsett Hall, Norfolk, the twelfth and youngest child in a prosperous landed family. She married William Lead (sometimes spelled Leade), a merchant and distant cousin, in 1644. The couple lived in Kings Lynn, where William was a freeman of the borough. They had four daughters. When William died in 1671, Jane was left penniless in the City of London. She began to have visions, declared herself a ‘Bride of Christ, and set about transcribing her visions. In 1674, she joined the household of John Pordage, a Church of England priest she had met in the early 1660s. He formed a Behmenist group (i.e. following the teachings of the German mystic Jakob Böhme), and, after Pordage’s death, she took over as leader. In 1694, the group became known as the Philadelphian Society For The Advancement Of Piety And Divine Philosophy (the Philadelphians) with Lead’s writings and visions underpinning the group’s spiritual goals and ideas. The movement flourished until the early 18th century when, with Leads death in 1704, its membership began to dwindle. See Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, The Prophetic Telegraph, William Branham Historical Research for further information.

In the years after the death of her husband, Jane Lead published many spiritual works, including four volumes of spiritual journals (1696-1701) under the title A Fountain of Gardens. The original works can be found at Internet Archive, although the printed writing is archaic (using the medial S) and awkward to read. However, there are also transcriptions of these texts freely available online. Pass the Word Services  claims to have made Lead’s writings available online since the late 1990s. According to the website editors, the original printing of the first volume of A Fountain of Gardens was 509 pages long - and so they decided to split the work into four sections. The following two extract are from the first of those sections.

3 November 1674
‘The Divine Angler. There was presented to me a Person, Angling upon the Brink of a River, to catch Fish; but his Labour was fruitless. So that he gave off, being hopeless. Then came another Person and said, Be not Discouraged, but follow me: Behold, and see, I have got an Angle that hath such a Bait, as all the Fish in the River will fall upon it. And accordingly I beheld multitudes in a cluster brought up by it. Then cryed out that first Person, Surely the Lord, who is the great Fish-taker, in verity is come here, and hath wrought this Miracle indeed. Whereupon the Person went into the Deep, and having vanished down into it, drew up the Fish: and cryed, If ye will here follow me, ye shall the Principal Fish take; but under Water ye must learn to Dive, and again know how to Rise. Consider, and find out this Parable: for here is Meat for the Strong.’

28 December 1675
‘An Understanding was now given to me, to know and discern the Root and Seed of that growing Mystical Body, into which the Kingdom of God was to descend, which would finish and put an end to all imperfect things, because it consisted of all Faith, Power, Purity, Wisdom, Strength and All-sufficiency; to make compleat the comers hereunto, that so their might be an absolute Dominion within our selves, and a gathering into one Body all Spiritual Ghostly Operations, which are of impregnable Force and Might; till the Kingdom after this manner shews it self, all lieth under the vail of Obscurity, and is little perceived or owned in one, more than another, be they never so entirely Holy, till the Deity springs and shoots forth it self into a Body, that can naturally act like to its Omnipotent Being without limitation. Oh who are hereunto yet come, and what are all Attainments till hereunto we have reached? our Measuring Line can it dive and search into the deep Abyss of the great Wonders of the Immense Being? the whirling Wheel of my Spirit finding no stay for it self in all it had seen, known, possessed and enjoyed still stretched forth its expatiated Mind after that which was still in reserve, and kept by the strong Rock of the Almightiness, to whom with a fresh on-set I resolve to make my Application, as not to be put off with anything less than the Kingdom and Reigning-Power of the Holy Ghost, for which I had run thus hard, and could not stop the Chariot-Wheel of the high graduated Will, which would all Attempts make to grasp in with Love-violence, this my fair, wise, rich and noble Bride, well knowing her Dowry was so great as it would do more than ransom me from all Sins and Earthly-Tributes, perfectly to set me free, and also Ensue of me into that Estate to which pertaineth such Lordships and Dominions as are not subject to Times Chance, or Fate; all which are Motives sufficient indeed to make us press hard this Prize to take. We need not murmur or complain that this matchless Dove and Oriental Pearl so hardly is obtained, when well considered, no less we can conclude her highly worthy the Lamb’s Bride and Spouse to be only peculiarly reserved for; being the Royal Princess and Queen upon whom the Crown is to be fixed, including all Celestial Dignity and Throne-Powers thereby conferred to make this Bride all desirable, from which lustrous Presentation of her perfect Comeliness and Beauty two into one Spirit was all inflamed, making complaint, bemoaning our selves, how we might possibly compass the obtaining this matchless Virgin-Dove for our Spouse and Bride, who with her piercing fiery Arrow of Love, had us wounded so deep, as no Cure throughout the Circumference of this lower Sphere could be found, though attempts and proffers numerous was not wanting, to beguile and take off our Eye, charging & highly blaming us for aspiring to love so high, far beyond what Reason could judge to be equivalent with our mean Estate. But all this nothing availed, or could Wisdom’s Lovers pacifie, whose Quivers did daily upon us let fly, thereby still to attract us more nigh. Knot upon Knot through familiar communion was here tied as an assured Pledge, that to her kind Intimacies we might arrive, as we hard upon this worthy Princess did ply.’

The greatest man I have ever met

‘Dined with Henry James alone at the Reform Club. He was perfectly wonderful. By far the greatest man I have ever met - and yet amazingly humble and affectionate - absolutely delightful.’ This is Hugh Walpole, the English novelist, confiding in his diary following a first meeting with the great American author. Walpole - born 140 years ago today - kept a diary for much of his life, though the only publicly available extracts can be found in Rupert Hart-Davis’s 1950 biography.

Walpole was born on 13 March 1884 in Auckland, New Zealand, the eldest of three children in a religious family. In 1889, his father - Rev Somerset Walpole - accepted an academic post in New York, while Hugh was sent to England, to a prep school first followed by Sir William Borlase’s Grammar School in Marlow, and Kings School in Canterbury, After his father’s appointment as principal of Bede College, Durham, Hugh spent the last four years of his secondary education as a day boy at Durham School. From 1903 to 1906, Walpole studied history at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he had a first essay published in the college magazine, and where he fell under the spell of A. C. Benson, a don at Magdalene College - see also A. C. Benson’s inner life.

After unsuccessful attempts at teaching and lay reading in the Anglican church, Walpole devoted himself to writing and to reviewing books. Through Benson, he met Henry James, and the two developed a close friendship. Walpole published his first novel, The Wooden Horse, in 1909, but his first commercial success came two years later with the tragi-comedy Mr Perrin and Mr Traill. In 1914, James wrote an article for The Times Literary Supplement identifying Walpole as one of the finest young British novelists. 

Ineligible for military service in World War I because of poor eyesight, Walpole worked in Russia, first for the Red Cross, winning the Cross of St George for rescuing a wounded soldier under fire, and later as head of the Anglo-Russian Propaganda Bureau during the Russian Revolution. He drew on this experience for The Dark Forest (1916) and The Secret City (1919), the latter being joint winner of the inaugural James Tait Black Memorial Prize. After the war, he continued to publish novels, The Cathedral (1922), and Wintersmoon (1928). In 1930, he began his most popular series of novels starting with Rogue Herries, set in Cumberland in the mid-eighteenth century, and concluding with Vanessa (1933). He also wrote critical works on Anthony Trollope, Sir Walter Scott, and Joseph Conrad.

Walpole’s commercial success enabled him to maintain a flat in Piccadilly, London, and a large house overlooking Derwentwater in the Lake District. A discreet homosexual, he spent much time and energy looking for ‘the ideal friend’ but from 1926 to his death, his chief companion was Harold Cheevers, a married former policeman whose official role was as his chauffeur. Walpole died in 1941, further information is available from Wikipedia, The Walpole Chronicles, or Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Walpole started keeping a diary in 1904, and kept up the habit for the rest of his life. Rupert Hart-Davis, author of Hugh Walpole - A Biography (Macmillan, 1952) - lists the diaries as his top two sources, identifying them as follows: ‘The daily diary which Hugh Walpole kept from 1904 until his death. The entries vary from a whole page to half a dozen lines. They were mostly written down immediately and have proved factually reliable;’ and ‘the fifteen volumes of the journal which he kept intermittently from 1923 to 1941’. Indeed, he interweaves mentions of, and quotes from, the diaries more than 100 times. 

Although there are no published collections of extracts from the diaries and journals, Walpole himself had Robert Maclehose & Co print 100 copies of a 60-page volume he called Extracts from a Diary. It is extremely rare today, and I have not been able to find any online source for or about the book. However, Simon Dunant’s blog on Walpole describes how he obtained a copy in 2020.

The following extracts - with Walpole diary excerpts italicised for clarity - are taken from Hart-Davis’s biography (freely available to borrow online at Internet Archive).

‘In the autumn of [1904] he began what was to be his lifelong habit of keeping a diary. Initially a spasmodic affair, much given to undergraduate introspection and self-exhortation, it soon turned into a regular daily account of his movements and thoughts. One of the first entries reads: “At work, at games, I am mediocre and almost worse, no looking-glass can flatter my self-esteem, and I have a wonderful liking for the wrong thing. But I have been imagining a universal popularity.” There is much discussion of his new literary favourites, Conrad and Meredith, while the latest novel of his old idol Marion Crawford is judicially condemned: “The Juggernaut of Popularity is on him and he has submitted.” Occasionally there is a flash forecasting the novelist to be, as when he writes: “I love a windy night chiefly, I think, because the powers of Good and Evil seem to be abroad,” but mostly the entries might have been written by any first-year undergraduate, until at the end of the year the second main theme of his life is introduced:

“Meanwhile I still wait for the ideal friend . . . I’d give a lot for the real right man.” ’

* * *

‘In the first flush of keeping a diary at Cambridge, Hugh wrote: “Of the two years spent at M. I shall say no more. Hell is realised by me for I have shared in it. I do not know that I look back on it with real regret - it has taught me much that is bad, but I have learnt sympathy. Every man, who is a man, must have his Hyde, and M. produced mine. The excessive desire to be loved that has always played so enormous a part in my life was bred largely, I think, from the neglect I suffered there.” And there is no doubt that these two years did crystallise in his imagination the concept of Evil as an actively embodied force which must be combated, and thus supplied him with the theme of almost all his books. That’s the way romantic writers are made, by having your nose rubbed in the mud, by knowing what fear is, by loneliness, a small boy crying in his bed at night.’

* * *

‘Here are some typical extracts from his diary [1906-1907]: 

“Oct. 3. Rushed back to give apprentices tea, but they never turned up. “Happy Party” at the Institute. Musical chairs etc.

Oct. 9. Spent the morning hunting for apprentices. Visited six ships but only secured about three boys.’

Oct. 15. Visited one ship, but suddenly the back of my bags split and I had to rush home.

Oct. 25. Tried a new way to the hostel and got lost.

Nov. 4. Tried to nail some chaps coming out of Mason’s for tea, but they fought shy of me. I hate touting.

Feb. 4. Evening at the Institute. Played ludo upstairs to any extent. The room was icy cold.

Feb. 9. Operated raffle and twopenny dip at bazaar, also sold under- clothing and baby garments for two hours.

Feb. 11. Badly beaten at draughts by a cadaverous sailor.

Feb. 17. Down to service at the Institute, where I read the wrong lesson.” ’

***

’Their first meeting [i.e Walpole and Henry James in 1909] is recorded only by Hugh’s brief diary note: “Dined with Henry James alone at the Reform Club. He was perfectly wonderful. By far the greatest man I have ever met - and yet amazingly humble and affectionate - absolutely delightful. He talked about himself and his books a good deal and said some very interesting things. It was a wonderful evening.” ’

Felled the hazel & ozier

‘7 degrees below freezing point. Felled the hazel & ozier underwood in the plantation before the house, & got two small waggon loads of faggots from it.’ This is from the 18th century diary - or better described as a daily record - of John Longe, vicar for many years at Coddenham-cum-Crowfield in Suffolk. He is remembered largely for this daily record - not published until 2008 - which is said bring to bring the Georgian era for a gentleman-parson ‘vividly to life’.

Longe was born in 1765 at Spixworth, north of Norwich, where his father was the rector. He was educated at Bungay Grammar School, Norwich Grammar School, Corpus Christi College and Trinity, Cambridge. On graduating he was admitted deacon in Norwich Cathedral and licensed to serve as curate in Spixworth. After being ordained priest in 1789, he became curate at Coddenham-cum-Crowfield on 1 January 1790. That same year he married Charlotte Browne, heiress to an estate, who gave birth to three children who died in infancy as well as a daughter and four sons. 

Besides preaching and leading worship, Longe trained young curates; marshalled his parishioners under threat of Napoleon’s invasion; and fulfilled the onerous responsibilities of a magistrate, including supervision of the local House of Industry and turnpike trusts. In 1812 his wife died, and five years later he married Frances Ward of Salhouse. He, himself, died on 3 March 1834.

There is very little biographical information about Longe available on the internet other than that found in The Diary of John Longe (Boydell Press, 2008) which can sampled at Googlebooks. Boydell says that these documents left by a ‘gentleman-parson’ provide a ‘rich archive for posterity’ and bring the Georgian era ‘vividly to life’.

According to the editor, Michael Stone, Longe’s diary was not a literary or philosophical journal, but ‘a daily record of events written by hand in printed pocket-books’. He continues: ‘Apart from a few reminders of future commitments, he was summarising the past: meetings with people, actions taken and business to be remembered. The core material comprises six annual pocket-books, here described as ‘diaries’ in which Longe jotted down such matters often laconically. Selected entries published some seventy-five years ago survive too from a seventh diary, believed to be since lost, and an exact copy of these entries as published has been added.’

The gaps between years are substantial, Stone says. The first group dates from 1796, 1797 and 1798, when Longe was in his early thirties, whereas the second group (1826, 1827, 1831 and 1833) runs to within a few weeks of his death. This main gap between the groups, he adds, has to some extent been bridged by including in the volume a transcription of Longes ‘Servants Wages Book’ of 1811-23, which casts more light on his domestic life than is suggested by the title. Some other original material has also been transcribed for the book to clarify particular aspects of his life and his home. Here are several extracts from the beginning of the 1826 diary.

1 January 1826
‘I preached here, morning. Sacrament at Crowfield, 24 Communicants. Wet day. Thaw set in. Mrs Longe ill with cold & did not go out. My little spaniel bitch Frisky produced 4 puppies. She shall bring up one, a dog.’

2 January 1826
‘Fine bright day. Our tenants & families dined here; with my own family, 20 at dinner. Frost at night. Settled accounts with Thomas Diggens to Michaelmas, & received of him on account of Michaelmas last: rent - £45. The arrears of balance still due is £108 18s. 4d. which he engages to pay in a month.’

3 January 1826
‘All at home. Fine bright day. North-east wind & very cold. Wrote to my daughter Charlotte Leake now at Woodhurst, Surrey.’

4 January 1826
‘Sittings at Needham. I did not attend. Dry cold day. Mr George Turner came here to dinner on a visit. The children who sing at church had their treat here, & 6d each.

5 January 1826
‘Dry very sharp air. Mr Roberts dined here. Henry dined at Mr James’s. Wrote to Bickners for a suit of cloaths.’

6 January 1826
‘Very cold showery day. Messrs William Leeds, Crowe, & Roberts dined here.’

7 January 1826
‘Mr George Turner left us after breakfast. Received from Marshall, Cambridge, 4 soft Cottenham cheeses.’

8 January 1826
‘I preached here, afternoon. My sermon lately composed on the New Year.’

9 January 1826
‘Very sharp frost. Mr Betham came here to dinner & slept here. John went to visit his friend Mr Jolly. Received from Otto Bickner a black superfine cloth coat, a black kerseymere waistcoat & breeches.’

10 January 1826
‘Mr Betham left us after breakfast. Mrs Selvin called. North-east wind. Thermometer [with] north aspect: 5 degrees below freezing point. Paid Mrs Longe in discharge of balance of house accounts to the end of 1825: £51.198.’

11 January 1826
‘I attended a meeting of the hundred to consider of a plan for a general association for conviction of offenders of the hundred, which was agreed on. I called at Shrubland Sir Philip Broke, &c. there. Sir Charles Vere called when I was out.’

12 January 1826
‘At home. Miss M.A. Davy came here on a visit. Thermometer [with] north aspect at 9 o’clock a.m.: 7 degrees below freezing point. Felled the hazel & ozier underwood in the plantation before the house, & got two small waggon loads of faggots from it. Planted in spring of 1818.’

13 January 1826
‘Mrs Longe, I & Miss Davy went to Ipswich. I attended the Quarter Sessions. Returned to a late dinner. Sir Philip Broke called. To Mrs Longe on her private account £10. I sent a certificate of my life to Messrs Child for the Irish Tontine. Thermometer the 3 last days at 9 o’clock a.m. out of my study window at 25 degrees, i.e. 7 degrees below freezing point. North wind.’

14 January 1826
‘At home. Robert & Henry dined at Mr Martin’s. Mrs Longe & Miss Davy called at Shrubland. Sir Philip & Lady Broke, &c. there. I preached here, morning. At 11 o’clock p.m. thermometer [with] north aspect at 19 degrees fahrenheit, 13 below freezing point.’

It all affects us terribly

‘Anthony E[den] and Edward Wood are off to Geneva - and the farce begins again - talk, talk, talk - and all the time the nations are arming - and the Teuton faces the Slav as he did in 1914, and Fascism stands opposed to Communism. To us in this country it all seems so silly and unreal - and yet, whether we like it or not, it all affects us terribly.’ This is from the extensive diary kept by the Conservative politician Sir Cuthbert Headlam who died 60 years ago today. He held various relatively minor government positions in the 1920s and 1930s but he is remembered today for his diaries which are considered of historical importance.

Headlam was born in Barton upon Irwell, Lancashire, the third of five sons, the Headlams being a minor gentry family with roots in north Yorkshire. His father was the stipendiary magistrate of Manchester. He was educated at King’s School, Canterbury, and at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he read history. He was a Clerk in the House of Lords between 1897 and 1924, becoming a barrister at the Inner Temple in 1906. He served in the Bedfordshire Yeomanry from 1910 to 1926, and was mentioned in despatches during the war. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order and appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, retiring as lieutenant colonel.

In 1924, Headlam was elected MP for Barnard Castle, losing the seat in 1929, regaining it in 1931, and losing it again in 1935. In 1940, standing as an Independent Conservative, he was voted MP for Newcastle upon Tyne North; he retained the seat until retiring from Parliament in 1951. During his periods as an MP, he held various government positions: Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty from 1926 to 1929; Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions from 1931 to 1932; and Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport from 1932 to 1934.

Headlam was also active in his local area, a Durham County Councillor from 1931 to 1939, and Justice of the Peace for the County of Durham. He was created a baronet in the 1935 Birthday Honours and appointed a Privy Counsellor in 1945. He died on 27 February 1964. For further information see either Wikipedia or the UK Parliament website.

Headlam was a keen and committed diarist. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (log-in required) has this assessment: ‘Headlam's historical significance lies in his extensive private diary. He kept this regularly from 1910 until 1951, and for the period of his political career it contains more than two and a half million words. [. . . He] wrote in a lucid prose style and shrewdly analysed both issues and personalities. When he was at the House of Commons he often recorded the gossip of the lobbies, the mood of his party, and the standing of its leaders. Headlam knew most of the rising Conservative figures of the 1930s and 1940s, and paid particular attention to three of his peers in the 1924 intake - Harold Macmillan, Oliver Stanley, and Anthony Eden.’

Headlam’s diaries were edited by Stuart Ball and published in two volumes: Parliament and Politics in the Age of Baldwin and MacDonald: The Headlam Diaries 1923-1935 (The Historians’ Press, 1992); Parliament and Politics in the Age of Churchill and Attlee: the Headlam Diaries 1935-1951 (Cambridge University Press, 1999). The latter can be digitally borrowed from Internet Archive or sampled at Googlebooks. Here is the opening of Ball’s introduction to this later volume.

‘For the period of his political career, from 1924 to 1951, Sir Cuthbert Headlam’s diary consists of more than two and a half million words. The diary is of value for more than just its scale and consistency. Whilst Headlam naturally wrote about his own affairs, he looked outwards as well as inwards. When he was at the House of Commons he would record the gossip of the lobbies, the mood of his party and the standing of its leaders. Headlam knew most of the rising figures in the Conservative Party of the 1930s and 1940s. and recorded his assessment of their characters and fortunes. He also used the diary to analyse the domestic and international situation, and to comment upon topical issues. It is these elements in the diary which are of wider historical significance, and which have been selected for inclusion in the published edition.’

Here are several extracts.

11 September 1936
‘Hitler’s claim to Colonies is very tiresome and the sooner our Government says definitely that we have no intention of surrendering any colonies, the better it will be. There is no earthly use in our giving them up to the Germans - even if we were in a position to do so. It would only make Hitler and co. more certain than ever that they could go on asking for more - a policy of Danegeld never has paid and never will. I don’t for a moment suppose that Hitler is doing more than trying it on - he has got to adopt an aggressive attitude to prove to his own people that he is a devil of a fellow and he has got away with [it] so often now that he thinks that he can go on on the same lines indefinitely.’ 

18 September 1936
‘Anthony E[den] and Edward Wood are off to Geneva - and the farce begins again - talk, talk, talk - and all the time the nations are arming - and the Teuton faces the Slav as he did in 1914, and Fascism stands opposed to Communism. To us in this country it all seems so silly and unreal - and yet, whether we like it or not, it all affects us terribly. We go on talking - some of us really believing that it is possible to find agreement between the contending influences that are perplexing and upsetting Europe today: others realizing the hopelessness of pacts for peace and collective security so long as no nation will abide by such guarantees: none of us bold enough to say that the time has come for us to admit that the League has failed and must be scrapped or recreated on new lines - and that really G.B. must trust to herself alone, and keep out of other people’s messes.’

20 September 1940
‘Things seem to have been quieter over London today - it is beginning to look as if the Luftwaffe had had about enough of the business - they have certainly got it in the neck. . . . Our airmen have had a gruelling time, but each day that passes the more magnificently they seem to carry on the fight. It is odd to see how so much we owe to so small a number of young men - here are millions of us doing nothing while the battle is being decided above our heads by a chosen band of warriors drawn from here, there and everywhere - upon them depends our safety and perhaps the independence of our country. They must be a superb body of men . . . one would like to know the difference in material strength of our R.A.F. and the Luftwaffe: some day presumably we shall know - and then, more than ever, I expect, we shall salute the gallant men who are now doing such untold services for their country.’

27 October 1941
‘It amuses me to see how the big boss Bevin is at last beginning to wake up to the fact that compulsion is the only way of getting people to do war work. His vain efforts to keep up trade union ideas during this national crisis would be amusing if the lag in production were not so great. It is now evident to most of us that things cannot be allowed to go on as they are, and Winston will be well-advised to hand Bevin to the wolves rather than allowing him to go on messing about much longer - I don’t fancy that his removal would upset anybody.’ 

8 December 1941
‘Apparently there was a summons to Parliament on the 12 (midnight) wireless . . . but mercifully not conveyed to me - so I missed hearing Winston’s speech today telling us that we were at war with Japan. This afternoon (or morning, I forget which) we all listened to Roosevelt announcing the villainies of Japan in the American Congress - he did the job remarkably well and only took eight minutes to do it; we heard him admirably. Clearly the Japanese must have caught the American navy napping - Roosevelt admits that a lot of damage has been done at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii - ‘an old battleship’ and a destroyer sunk, large numbers of aircraft destroyed, 3.000 casualties on Oahu Island, etc., etc.,. The Japanese are busy trying to land troops here, there and everywhere - Siam has already submitted to them - and presumably Burma will now be attacked. It is the old, old story - the enemy prepared, the Allies unprepared and no doubt we are in for a beastly time of it for a bit. Singapore has been bombed, also the Philippines and the American base on Guam Island has apparently been taken by Japan. In Russia things seem to be going well - the Germans have now decided not to take Moscow until the spring - the winter it seems is not a suitable time for military movement.

I am praying for your death

’The newspapers are attacking me more furiously than ever, for my speech on the 14th, and I have a swarm of abusive letters. One good lady says: “I am praying for your death; I have been very successful in two other cases.” The whole nation seems to be mad with rage and hatred. Nevertheless, on reading my speech again, I think it was rather unwise and provocative.’ This is from a diary kept by William Ralph Inge - who died 70 years ago today - during his time as Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral. He was a prolific author (being nominated three times for a Nobel Prize), and a very popular - if sometimes controversial - speaker.

Inge was born in 1860 in Crayke, Yorkshire, where his father, Rev. William Inge was then curate. He was educated at Eton College and King’s College, Cambridge, where his academic brilliance was evident early on. He worked as an assistant master at Eton from 1884 to 1888, and also a Fellow of King’s College. He was ordained deacon in 1888, and priest in 1892. In 1905, he married Mary Spooner and they had five children.

Inge was a prolific author of articles, lectures, sermons and books. His writing spanned a wide array of subjects, including theology, philosophy, history, and social criticism, earning him the nickname ‘The Gloomy Dean’ due to his pessimistic views on modern civilisation and technology’s impact on society. He is probably best known for his works on Plotinus and neoplatonic philosophy, and on Christian mysticism. He was also a columnist for the Evening Standard for many years, finishing in 1946. 

In 1907, Inge moved to Jesus College, Cambridge, on being appointed Lady Margaret’s Professor of Divinity. However, in 1911, Prime Minister Herbert Asquith appointed him Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral in London, a position he retained until his retirement in 1934. There he became a celebrated preacher - being often outspoken and provocative - who drew large congregations to the cathedral. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature three times; and he was awarded the Order of Merit in 1934, recognising his contributions to literature and philosophy. He died on 26 February 1954. Further information is available from Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Encyclopedia.com.

Inge kept a diary during his time as Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, which Macmillan published in 1950 as Diary of a Dean St Paul’s 1911-1934. This can be digitally borrowed from Internet Archive. Here is Inge’s own explanation for the book’s raison d’être.

‘When I resigned my office in 1934, Messrs. Longman published for me a small book of reminiscences called Vale, which I meant to be my ‘farewell’ to my public. The book was destroyed by enemy action, and several friends have expressed a wish that I would leave some recollection of my life at St. Paul’s. There have been threats that otherwise someone else might seek to draw my frailties from their dead abode, though I begged my family not to allow anything like a memoir to be compiled after my death, apart from the biographical notice which the British Academy prints of its deceased members. I had no suspicion, in 1934, that 1 should still be cumbering the ground fifteen years after my retirement, or I should have known that the cacoethes scribendi, the penman’s itch, is not to be resisted as long as publishers and readers are kind.

It was a strange experiment for a Prime Minister to uproot a shy scholar from his study table, and plunge him into the turmoil of London life. For I have no social gifts. I have inherited from my mother’s family, the Churtons, the faculty of being silent in several languages. I have been further handicapped by slowly increasing deafness, and by a ridiculous inability to remember faces. I have failed to recognise at least three duchesses, and a score of less exalted people. By rights I should have ended my days in college rooms, the world forgetting, by the world forgot. But I am glad to have escaped this fate. It was owing to my dear wife, who was greatly beloved in London, and had a singular power of winning the affection of all who knew her, that we were received into a circle of distinguished and wholly delightful friends, through whom we met many of the leading men and women in the national life.’

Here are several extracts from Inge’s diary.

18 April 1911
‘By the second post arrived a letter of great importance. Asquith tells me that he has the King’s consent to offer me the Deanery of St. Paul’s, vacant by the resignation of Dr. Gregory. I showed the letter to Kitty, and at first we could hardly believe it. I wrote to the Prime Minister to say that I felt rather overwhelmed by so unexpected an honour, and that I should like to consult the Archbishop of Canterbury before making up my mind. I did so, but I had really decided to accept. If the Prime Minister singles out a man who has never stirred a finger for preferment, who has no friends in high places and is not a political supporter, he must think that the choice is right. I ought not to refuse to go where I am sent. Kitty’s parents are in favour of my acceptance. My father-in-law said, “If you have no better reason for refusing than that you would rather live at Cambridge, it is your duty to accept.” ’

3 May 1911
‘I went to London and attended a party at Lambeth. The Archbishop and Mrs. Davidson were most kind. It was not altogether a pleasant beginning of my new work. I was incommoded financially by having to pay one-third of my stipend as pension. My nonagenarian predecessor had taken all the Dean’s appointments for the year in the first four months, so that I had no patronage of preachers till the end of the year. Worse still, he had refused to resign unless he was allowed to occupy the Deanery house till his death. This was a most improper arrangement, which not only put me to the greatest inconvenience, but made it very difficult for me to do my work properly. I went to a hotel; my wife and family remained at Cambridge.

In other ways the prospect seemed equally discouraging. Canon Pearce, afterwards Bishop of Worcester, said, “You have not even a casting vote. No one who is not an Anglo-Catholic has a chance of being appointed to a Chapter living.” I talked to the Archdeacon of London (Sinclair) about one or two things that I hoped to do. He said, “As long as Alexander and Newbolt are both here you are not going to be allowed to do anything.” These two men remained at St. Paul’s till near the end of my time there: one of them indeed much longer.

It is not generally known that Cathedral statutes differ widely. The older statutes give the Dean no independent power; those of the Reformation period give him a great deal. My friend Henson as Dean of Durham was under the statutes of Mary Tudor. He developed quite an affection for Bloody Mary, who would have made short work of him. I explained to Mr. Baldwin that at St. Paul’s the Chapter and not the Dean is what is called the Ordinary. “My dear Dean,” he replied, “nobody could suspect you of being the Ordinary.” I should not advise any man who loves power to accept the Deanery of St. Paul’s. The Dean is like a mouse watched by four cats.’

27 May 1911
‘I dined with the Prime Minister - a very mixed party, from royalties to journalists. Near me were Sir George Lewis the famous solicitor, and Sir John Hare the actor.’

10 June 1911
‘To Windsor, to preach before the King and Queen. I was met by a royal carriage drawn by two white horses, and by an enormous omnibus to carry my handbag. Two magnificent gentlemen escorted me to my apartments. The sitting-room contained portraits of Gladstone, Disraeli, Melbourne and other statesmen. In the evening a ‘page’, a splendid elderly personage, came to fetch me to the Red Drawing Room, where I was introduced to Lord Knollys, Lady Mary Trefusis, Lady Ampthill, and two pretty maids of honour. Then Their Majesties were announced. I took in Lady Ampthill, with the Queen on my left. The Queen, I heard afterwards, said, “What shall I talk about to this learned man?” and she said very little. I ought to have made conversation, though I had been told that it is not etiquette. The King afterwards talked to me mainly about his French tutor Hua, whom I remember as an Eton master. I do not know what they thought of my sermon next day, but they were very gracious to me.’ 

13 February 1912
‘I took the Chair at a meeting of the Sociological Society, where Dr. Saleeby read a paper on Eugenics. All through my time as Dean I took an active interest in Eugenics. I was a friend of Sir Francis Galton until his death. Vital statistics were an old hobby of mine, and I studied the population question in all its branches. After many years on the Council of the Eugenics Society I thought they were becoming too environmental, interested, in Galton’s phrase, in nurture rather than nature; and when they appointed Sir William Beveridge to give the Galton Lecture, I resigned my membership. To subsidise the teeming birth-rate of the slums is not the way to improve the quality of the population.’

19 April 1912
‘A great service for the victims of the Titanic. We were told that thousands were unable to get in.’

12 April 1917
‘I dined with the ‘Pilgrims’, invited by Sir Rider Haggard. I met Sir Charles Parsons, General Smuts, Lord d’Abernon, H. G. Wells, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Page, the American Ambassador, made a fine speech.’ 

7 July 1917
‘We were warned of an approaching raid. During the Second Lesson people began to leave the church, and soon there was a series of tremendous explosions close at hand. The boys sang the anthem most pluckily. The Central Telegraph Office, 150 yards from the cathedral, was wrecked. I went round to the Choir House to thank the boys for their courage.’

30 November 1917
‘I lunched with Lady Vera Herbert, whose house is full of packing-cases for our prisoners in Germany.’

14 December 1917
‘A Meeting of the ‘League for promoting International Friendship through the Churches’. I took the opportunity to tell them some unpopular truths. “We cherish three impossible hopes: (1) that we can destroy German militarism. We cannot; they will only live for revenge. (2) A restoration of the balance of power. This means a mad competition in armaments and the suicide of Europe. (3) That we can force Germany to adopt our democratic system. They do not want government by mass-bribery, and will prefer a military dictatorship.” I do not want to be unduly discouraging. There is a real horror of war among the peoples; but in spite of the proverb it takes only one to make a quarrel.’

17 December 1917
‘The newspapers are attacking me more furiously than ever, for my speech on the 14th, and I have a swarm of abusive letters. One good lady says: “I am praying for your death; I have been very successful in two other cases.” The whole nation seems to be mad with rage and hatred. Nevertheless, on reading my speech again, I think it was rather unwise and provocative.’

31 December 1917
‘So ends another year of protracted nightmare. Whatever is the end of the war, Europe is ruined for my lifetime and longer. Nearly one-fifth of the upper and middle class of military age - the public school and university men, from whom the officers arc chosen, are dead, and there is no rift in the clouds anywhere. Our people, slow and reluctant to enter the war, are now mad with rage and hatred, and will sacrifice anything rather than make terms with the enemy. It is indeed a terrible time.’

A wonderful day of Life

’A wonderful day of Life
Very sunny & fine.
Left Fenton with Willie & E. soon after 10.
at 11 - Glorious King Olaf a magnificent triumph.’
These are a few lines from the diary of the famous English composer Edward Elgar, who died 90 years ago today. Five volumes of his diaries have been published so far, with two more volumes to come. But if the first volume is anything to go by, the majority of diary entries are very short and prosaic, little more than a record of events and meetings.

Elgar was born in 1857, in the small village of Lower Broadheath, outside Worcester, England. His father owned a music shop and was a church organist. Elgar himself had little formal education in music and was largely self-taught, studying classical literature and compositions on his own and learning to play several instruments. Early work experiences included being a teacher, local bandmaster, and a church organist. He composed music for local events and societies, gradually building a reputation. In 1889, he married  Caroline Alice Roberts, a successful novelist. They spent much of their lives in and around Malvern, and Caroline acted as Elgar’s business manager and social secretary. They had one daughter, Carice.

Elgar’s breakthrough came in 1899 with a set of orchestral pieces - Enigma Variations - a composition that established him as a leading figure in British music. The following year, he composed another major work, the oratorio The Dream of Gerontius, which many consider his masterpiece. In 1904, Elgar was knighted, and from 1905 to 1908 he was the University of Birmingham’s first professor of music. His Pomp and Circumstances works were written between 1901 and 1907. 

During World War I, Elgar wrote occasional patriotic pieces. After the death of his wife in 1920, he virtually stopped composing, returning to Worcestershire in 1929. A friendship with George Bernard Shaw is said to have stimulated him to further composition, and at his death - on 23 February 1934 - he left an unfinished a third symphony, a piano concerto, and an opera. Further information is available from Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, or the Edward Elgar website.

Elgar may have been a great composer, but he was not a great diarist. Nevertheless, all his extant diaries - which had been used by generations of biographers but never previously been published - are being published in seven volumes as part of the ‘Collected Correspondence’. Five of the diaries have been transcribed and edited by Martin Bird and published by Elgar Works. Although Bird died in 2019, Paul Chennell has been appointed to conclude the final two volumes.

As Bird explains in his introduction to the first volume - Provincial Musician: Diaries 1857-1896 - the diaries were not kept by Elgar alone.

‘The Elgar family diaries, as we know them today, comprise a series of diaries and notebooks by Edward and Alice Elgar and their daughter Carice, covering a period of fifty years, from 1889 to 1939. This period encompasses the marriage of Edward and Alice through to the death of Carice’s husband. Samuel Blake, just before the outbreak of the Second World War. [. . .]

It seems likely that for much of the time there were multiple diaries in use: a family diary in which was written a retrospective record of the Elgars’ activities; Edward’s appointments diary; Edward’s diary containing his own retrospective record of activities; and a ‘tear off’ diary pad on which daily household appointments could be recorded. Carice, too, kept a diary, though none before 1921 is known to survive.

The first known diary to survive intact, of 1889, is Edward’s. In it he makes brief notes of his daily activities. The 1890 diary is also Edward’s, though here Alice provides the occasional entry. By 1891 the diaries have become very much a joint affair, with the balance of entries shifting gradually from Edward to Alice. From March 1895 entries are almost entirely by Alice, with the occasional comment by Edward. She kept up her recording of Elgarian activities until shortly before her death in 1920. From 1895 to 1920 just two of Edward’s diaries are known to survive, those for 1918 and 1920, and a few for the years after Alice’s death.

There is also a series of Elgar’s notebooks from some of the major holidays he took - to Paris in 1880, to Scotland in 1884. to Bavaria, Alassio, the Mediterranean cruise of 1905 and the West Country tour of 1910.’

The first volume’s contents offer a multitude of very short prosaic diary entries, sometimes combined with an explanatory narrative. Here’s a few examples.

17 August 1880
‘Left Victoria with C.E.P. (travelling 2nd Class) for Newhaven went on board the “Bordeaux”, about 10.30. Rough passage, not very ill, arrd. Dieppe abt. 6.30. Washed, had coffee &c. started for Paris 7.39, arrived there at 1.45, two hours late.’

18 August 1880
‘Wednesday, at Hotel Buckingham, Rue Pasquier, 32. Near the Madeleine, recommended here by Beare. Washed &c. Lunched at 3. Walked down to Notre Dame past the Louvre. Table d’hote at 6, too tired to eat. Strolled up the Boulevards until 10. Then bed. Very fine & hot.’

19 August 1880
‘Thursday. Slept well & comfortable rose at 9.30. started out at 11, saw S. Augustin Madeleine, S. Roch. portion of the Louvre, paintings & sculpture &c, refreshed. Palais Royal, all the shops &c. Charlie went home to write, went alone into Jardin de Tuilleries Place de la Concorde. Cabinet 15c. hair! Home to table d’hote at 6. rain & thunder &c: went into café opposite for billiards with some English, laughed consumedly at two Frenchmen playing. Afterwards, being fine, walked up the Champs Elysees to Arc de Triomphe, back again to Café chantant (programme) rather leggy. Home at 11’

1 January 1890
‘New-year’s day. Very fine & cold.
Miss E. Lander & Mr J. C. Ledlie to luncheon. Music after.’

2 January 1890
‘To the Misses Raikes. 15 Kensington Gardens Terr till Saturday Arrived in time for luncheon.
(E. to Beares)’

3 January 1890
‘at Ken: Gard: Terrace
E. called at Tuckwoods about Voluntaries & song ‘Man’
In afternoon to Farm St then Benediction Music at Ken. Gard: Terr present Genrl. R. Raikes Mr R. & Mrs R. Raikes Mrs & Miss Lambcn & Mr. &c’

4 January 1890
A & E to Tudor exhbn. called Schott’s
After luncheon, called Miss Raikes Talbot Sq & Miss Marshall Home to Oaklands 6.10’

5 January 1890
‘Very dull & wet.
At home all day.’

30 October 1896
‘A wonderful day of Life
Very sunny & fine.
Left Fenton with Willie & E. soon after 10.
at 11 - Glorious King Olaf a magnificent triumph.
D.G.
Back to Fenton about 4.
The Pennys to tea.’

At last we are off

‘At last we are off. The last of the cheering crowded boats have turned, the sirens of shore and sea are still, and in the calm hazy gathering dusk on a glassy sea we move on the long quest. Providence is with us even now. At this time of equinoctial gales not a catspaw of wind is apparent. I turn from the glooming immensity of the sea and, looking at the decks of the Quest, am roused from dreams of what may be in the future to the needs of the moment, for in no way are we shipshape or fitted to ignore even the mildest storm.’ This is from the diary of Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton - born 150 years ago today - at the outset of his very last expedition. His expedition diaries though never published in their own right have been used often as a first hand source for books about the expeditions he led.

Shackleton was born on 15 February 1874, in Kilkea, County Kildare, Ireland, the second in a family of ten. His family moved to Dublin when he was four (so his father could study medicine at Trinity College) and to Sydenham in south London when he was ten. He was restless at school and allowed to leave at 16 to take up an apprenticeship ‘before the mast’ on a sailing vessel. After four years at sea, he passed his examination for second mate and then took up a post as third officer on a Welsh Shire Line tramp steamer. Two years later, he obtained his first mate’s ticket, and, in 1898, he was certified as a master mariner, qualifying him to command a British ship anywhere in the world. 

That same year, Shackleton joined the Union-Castle Line, but in 1901 he took leave and joined the British National Antarctic Expedition, to be led Led by Robert Falcon Scott. He was appointed third officer to the expedition’s ship Discovery; and a few months later was commissioned into the Royal Navy, with the rank of sub-lieutenant in the Royal Naval Reserve. During this expedition (1901-1903). Shackleton made valuable contributions to scientific research and began to establish his reputation as an explorer. However, he was sent home early by Scott, ostensibly on health grounds, though some sources suggest Scott was jealous of Shackleton’s popularity. 

Back in Britain, Shackleton spent some time as a journalist and was then elected secretary of the Scottish Royal Geographical Society. In 1906, he unsuccessfully stood for parliament in Dundee. In 1908, he returned to the Antarctic as the leader of his own expedition, on the ship Nimrod. During the expedition, his team climbed Mount Erebus, made many important scientific discoveries and set a record by coming even closer to the South Pole than before. He was knighted on his return to Britain.

However, it was Shackleton's Endurance Expedition (1914-1917) that would etch his name into the annals of exploration history. The expedition, officially known as the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, encountered catastrophic challenges when their ship, the Endurance, became trapped in ice and eventually sank. Stranded on the desolate Antarctic continent, Shackleton and his crew faced unimaginable hardships - extreme cold, starvation, and isolation. Through sheer determination and inspired leadership, Shackleton successfully kept every member of his team alive and led them to safety.

After the war, Shackleton organised further expeditions, including the Shackleton-Rowett Expedition (1921-1922) aboard the Quest in 1921, which had the goal of circumnavigating the continent. Tragically, it was during this expedition that he suffered a fatal heart attack in January 1922, while on South Georgia Island. Further information is available from Encyclopaedia Britannica, the official Shackleton website, Wikipedia, and the BBC.

Shackleton, like other early explorers, kept expedition diaries. However, as far as I can tell, they have never been published in diary form (as have other explorers’ journals - see Tragedy in Antartica for example by Sir Douglas Mawson and Vice-chancellor Priestley, both about the Nimrod expedition). Shackleton’s diaries have, however, been extensively used as source material for books about the polar expeditions, those by Shackleton himself and those by other explorers. See for example, The Heart of the Antarctic being the story of the British Antarctic expedition 1907-1909 (William Heinemann), and Shackleton’s Last Voyage - The Story of the “Quest” by Commander Frank Wild, C.B.E. (Cassell and Company). Both these latter books also contain a few direct quotations from Shackleton’s diaries.

From The Heart of the Antarctic
7 January 1909
‘We were up at 5 a.m., when the temperature was minus 13° Fahr. We were anxious to arrive at the end of our first five miles in good time for Mawson to get a meridian altitude, and take theodolite angles to the new mountain and Mount New Zealand, which were now almost disappearing from view below the horizon. Mawson made our latitude to-day 73° 43’. This was one of the coldest days we had as yet experienced on the plateau, the wind blowing from west by north. We all felt the pulling very much to-day, possibly because it was still slightly uphill, and probably partly on account of mountain lassitude. The distance travelled was ten miles.’

8 January 1909
‘To-day, also, was bitterly cold. The wind blew very fresh for some little time before noon from a direction of about west by north, raising much low drift. Our hands were frost-bitten several times when packing up the sledge. The cold blizzard continued for the whole day. At lunch time we had great difficulty in getting up the tent, which became again seriously torn in the process. Our beards were frozen to our Burberry helmets and Balaclavas, and we had to tear away our hair by the roots in order to get them off. We continued travelling in the blizzard after lunch. Mawson’s right cheek was frostbitten, and also the tip of my nose. The wind was blowing all the time at an angle of about 45° on the port bow of our sledge. We just managed to do our ten miles and were very thankful when the time came for camping.’

From Shackleton’s Last Voyage 
24 September 1921
‘At last we are off. The last of the cheering crowded boats have turned, the sirens of shore and sea are still, and in the calm hazy gathering dusk on a glassy sea we move on the long quest. Providence is with us even now. At this time of equinoctial gales not a catspaw of wind is apparent. I turn from the glooming immensity of the sea and, looking at the decks of the Quest, am roused from dreams of what may be in the future to the needs of the moment, for in no way are we shipshape or fitted to ignore even the mildest storm. Deep in the water, decks littered with stores, our very life-boats receptacles for sliced bacon and green vegetables for sea-stock; steel ropes and hempen brothers jostle each other; mysterious gadgets connected with the wireless, on which the Admiralty officials were working up to the sailing hour, are scattered about. But our twenty-one willing hands will soon snug her down.

A more personal and perplexing problem is my cabin - or my temporary cabin, for Gerald Lysaght has mine till we reach Madeira - for hundreds of telegrams of farewell have to be dealt with. Kind thoughts and kind actions, as witness the many parcels, some of dainty food, some of continuous use, which crowd up the bunk. Yet there is no time to answer them now.

We worked late, lashing up and making fast the most vital things on deck. Our wireless was going all the time, receiving messages and sending out answers. Towards midnight a swell from the west made us roll, and the sea lopped in through our wash-ports. About I A.M. the glare of the Aquitania’s lights became visible as she sped past a little to the southward of us, going west, and I received farewell messages from Sir James Charles and Spedding. I wish it had been daylight.

At 2 A.M. I turned in. We are crowded. For in addition to Mcllroy and Lysaght, I have old McLeod as stoker.’

25 September 1921
‘Fair easterly wind; our topsail and foresail set. All day cleaning up with all hands. We saw the last of England - the Scilly Isles and Bishop Rock, with big seas breaking on them; and now we head out to the west to avoid the Bay of Biscay. With our deep draught we roll along like an old-time ship, our fore-sail bellying to the breeze. The Boy Scouts are sick - frankly so, though Marr has been working in the stokehold until he really had to give in. Various messages came through. To-day it has been misty and cloudy, little sun. All were tired to-night when watches were set.’

26 September 1921
‘A mixture of sunshine and mist, wind and calm. Passed two steamers homeward bound, and one sailing ship was overhauling us in the afternoon, but the breeze fell light, and she dropped astern in the mist that came up from the eastward. Truly it is good to feel we are starting well, and all hands are happy, though the ship is crowded.

Two hands have to help the cook, and the little food hatchway is a blessing, for otherwise it is a long way round. Green is in his element, though our decks are awash amidship. He just dips up the water for washing his vegetables.

With a view to economy he boiled the cabbage in salt water. The result was not successful.

The Quest rolls, and we find her various points and angles, but she grows larger to us each day as we grow more used to her. I asked Green this morning what was for breakfast. “ Bacon and eggs,” he replied. “What sort of eggs?” “Scrambled eggs. If I did not scramble them they would have scrambled themselves ”- a sidelight on the liveliness of the Quest. Query, our wolf-hound puppy, is fast becoming a regular ship’s dog, but has a habit of getting into my bunk after getting wet.

We are running the lights from the dynamo, and, when the wireless is working, sparks fly up and down the backstays like fireflies. A calm night is ours.’