Where was a canteloupe

‘To breakfast, where was a canteloupe. Wretched, it being the season’s first.’ So began one of the most popular American columns of a century ago. It was written in the form of a diary, providing a real commentary on the author’s life, but humorously in the style of Samuel Pepys. Its author, the now largely forgotten Franklin Pierce Adams, died 50 years ago today.

Adams was born in Chicago in 1881, and was educated at Armour Scientific Academy and the University of Michigan. He started out selling insurance, but inspired by one of his customers, he began writing humorous verses and published a small volume of poems. He was taken on as a columnist by the Chicago Tribune, but soon moved to work for the New York Evening Mail, where he wrote a column called Always in Good Humor.

In 1914, FPA, as he always signed his columns, switched to the New York Tribune, and his column was retitled, The Conning Tower. Incredibly popular in its early days, the column is said to have launched the careers of several writers (see Wikipedia). Apart from a brief stint during the war when he was assigned to write for the military newspaper Stars and Stripes, he remained a columnist for different New York papers until 1941, by which time the resonance of his writing and his popularity had faded away.

Adams is also remembered for being one of the members of the Algonquin Round Table, a group of wits who met for lunch during the 1920s at the Algonquin Hotel. The group included Edna Ferber, George S Kaufman and Dorothy Parker. In the 1940s, FPA found a new role, as a panellist on the popular radio show Information, Please!. He married twice, Minna Schwartze in 1904, and Esther Root, with whom he had four children, in 1925. He died 50 years ago today, on 23 March 1960.

The Poetry Foundation has a little more biographical information on Adams, but for more detailed information seek out Sally Ashley’s book - FPA: The life and times of Franklin Pierce Adams (which can be borrowed from Internet Archive).

And it is in Ashley’s biography that one can find details about a diary Adams wrote for many years. This was not a personal diary, but one written for a column. It is less well remembered, perhaps, than The Conning Tower, but in its day was also very popular. In June 1911, Ashley explains, Adams began a breezy personal memoir written in the style of Samuel Pepys, with the intention of including journal entries within the regular column every other day for a month or so. He named it The Diary of Our Own Samuel Pepys and inserted ‘its first grumpy sentence’ on a Wednesday morning: ‘To breakfast, where was a canteloupe. Wretched, it being the season’s first.’

More from Ashley’s book: ‘At first the paragraphs appeared every few days. . . It was a guileless exercise, boring and fascinating at the same time, sprinkled with old Briticisms like ‘bespeaks’ and ‘betimes’ and ‘betook’. Despite its preciousness, his fans welcomed the account of everyday life as observed by a self-proclaimed ordinary fellow.’ But the diary didn’t stop after a month or two, it was still running in 1922 when he decided to run the Diary regularly just on Saturdays. Ashley says, ‘reading the Diary became a Saturday morning treat in many homes, as much a part of New York City life as the crowded subways it endlessly denounced.’

The Diary went along year after year, Ashley says (although like The Conning Tower in different newspapers) describing FPA’s ups and downs, how he spent his days, whom he saw, the food he ate, the funny things people (including him) said, what he hated, and what he enjoyed. Perhaps, Ashley comments, the Diary’s long popularity came because he never fancied it something more than it was; he evidenced irritation often, and contentment, but rarely outrage and never despair. ‘His concerns were those of a conventionally educated middle-class person, and they reflected the interests and inclinations of his readers. His intellectualism was predictable and mildly liberal, though he preferred describing the menu and the identity of his companions to disclosing the content of serious dinner table discussions.’

In 1935, Simon and Schuster published a very full collection of The Diary of Our Own Samuel Pepys in two volumes. According to Ashley, the reviews were favourable, and the volumes sold more copies than any of his other books, but nowadays they are only of interest to biographers of the Algonquin set and historians, for the topics were too of the moment, the style too precious, and the points of view too narrow.

Here are a few extracts from the diary/column (none of which are dated properly in Ashley’s book).

‘Home, and fashioning some verses, and thence to my barber’s to be trimmed and he asketh me something, and, understanding him not at all, what with his accent of Palermo, I did say, Yes, whereat he took a bottle and poured its contents upon my head, and then I did know it for olive oil, by its odour. And he did rub it into my hair till that I did feel like any head of lettuce and was minded to ask him to pass the salt and vinegar, but did not.’

‘With Mr Theodore Dreiser the great tayle-writer to luncheon, and he tells me of many things that have happened to him in Germany and in England and fills me with a great lust to travel.’

‘To luncheon with Jack Reed the poet and he told me of the four days he was in prison in Paterson, and of the horrible uncleanness, and of one man 80 yrs of age and ill that was imprisoned for six months for begging five cents. Also he told me how great a man is Bill Haywood, and it may be as Jack saith. Also he told me that the Industrial Workers are sorely misjudged and that the tayles in the publick prints of their bloodthirstiness are lies told by the scriveners. And out of it all I wish I did know how to appraise what is true and what is false, but I am too ignorant, and ill-fitted to judge truly.’

‘To dinner, and met Mistress Ida Tarbell, who told me of many ways in which a journal! might be made interesting, and some of her notions not bad neither.’

‘So all day at the office, answering the telephone and riding in the elevators and telling a gentleman from what he called the National Broadcahsting Company that I had no desire to say a few hundred words over the wireless, especially at the price offered, which was nothing. I was what my wife would call rude to him, and what I call ineffectually ironick. Then a fellow . . . came in to ask me whether I was busy, and I said, No, I came to the office to practice penmanship, and he said that I had no reason to insult him, that he wanted only to give me a chance to invest my money in a sound company, so I apologized and said that if he would give me only five minutes to myself I could write a fortune, all of which he could have.’

Japan, a millennium ago

‘The Minister of the Right praised the six-stringed koto. He became too merry, and made a great mistake, which sent a chill even to the onlookers.’ These are almost the final words of one of the oldest diaries in the world, and, astonishingly, were written almost exactly 1,000 years ago. Much of the diary written by Murasaki Shikibu’s, a lady-in-waiting in the Japanese court, is taken up with the birth of a prince, but there is plenty of gossiping, caustic at times, about such timeless subjects as fashion and manners.

Few details of Shikibu’s life are known, even her birth and death dates are uncertain, though are given as circa 973 and circa 1020. Shikibu’s father was the governor of a province and a well known scholar. He let his daughter learn Chinese classics, although girls were not usually allowed this privilege at the time. She married and had a daughter, and around 1006, some years after her husband had died, she entered the court of Emperor Ichijô as a lady-in-waiting to Empress Shōshi.

For two years, while at court, she wrote a diary - one of the historically oldest we know about today (see The Diary Junction for others). She is better remembered, however, for her novel, The Tale of Genji, which is considered one of the first ever written (and longest at 630,000 words). Some argue that Shikibu is the world’s first modern novelist. For a little more information on Shikibu (there isn’t much) see The Women in World History website, The Samurai Archives, Götterdämmerung.com, or Wikipedia.

A first translation of Shikibu’s diary appeared in Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan, translated by Annie Shepley Omori and Kochi Doi, and published by Houghton Mifflin in New York (1920) and Constable in London (1921). Penguin published The Diary of Lady Murasaki in 1996, and reissued it in 2005 (a few pages are viewable on Amazon). Branislav L Slantchev, a professor at the University of California in San Diego, has a review of Shikibu’s diary on the Götterdämmerung.com website. He says the first part of the diary - which covers the birth of a prince - is ‘rather dull, concerning itself with visual depiction of room interiors, rituals, and positioning of the various (multitude) participants and observers’; but the second part is ‘engaging’ for it has ‘astute, and quite caustic, remarks about the Empress, her immediate circle . . , and courtiers in general’.

The full text of Shikibu’s diary, as it appeared in Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan, is available online thanks to Mary Mark Ockerbloom’s website, A Celebration of Women Writers. Here are the very last pages of the diary, dated 1010 - one whole millennium ago - in which Shikibu is much concerned about the fashion sense and manners of those around her.

1010
‘Third day of first month
The August Princes have presented themselves before the King for three days to receive gifts of mochi [rice cake]. Ladies of high rank accompanied them. Saémon-no-Kami held the Prince, and the mochi was brought to His Majesty by the Lord Prime Minister. The King, facing towards the east door, gave it to the August Princes. It was a beautiful sight to see the young Princes coming and returning through the corridor. The Queen Dowager did not present herself. On the first day Lady Saisho served at table; her colour combination was cunningly executed. Ladies Takumi and Hyogo officiated as the Queen’s secretaries. The ladies who tied their hair were particularly attractive. The lady who was entrusted with the preparation of toso [New Year drink of spiced saké] was very vain of her skill and behaved as if she were a doctor of medicine. Ointment was distributed as usual.

The Prime Minister took the younger Prince in his arms and the King embraced him lovingly, saying, ‘Long life and health’ as usual. The Lord Prime Minister replied, ‘I will uphold the younger Prince in my arms’; but at that His Augustness the Crown Prince became jealous and begged [to be taken up too], saying, ‘Ah! Ah!’ The Prime Minister was much pleased, and the General of the Right Bodyguard and others were amused by it.

The Lord Prime Minister had an audience with the King and they came out together to find amusement. The Minister was much intoxicated. ‘Troublesome!’ I thought, and hid myself away, but I was found. ‘You are summoned by the father of the Queen, yet you retire so early! Suspicious person!’ said he. ‘Now, instead of the Queen’s father it is you who must compose a poem! It is quite an ordinary occasion, so don’t hesitate!’ He urged, but it seemed to me very awkward to make one only to have it laughed at. As he was very much in liquor, his face was flushed and flamed out in the torchlight. He said, ‘The Queen had lived for years alone and solitary. I had seen it with anxiety. It is cheering to behold troublesome children on either side of her.’ And he went to look at the Princes, who had been put to bed, taking off the bedclothes. He was singing:

‘If there be no little pines in the field
How shall I find the symbol of 1,000 ages?’

People thought it more suitable that he should sing this old song than make a new one. The next evening the sky was hazy; as the different parts of the palace are built compactly in close rows I could only catch a slight glimpse of it from the veranda. I admired his recitation of last evening with the nurse Madam Nakadaka. This lady is of deep thought and learning.

I went home for a while. For the fifty days’ ceremony of the second Prince, which was the fifteenth day of the Sociable Month, I returned in the early morning to the palace. Lady Koshosho returned in embarrassing broad daylight. We two live together; our rooms adjoin and we throw them together, each occupying the whole when the other is absent. When we are there together we put kicho [thin curtains of opaque silk] between them. The Lord Prime Minister says we must be gossiping about other people. Some may be uneasy to hear that, but as there are no unfriendly strangers here we are not anxious about it.

I went to the Queen’s audience. My friend wore brocaded uchigi [a kind of robe] of old rose and white, a red karaginu and figured train. My dress was of red and purple and light green. My karaginu [a kind of jacket] was green and white. The rubbed design on the train was in the very latest fashion, and it would perhaps have been better if a younger lady had worn it. There were seventeen ladies of His Majesty the King’s court who presented themselves before the Queen. Lady Tachibana of the third rank served the royal table. Ladies Kodayu and Shikibu on the balcony. The serving of the young August Prince’s dinner was entrusted to Lady Koshosho. Their Majesties sat within the dais. The morning sun shone in and I felt too much brilliancy in their presence. The King wore a robe with narrow sleeves. The Queen was dressed in red as usual. Her inner kimonos were purple and red with pale and dark green and two shades of yellow. His Majesty’s outer dress was grape-coloured brocade, and his inner garment white and green - all rare and modern both in design and colour.

It seemed to be too dazzling in their presence, so I softly slid away into an inner room. The nurse, Madam Nakadaka, holding the young Prince in her arms, came out towards the south between the canopied King and Queen. She is short in stature, but of dignified demeanour. She was perfectly tranquil and grave and a good example for the young Prince. She wore grape-coloured uchigi and patternless karaginu of white and old rose. That day all did their utmost to adorn themselves. One had a little fault in the colour combination at the wrist opening. When she went before the Royal presence to fetch something, the nobles and high officials noticed it. Afterwards, Lady Saisho regretted it deeply. It was not so bad; only one colour was a little too pale. Lady Kotaiyu wore a crimson unlined dress and over it an uchigi of deep and pale plum colour bordered with folds. Her karaginu was white and old rose. Lady Gen Shikibu appears to have been wearing a red and purple figured silk. Some said it was unsuitable because it was not brocade. That judgment is too conventional. There may be criticism where want of taste is too apparent, but it were better to criticise manners. Dress is rather unimportant in comparison.

The ceremony of giving mochi to the Prince is ended and the table is taken away. The misu of the anteroom was rolled up, and we saw ladies sitting crowded at the west side of the dais. There were Lady Tachibana of the third rank, and Naishi Nosuké, the younger attendant of the August Princes sitting in the doorway. In the east anteroom near the shioji [paper doors] there were ladies of high rank. I went to seek Lady Dainagon and Lady Koshosho, who were sitting east of the dais. His August Majesty sat on the dais with his dining-table before him. The ornaments of it were exquisitely beautiful. On the south balcony there sat the Minister of the Right and Left and the Chamberlain, the first officials of the Crown Prince and of the Queen and the Great Adviser Shijo, facing towards the North, the West being the more honourable seat. There were no officials of low rank. Afterwards they begun to amuse themselves. Courtiers sat on the southeast corridor of the side building. The four lower officials took their usual places to perform some music. They were Kagemasa, Korekazé, Yukiyoshi, Tonomasa. Prom the upper seat the Great Adviser Shijo conducted the music. To no Ben played the lute, Tsunetaka played the harp. The Lieutenant-General of the Left Bodyguard and State Councillor played the flute. Some outsiders joined in the music. One made a mistake in the notes and was hissed. The Minister of the Right praised the six-stringed koto. He became too merry, and made a great mistake, which sent a chill even to the onlookers.

The Prime Minister’s gift was flutes put into two boxes.’

I swept from ten till one

Today marks 260 years since the birth of the German astronomer, Caroline Herschel. A remarkable woman - in her 70s she was awarded a Gold Medal by the (British) Royal Astronomical Society and no woman would be awarded it again for more than 150 years. Chiefly remembered for discovering comets, she spent much of her life working with and supporting her astronomer brother, Wilhelm, who discovered Uranus. Intermittently, Caroline kept diaries or day-books - extracts from which are freely available online - and these give a lively picture of her unusual lifestyle, such as when she says: ‘I swept from ten till one.’

Caroline was born on 16 March 1750 in Hanover at a time when the crowns of England and Hanover were united under George II. Her parents were musical, as was her older brother, Wilhelm, who moved to England aged 19. In 1772, a few years after her father died, Caroline joined Wilhelm in Bath where he worked as an organist and music teacher. He also organised public concerts in which Caroline soon became the principal singer.

But over the next decade the lives of the two siblings swung away from music and towards her brother’s hobby of astronomy. Wilhelm is credited with discovering Uranus in 1781, and the following year he was appointed King’s Astronomer to George III. Caroline, as his dedicated assistant, was awarded a stipend of £50 a year. When, in 1788, her brother married a rich widow, Caroline began to work more on her own initiative, making many significant observations and calculations, and becoming an authority in her right. Most notably she independently discovered the dwarf elliptical galaxy known as M110, although Charles Messier had observed it some years earlier, and she discovered eight comets (on five of which she has unquestioned priority).

Caroline returned to Hanover in 1822, according to Wikipedia, following her brother’s death, but did not abandon her astronomical studies, continuing to verify and confirm Wilhelm’s findings and producing a catalogue of nebulae to assist her nephew John in his work. In 1828, the Royal Astronomical Society presented her with their Gold Medal for this work - no woman would be awarded it again until Vera Rubin in 1996; and in 1835 she and Mary Somerville were granted honorary membership - thus becoming the Society’s first ever women members. Caroline died, age 97, in 1848. Further information can found at the European Space Agency, Biographies of Women Mathematicians, or Cometography.com.

There are a few published biographies of Caroline Herschel, the most recent of which is The Comet Sweeper: Caroline Herschel’s Astronomical Ambition by Claire Brock (see Amazon.co.uk). However, there is also a much older biography put together by the wife of her nephew John - Memoir and Correspondence of Caroline Herschel by Mrs John Herschel with portraits - and published by John Murray in London in 1876. This uses extensive extracts from Caroline’s diaries and workbooks, and is freely available online. Here are a few of those extracts leading up to the discovery of her first comet.

18 July 1786
‘I spent the whole day in ruling paper for the register; except that at breakfast I cut out ruffles for shirts. Mr. and Mrs. Kelly and Mrs. Ramsden (Dollond’s sister) called this evening. I tried to sweep, but it is cloudy, and the moon rises at half-past ten.’

19 July 1786
‘In the evening we swept from eleven till one.’

20 July 1786
‘Prince Charles (Queen’s brother) Duke of Saxe-Gotha and the Duke of Montague were here this morning. I had a message from the King to show them the instruments.’

24 July 1786
‘I registered some sweeps in present time and Pole distance. Prince Resonico came with Dr. Shepherd to see the instruments. I swept from ten till one.’

28 July 1786
‘I wrote part of Flamsteed’s Catalogue in the clear. It was a stormy night, we could not go to bed.’

29 July 1786
‘I paid the smith. He received to-day the plates for the forty-foot tube. Above half of them are bad, but he thinks there will be as many good among them as will be wanted, and I believe he intends to keep the rest till they return. Paid the gardener for four days which he worked with the smith. I registered sweeps to-day. By way of memorandum I will set down in this book in what manner I proceed.

I began some time ago with the last sweep which is booked in the old register (Flamsteed’s time and P. D.), viz., 571, and at different times I booked 570, 569, 568, 567, 566, 565. To-day I booked 564; 563 is marked not to be registered; 560 and 561 I was obliged to pass over on account of some difficulty. The rest of the day I wrote in Flamsteed’s Catalogue. The storm continued all the day, but now, 8 o’clock, it turns to a gentle rain.’

30 July 1786
‘I wound up the sidereal timepiece, Field’s and Alexander’s clocks, and made covers for the new and old registers.’

31 July 1786
‘I booked 558, 557, and 554; 556, 555, I was obliged to leave out on account of some difficulty.’

‘Mem: I find I cannot go on fast enough with the registering of sweeps to be serviceable to the Catalogue of Nebulae. Therefore I will begin immediately to recalculate them, and hope to finish them before they return. Besides, I think the consequences of registering the sweeps backwards will be bad.’

1 August 1786
I have counted one hundred nebulae to-day, and this evening I saw an object which I believe will prove to-morrow night to be a comet.

2 August 1786
‘To-day I calculated 150 nebulae. I fear it will not be clear to-night. It has been raining throughout the whole day, but seems now to clear up a little.

1 o’clock. The object of last night is a comet.’

3 August 1786
‘I did not go to rest till I had wrote to Dr. Blagden and Mr. Aubert to announce the comet. After a few hours’ sleep, I went in the afternoon to Dr. Lind, who, with Mr. Cavallo, accompanied me to Slough, with the intention of seeing the comet, but it was cloudy, and remained so all night.’

Speaker without his mace

England’s so-called Long Parliament was disbanded exactly three and half centuries ago this day. That year, 1660, proved to be the end of a turbulent time in England, which had encompassed revolution, republicanism and regicide. It was also the year that the great Samuel Pepys began writing his diary, and - sure enough - he was there, in Westminster Hall when the Long Parliament was dissolved, and was thus able to note down in his diary how the Speaker was without his mace, and how ‘the whole Hall was joyful.’

The website of The British Civil Wars, Commonwealth and Protectorate 1638-1660 provides a very readable introduction and lots of detail about this exciting era of British history. It explains that ‘the British Civil Wars and Commonwealth period witnessed the trial and execution of a king, the formation of a republic in England, a theocracy in Scotland and the subjugation of Ireland’. It was also in this period that a first attempt was made to unite the three nations under a single government, and the foundations of the modern British constitution were laid.

More specifically on the Long Parliament the site explains: ‘The Long Parliament was first called by King Charles I on 3 November 1640, six months after the dissolution of the Short Parliament and within weeks of the defeat of the English in the Bishops’ Wars against Scotland. The King was reluctant to summon another Parliament but the expense of the wars had left him desperately short of money and in urgent need of parliamentary subsidies. The Long Parliament sat throughout the First and Second Civil wars until December 1648, when it was purged by the New Model Army. The Purged Parliament (or the ‘Rump’ of the Long Parliament) was expelled by Oliver Cromwell in April 1653. The Long Parliament was reinstated in February 1660 after the fall of the Cromwellian Protectorate and was formally dissolved on 16 March 1660.’

And here is Pepys, only a couple of months after he began writing his famous diary (thanks as ever to Phil Gyford and his Diary of Samuel Pepys website):

Friday 16 March 1660
‘No sooner out of bed but troubled with abundance of clients, seamen. My landlord Vanly’s man came to me by my direction yesterday, for I was there at his house as I was going to London by water, and I paid him rent for my house for this quarter ending at Lady day, and took an acquittance that he wrote me from his master. Then to Mr. Sheply, to the Rhenish Tavern House, where Mr. Pim, the tailor, was, and gave us a morning draft and a neat’s tongue. Home and with my wife to London, we dined at my father’s, where Joyce Norton and Mr. Armiger dined also. After dinner my wife took leave of them in order to her going to-morrow to Huntsmore. In my way home I went to the Chapel in Chancery Lane to bespeak papers of all sorts and other things belonging to writing against my voyage. So home, where I spent an hour or two about my business in my study. Thence to the Admiralty, and staid a while, so home again, where Will Bowyer came to tell us that he would bear my wife company in the coach to-morrow. Then to Westminster Hall, where I heard how the Parliament had this day dissolved themselves, and did pass very cheerfully through the Hall, and the Speaker without his mace. The whole Hall was joyful thereat, as well as themselves, and now they begin to talk loud of the King. To-night I am told, that yesterday, about five o’clock in the afternoon, one came with a ladder to the Great Exchange, and wiped with a brush the inscription that was upon King Charles, and that there was a great bonfire made in the Exchange, and people called out ‘God bless. King Charles the Second!’ From the Hall I went home to bed, very sad in mind to part with my wife, but God’s will be done.’

. . . and 50,000 yuan

‘The year 2007 is over. . . I finally got some women.’ So confided Han Feng, a Chinese tobacco company official, to his personal diary. But, in the last few weeks, this diary has become the centre of a rather juicy news story. Han, it seems, was suspended from his job, pending an investigation into allegations about his debauchery and his taking of bribes - allegations which were sourced somehow from Han’s diary and leaked onto the internet. Meanwhile, Han has asked local police to arrest whoever was responsible for leaking the information and to charge them with an invasion of privacy.

Having been promoted in 2009, Han was employed as director of sales for the Guangxi tobacco monopoly bureau - until, that is, he was suspended at the beginning of March, pending an investigation by the bureau’s discipline inspection committee. The investigation, according to China Daily, quoted by AFP, followed accusations of corruption, a lavish lifestyle and improper relations with female employees. These accusations, it explained, stemmed from extracts of Han’s diaries that had been posted on the internet by a man wanting revenge for an affair Han had had with his wife.

The same AFP report says that during a year-long period up to January 2008, Han’s diary describes: ‘regular feasts and excessive drinking five days a week, usually with police, local government officials and tobacco company directors’; receiving ‘payments ranging from 2,000 yuan [$300] to 100,000 yuan’; and ‘sexual relationships with five female colleagues’. AFP also notes that China’s ruling party has railed against corruption for years, seeking to counter public anger over regular reports of graft, excess and debauchery among officials, and that this case marks the latest instance of an official being investigated following revelations on the internet

Times Online picked up the story, which opens as follows: ‘Most officials in trouble for corruption in China do their best to cover their tracks. Han Feng, however, wrote a diary that provided police investigators with a first-hand account of his misdemeanours. His Twitter-style, almost daily diary entries over a two-year period recount his sexual dalliances and the cash gifts that he received, and have caused a sensation since they were leaked on to the internet last month - prompting an official inquiry into his activities. Mr Han’s boasts about his sexual conquests and frequent enjoyment of banquets, karaoke and heavy drinking is an embarrassment for the leadership on the eve of the annual session of Parliament, where the need to stamp out corruption is likely to be high on the agenda.’

The most thorough and up-to-date news on this story in English, however, can be found at Global Times (a newish Chinese newspaper which says it ‘particularly focuses on expressing Chinese people’s real feelings, sharing their opinions and standpoints on significant international issues and promoting their understanding of the global views on China’). According to Global Times, which quotes the Sichuan-based Chengdu Business Daily, Han has now asked the police to track down the person who released the diary to the internet and charge the hacker with legal liabilities. A preliminary investigation, according to Beijing Times, has shown that the diary was leaked through Han’s computer.

Wikipedia has a brief bio of Han Feng, ChinaSmack has some photos, while EastSouthWestNorth has a very comprehensive report on the story, as well as a full list of the published diary entries translated into English. Here are some.

16 September 2007
‘Sha went shopping in the morning. Wang asked me for lunch at the Guijing Hotel. There were just the two of us. He gave me two bottles of Moutai liquor and 50,000 yuan. I deposited 30,000 yuan and took 20,000 home.’

18 September 2007
‘Stayed at the dormitory during the morning. Went to Guoda Hotel and got a room in the hotel. Went back to the office. Yong Rixian and others came. They are taking the test to become commissioners tomorrow. Drank a lot of red wine with them that evening. Returned to Guoda Hotel after 11am. Xiao Tan was already there. Her menstrual period was here, so she used her mouth on me.’

19 September 2007
‘Stayed at the dormitory during the morning. At noon, Hong He, Anhui, Li Yuefen and others came. Had lunch with them. Drank a lot of liquor. Slept during the afternoon. Went to Guoda Hotel in the evening. Xiao Tan did it with me with her mouth. I ejaculated.’

15 November 2007
‘After breakfast, Mo Kun accompanied us to see the ‘Upper/Lower Nine’. It is still quite well-preserved without a lot of changes. I stayed in the hotel room in the afternoon. Went out to eat in the evening and went back to the room. Ah Fang came to my room to fuck. After fucking five times, she returned to her own room.’

4 December 2007
‘I rested in the morning. At lunch, the Yinzhou court’s Zhao Xin and his colleagues asked me to lunch. I went with Xiao Pan. We drank until 4pm. I drank too much, and so did Xiao Pan. I asked her to come to my room where I fucked her. I seemed to remember that it was very heated and she cooperated with what seemed to be a lot of juice. In the evening, Xiao Pan and Ah Mei asked me to have a late night snack. We ate for a while and we told Tan Gang to come to drink another two bottles of foreign wine. Drank too much once again.’

11 December 2007
‘Economic operations analysis meeting all day. Had dinner Huang Guiting and director Xiao of the Land Department. We fixed our entry fee at 5 million yuan in order to guarantee that we get the land. Drank a lot once again.’

31 December 2007
‘I went with Sha to Xinmeng in the morning. Even more activities were going on. Bought two electric blankets. Ate lunch and came home. Spent the afternoon at home. The year 2007 is over. This is the year in which my work has gone the smoothest ever. The company is growing. The middle-level cadres have worked hard to understand my goals. My authority has grown among the workers. All our missions were accomplished. My income was as much as 200,000 yuan. Next year will be easier. Therefore, I don't care whether I go back to the district bureau. I hope that I can work another couple of years and then return for an easier job at the district bureau. This year, my son has done well and he is being recommended to be a graduate student without even having to take any test. Two years later, he will get a job easily. My photography skills have reached another higher stage, and I will try to keep learning until I grow old. I finally got some women. I hooked up with Xiao Pan. I have fun with Tan Shanfang regularly. I also have fun with Mo Yaodai. I have luck with women this year. But when there are too many women, I have to watch my body health.’

Large idols are carved

It is the bicentenary today of the birth of William Griffith, one of the most fanatical of 19th century botanical explorers. Although he died young, he described and collected an astonishingly large number of Asian species. He was also fanatical about recording every detail of his explorations: his diaries, though apparently rather dry, provide a hypnotic and fabulous insight into regions that even today retain an aura of being strange and unknown. As an example, I have chosen extracts from his diary for the first three days of September 1839, when Griffith is travelling through central Afghanistan into the Bamean Valley with its caves and statues of Buddha.

Griffith was born on 4 March 1810 - two centuries ago today - at Kingston-upon-Thames near London. He studied medicine at London University, but, under the guidance of Sir John Lindley (famous for his research on orchids) he also became a distinguished student of botany. In 1832, he sailed to Madras, India, to take up an appointment as assistant-surgeon for the East India Company; and in 1835, he was attached to the Bengal Presidency and sent with a group of experts to explore the so-called tea-forests of Assam. This was the first of many such expeditions for Griffith whose quest for botanical knowledge took him to every corner of the East India Company’s extra-peninsular possessions.

In 1841, he was appointed surgeon in Malacca, but the following year he was appointed as acting director of the Calcutta Botanical Gardens. That position lasted two years before, in 1844, he returned to his duties in Malacca. That same year he married Miss Henderson, the sister of his brother’s wife. Unfortunately, early the following year and while still in his mid-30s, he died from a liver disease. He bequeathed his collection to the East India Company, which was then sent to England, where it is still held by Kew Gardens. According to The Beauty of Orchids & Flowers website ‘no Botanist ever collected and described so many species like Griffith. His collection comprises about 12,000 plants.’ Futher information is available from Wikipedia.

What Griffith also did in great detail is write about his travels, in letters and in diaries. Some of these were arranged by John M’Clelland in Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The Neighbouring Countries and published in 1847 - the full text is available at Project Gutenberg. The basic text (more or less as provided by Project Gutenberg) was printed in paperback by Hard Press - see Amazon.com - quite recently.

Here are extracts from three days at the beginning of September 1839 when Griffith is travelling through central Afghanistan and into the Bamean Valley.

1 September 1839
‘After re-crossing Hajeeguk we continued our march to Sohkta, five and a half miles. The road continued along a considerable descent throughout, at first down the valley in which we had halted to the west, thence down the large Kulloo valley in a northerly direction; towards the mouth of first ravine or valley it is bad, passing across a land slip, then it crosses the bed of a huge torrent falling at a great rate, and obstructed with boulders; the right bank, a high almost precipitous mountain, the left a high aggregate of granitic and other boulders. Water abundant, divided into three streams or so: this torrent comes direct from the nearest portion of Kohi-Baba, which appears of easy descent, presenting beautiful peaks. The road then keeps along left bank, undulating over the ravines, down which water flows from the hills on the eastern side; some of these are very steep, and the road itself is infamous, as may be supposed, crowded with boulders, and impracticable for wheeled carriages: one precipitous ravine we passed through, the rocks consisted of blackish, curiously laminated, and metallic looking stone. On descending one steep ravine, we then came on the road leading up to the Kulloo mountain, where we halted.

A good many villages, with forts, as usual were passed; the cultivation more advanced than at our last halt, crops consisting chiefly of barley. One good fort was observed close to our halting place opposite the direction of the small Kulloo ravine; across the valley a well marked road is seen running up a part of Kulloo ridge, at a lower elevation than that which we crossed.

Poplars and willows occur in the large valley, particularly towards Sohkta, a small orchard of stunted mulberry trees. Cultivation consisting of peas; barley of fine grain, resembling wheat when freed from the husk.

The plants of the valley of Kulloo were badly observed, as I was greatly tired and fatigued. Polygonum fruticosum re-occurs, Silene, Clematis erecta, Tragogopon, Salvia but less common, a curious Cruciferous plant, Lactucacea purpurea of Cabul, Chenopodium villosum fæmin. Dianthus, Saponaria, Lychnis inflata, oats common in fields, the common thistle, Urtica, Caragana abundant along the bed of the river, Papaver. On rocks about camp, 2 Salsolæ, Glaucum, Umbelliferæ of the Yonutt ravine, Artemisiæ, Rosa Ribes! Scrophularia alia.

The valley is very narrow at camp, the river running between precipices, in some parts passable without wetting the feet.’

2 September 1839
‘From Sohkta Kullar-Rood to Topehee, eight and a half miles. The road lay in a northerly direction for a quarter of a mile, then turning up a steep ravine, with an ascent for 800 feet; then small descent, then levellish, until we came to a black cliff, over which another steeper but longer ascent extended, then it became levellish for some distance; two other moderate, extended, longish ascents, led us to the summit, which is 500 feet higher than that of Hajeeguk. The descent continued steep and most tedious on reaching the precipitous ravine of Topehee, the road wound over small spurs, until we came to a grove of willows near the village. The road although steep is not bad, the soil being soft, that of the upper parts and of the descent, even annoying from the sand, both might with little trouble be made easy, but especially the descent. . .

The camels all came up but one, though very slowly; to them as to us, the descent was more tiring than the ascent.

From the summit a fine view of Kohi-Baba was obtained, running to NW by N. To the NE, another high range, but not so marked as Kohi-Baba, was seen running in a similar direction; on this, two considerable peaks present themselves, but only visible when lower down.

A splendid view of the Bamean valley is here obtained [Google maps for a modern satellite view]. We have now obviously passed the highest ranges: to west where the country is low and flat; to the north, the mountains indistinctly visible, are beautifully varied, presenting rugged outlines 10,000 feet above Bamean, also a view of an unearthly looking mountain, most variedly sculptured, is obtained, with here and there rich ravines and columnar sided valleys, presenting tints very varied; in those of the lower ranges, rich rosy tints are predominant; also niches in which gigantic idols are plainly seen: also a view of Goolghoolla, looking as it is in reality, a ruined city: a fine gorge apparently beyond the Bamean river, and a large ravine due north, by which I expect the Bamean river reaches the Oxus; not a tree is to be seen, except a few about Bamean. The whole view is indescribably volcanic, barren yet rich, requiring much colouring to convey an idea of it.

To the top of the pass it is three and a half miles; the character of Kulloo mountain is different from that above described, it is rounded, and composed of a curious compact slate, towards the summit well covered with plants, large tufts of Statice, two or three kinds, two undescribed; immense quantities of Artemisia, coarse tufted grasses, Onosma, Carduacea herbacea of Hajeeguk, uncommon; Triticoides 998, not common; Alium fusco purpurea common. A few exposed rocks occur on the summit. The ravines are all dry, there being no water or very little in them, and no cultivation; thus the contrast visible on both sides of the Kulloo river which runs round the foot of the mountain, is remarkable. Vegetation being distinct on either side.

Yet the ravine of Topehee shows, that when exposed to the action of water, this rock becomes very precipitous, cliffy, easily dislocated: the latter part of the road winds over a portion of this. Chakor, Ptarmigan a fine bird, voice somewhat like that of a vulture, to which it is perhaps anologous.

About Sohkta or in ravines, Euphorbia linearifolia, Ephedra, Asteroides, Rosa Ribes, Composita dislocata, Artemisiæ, Aster pyramidalis, Chenopodium villosum fæm., Senecionoides [long list of plants]. . .

Not much change beyond 12,000 feet, at that height Glaucium in abundance, with a few Hyoscyamus parvus, Borago [list of plants]. . .

The same vegetation continues down to Topehee; on the red hills over its ravine, the plants are different. [List of plants]’

3 September 1839
‘We proceeded from Topehee to Bamean, a distance of twelve miles, for two and a half miles down Topehee ravine. The road is a decent descent, although steepish: from thence turning abruptly at the Bamean valley, we cross the river, which is of considerable size, but fordable, although rapid. The road then extends along the left bank, not in the valley which is occupied by cultivation, but winding over and round the bases of low hills and cliffs, forming a northern boundary; throughout this part the road is villainous, often impeded by huge blocks. After a distance of about ten miles it improves, the valley expanding into a cultivated plain.

Topehee valley narrows towards its mouth or exit, which is walled in by high, red, raviny cliffs; above, in its upper parts it is well cultivated with beans, barley, wheat, and oats, and contains two villages: it opens into the Bamean valley at a village also called Topehee, there the Bamean valley is well cultivated, with oats intermixed with barley or wheat, trefoil, etc., it then narrows, forming the bed of a ravine occupied by Hippophæ, Tamarisk, etc., then it widens again.

The structure of the hills is curious, and generally exhibiting the appearance of having been much acted on by water. They are often cliffy, composed either of limestone or a soil of red clay, with which salt occurs in abundance, conspicuous from the white appearance, or springs. Crystals of carbonate of lime are frequent, limestone, or coarse conglomerate with large rounded stones, occurs; together with a curious laminated clayey rock, with white and ochraceous layers intermixed. The tints most various, as well as the sculpture of the mountains: here ravines representing tracery occur: there, columnar curiously carved cliffs, exhibiting all sorts of fantastic forms: here, as it were, a hill thrown down with numberless blocks into the stream, scattered in every direction; and here, but this is rare, very red horizontal strata, colours various, generally rosy, especially the clayey cliffs: here and there the colour of the rock is ochraceous, at one place its structure is slaty. The curious intermixture of these colours owing to the weather, is striking.

From the head of two of the ravines by which considerable torrents flow into Bamean river, beautiful views are obtained of the Kohi-Baba, whose peaks according to native authority, stretch sixty miles to the westward of Bamean, without much diminution in height. The scenery, however, is less beautiful after emerging into the widened part of the valley, where the hills are less varied both in form and tints, than they are in lower parts: fine views however of Kohi-Baba are occasionally had.

Salsolæ are the prevailing plants of the rocky sides of the valley, Clematis erecta common, here and there a small Statice.

Caves occur throughout the wide portion of the valley, but chiefly on the northern side; they also extend a little way into the narrow portion, where they seem to be excavated into clayey-looking, red, earthy limestone, or more commonly conglomerate, of coarse grey, or reddish colour.

The caves are most common in two cliffs composed of conglomerate mixed with transverse strata of the same rock, 3,400 feet high, presenting a rugged outline; and between the two, which are 800 yards apart, large idols are carved. These cliffs in some places have suffered little from the action of the elements, as testified by the perfect nature of the opening of the caves, and the corners, etc. of the niches enclosing idols; in others they are furrowed by the action of water; in others again slips have taken place to such extent in some, as to cause the fall of all their caves, or of their greater portion, thus exposing the galleries, etc.

The base of the cliffs is irregular, formed of the same conglomerate and clay, but covered more or less by boulders, evidently brought down by the river; by these many caves are choked up, so that originally the cliff might have been perpendicular to the edge of the base, and if so, the caves in the cliffs, and the idols, are of later date than those of the rugged base. But more probably the cliffs, and the caves, are much as they were originally, the boulders having been a subsequent deposit.

The western corner of the cliff beyond the large idol, is much destroyed; on this, the force of the current would have acted: a breakwater occurring along the returning face.

The caves are very numerous, but are confined chiefly towards the base of the cliffs . . . These are of no size, finish, or elegance, and it is only their number, and the extreme obscurity of their history, that makes them interesting; the roofs are usually arched, and the walls are often supplied with niches, and covered with a coating of tar of some thickness, and intense blackness. The galleries are low, arched, and admit one person at a time, or a line of persons with ease; they often form the ascent to the upper caves now inhabited, but originally they were enclosed in the rock, they are defended in such cases by a parapet.

The largest caves are those about the idols, but I see none of any size. They are often domed, the spring of the dome is ornamented with a projecting frieze, some of these are parallelogramic, in one instance with an ornamented border thus.

Some of the caves are situated as high as, or even above the tops of the idols; all parts within the rock are lighted by small apertures.

Access to the large idol is destroyed; the smaller one is gained by a spiral staircase of rude construction, and by galleries. The floor of the galleries is rugged, the steps and the cement of the conglomerate having worn out from between the masses of rock. The images all occupy niches in the face of the hill: two are gigantic, the rest not very large. They are generally in the usual sitting posture, and rather high up, while the larger ones are erect, and reach the base of the cliffy portion of the rock. They are all male, and all obviously Boodhistical; witness the breadth, proportion, and shape of the head, and the drapery; both are damaged, but the smaller is the more perfect, the face of the large one being removed above the lower lip; the arms are broken off, showing they were occupied by galleries. The drapery is composed of plaster, and was fixed on by bolts which have fallen out, leaving the holes. The arms in the smaller one are supported by the falling drapery. The height of the large image in the niche is 135 feet.

The pictures are much damaged, the plaster on which they were painted being mostly very deficient, all the faces are damaged by bullets or other missiles: their execution is indifferent, not superior to modern Burmese paintings; the colours however are good, the figures are either grouped or single, and one is in the style of the time of Henry VIII, with a hat and plume, others represent groups flying - one a golden bird, another a man with a hemispherical helmet, all are much damaged. The hair in some is dressed as in the modern Burmese top-knot, often surrounded by a circle.

Otherwise the niches are not ornamented, except in one instance, as above alluded to; the head of the smaller figure was formerly covered by the roof, as evident from holes or troughs for timbers in the gallery. These holes are now inhabited by pigeons, and the lower ones by cows, donkeys, fowls, kids, dogs; some are filthy apertures blocked up by stone and mud walls; the doors irregular, and guarded between two giants.

An old tope occurs near some small figures, it is composed of stones very much disintegrated, with curious blocks of kucha work, and large Babylonish bricks; the smaller figures are much destroyed, some completely; all are in alto-relievo.

The plants about Topehee valley, are Cichorium, Centaurea lutea, [long list of plants] . . .’

Diary briefs

Turkish coup diary leads to top officers being charged - BBC, Financial Times

Never before published diaries of Iris Murdoch - Short Books, The Guardian review

The Diary Junction Blog is taking a short break - back the second week of March.

Casanova’s love ‘diary’

According to newspaper headlines this week, the original handwritten diary of Casanova, one of most infamous rakes in history, has just been bought and donated to France’s national library. The Casanova manuscript may be remarkable and worth every Euro of the Eur7m paid, but a diary it isn’t - it’s a memoir written by Casanova in the latter years of his life.

Casanova was born in Venice in 1725. His parents were actors and travelled a lot so he was looked after by his grandmother. At the age of nine, though, he was placed in a boarding house, and then with a priest, Abbé Gozzi, where he stayed through his teenage years. He graduated in law from the University of Padua and was admitted as an abbé (a low level clergyman) himself. However, his dandyish behaviour, and his chasing after women led to various scandals and to him seeking refuge in a seminary, from where he was expelled before long. He made his way to Rome, where he was employed by a cardinal and met the Pope. More scandals followed, though, which led Casanova to try joining a regiment. His military career did not last long, and he returned to Venice and to employment as a violinist.

A lucky encounter, in which he saved the life of a nobleman, led to Casanova enjoying three years of high living under the nobleman’s patronage. More scandals involving women, then led Casanova to flee Venice, and to travel in Europe for several years, engaging in affairs and courting scandals everywhere he went. In Paris, he introduced the idea of a lottery, a scheme he would keep trying to sell in other cities through his travels.

In Venice once again, he was denounced as a magician and sentenced to five years in prison. A spectacular escape led to more years of travelling and amorous adventures in London, Berlin, St Petersburg, Warsaw among other places. Allowed to return to Venetian territory between 1744 and 1782 he acted as a spy for the Venetian inquisitors of state, and he spent his final years, from 1785 to 1798 in Bohemia as a librarian for Count von Waldstein in the chateau of Dux.

According to Wikipedia (which has a detailed biography), the isolation and boredom of Casanova’s last years enabled him to focus on his Histoire de Ma Vie, ‘without which his fame would have been considerably diminished, if not blotted out entirely’. He began to think about writing his memoirs around 1780, it says, and began in earnest by 1789, as ‘the only remedy to keep from going mad or dying of grief’. The first draft was completed by July 1792, and he spent the next six years revising it.

Here are two paragraphs more from Wikipedia: ‘Uncut, the memoirs ran to twelve volumes, and the abridged American translation runs to nearly 1200 pages. Though his chronology is at times confusing and inaccurate, and many of his tales exaggerated, much of his narrative and many details are corroborated by contemporary writings. He has a good ear for dialogue and writes at length about all classes of society. Casanova, for the most part, is candid about his faults, intentions, and motivations, and shares his successes and failures with good humor. The confession is largely devoid of repentance or remorse. He celebrates the senses with his readers, especially regarding music, food, and women. ‘I have always liked highly seasoned food. . . As for women, I have always found that the one I was in love with smelled good, and the more copious her sweat the sweeter I found it.’ He mentions over 120 adventures with women and girls, with several veiled references to male lovers as well. He describes his duels and conflicts with scoundrels and officials, his entrapments and his escapes, his schemes and plots, his anguish and his sighs of pleasure. He demonstrates convincingly ‘I can say vixi (‘I have lived’)’.

The manuscript of Casanova’s memoirs was held by his relatives until it was sold to F A Brockhaus publishers, and first published in heavily abridged versions in German around 1822, then in French. During World War II, the manuscript survived the allied bombing of Leipzig. The memoirs were heavily pirated through the ages and have been translated into some twenty languages. But not until 1960 was the entire text published in its original language of French.’

Casanova’s original handwritten manuscript, amounting to 3,700 pages, has now been bought for Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) by an anonomous donor at a cost of Eur7m. BnF is planning to exhibit the manuscript and to digitalise it for its online library. The sale made headlines round the world, and, as with the recent headlines about Josef Mengele’s memoirs (see Mengele’s vile ‘diary’), they employed the misnoma ‘diary’.

Here are three headlines from newspapers that should know better:
Casanova’s diary finds home in France - Financial Times
Anonymous buyer pays £4 million for Casanova’s uncensored diaries - The Guardian
Library secures Casanova’s love diary - The Daily Telegraph (Sydney)

Various editions of the memoir can be readon online at Internet Archive, including ‘the first complete and English translation by Arthur Machen’. Wikipedia also has an informative article on the memoir itself.

Diary briefs

Diaries reveal anguish of kidnap victim - AFP on Googlenews

Inspiration for Faulkner’s novels - The Guardian, The New York Times

New issue of The Diaries Of Evelyn Waugh by Phoenix - Orion Books

Conversations with Myself

Today is the 20th anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s release from prison in South Africa. Having spent 27 years incarcerated it would be less than five more before the country elected him President. The same year that he became President, 1994, his famous autobiography Long Walk to Freedom was published. Now, in connection with the 20th anniversary of his release, Pan Macmillan is to publish a second autobiographical book, this time based on Mandela’s personal archive of diaries and letters.

Nelson Mandela was born in Qunu, a small village in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, in 1918. As a child he was groomed to become chief of his local tribe, however while at University of Fort Hare he became increasingly interested in politics. After being expelled for helping organise a strike, and being unwilling to return to his family, he moved to Johannesburg. There, he worked in a variety of jobs, became very active within the African National Congress (ANC), and completed a degree by correspondence. He then went on to study law, and, with his friend Oliver Tambo, set up the country’s first black law firm providing free or low-cost legal counsel.

In December 1956, Mandela and 150 others were arrested and charged with treason, but after a marathon trial lasting several years all were acquitted. Then came the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, when the police opened fire on a crowd of black protesters and killed 69 of them. Thereafter, Mandela - who had been influenced by Mahatma Gandhi’s policy of non-violence - became increasingly militant. In 1961, he took over the ANC’s armed wing, and coordinated sabotage campaigns against military and government targets. But, before very long, in August 1962, he was arrested, and initially sentenced to five years imprisonment. Further charges brought a much longer sentence. For 18 of his 27 years in prison, Mandela was incarcerated on Robben Island.

While in jail, and despite his imprisonment, Mandela’s reputation grew to the point where he became, and then stayed, the most significant black leader in South Africa. With time, too, international pressure against South Africa’s apartheid regime increased to an extraordinary level. Although negotiations aimed at releasing Mandela were started by President P W Botha in 1985, it wasn’t until his replacement by President F W de Klerk that Mandela was finally released on 11 February 1990 - 20 years ago today.

Mandela returned almost immediately to the leadership of the ANC, and then guided it to an election victory in 1994. A year earlier, he and de Klerk had been jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1999, Mandela decided not to stand for a second term as President and retired. Since then, he has been engaged as an advocate for a variety of social and human rights organisations.

Mandela’s autobiography Long Walk to Freedom, published in 1994, is said to have sold over six million copies. (Excerpts can be read at the Open Book Systems archive.) Then, last autumn, on the eve of the Frankfurt Book Fair, Mandela’s literary agent Johny Geller at Curtis Brown sold the rights to a second autobiographical work, one to be based on Mandela’s personal archive of diaries, letters and other manuscripts.

Geller told The Bookseller: ‘What is so amazing is that [Mandela] wrote virtually every day of his life and kept all his notes. The book reveals the personal cost to him of his imprisonment on Robben Island and includes heartbreaking letters about the deaths of two of his children. It shows the personal side of this icon, his amazing humanity and wisdom. It is also a historical document which may bring about different interpretations of various events.’

Pan Macmillan won the auction for the new book and very quickly produced a flyer promising that the new book - to be titled Conversations with Myself - would be published this spring. It lists half-a-dozen source materials for the book, two of which are ‘journals kept while on the run in the early 1960s’, and ‘diaries and draft letters written in Robben Island and other prisons during 27 years of imprisonment’. Macmillan concludes on the flyer: ‘Not since the worldwide publication of his bestselling autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom . . . will there be such an important book.’

Mengele’s vile ‘diary’

The sale of a so-called diary by the notorious Nazi death camp doctor Josef Mengele has been widely reported in the last few weeks. The manuscript appears to have surfaced through a family member, possibly Mengele’s son Rolf, and passed to Alexander Autographs in Connecticut for auction. To promote the sale, the auctioneers made available a substantial collection of translated extracts from the document. These extracts, however, are a collection of opinions - many of them extraordinarily vile - and not a diary by any definition.

Mengele was born in 1911 into a wealthy Bavarian family, and had a strict Catholic upbringing. After studying philosophy at Munich, he joined the Stahlhelm, one of the paramilitary organisations that rose up after the First World War, and then the Sturmtruppen in 1933. He went on to study medicine at Frankfurt, and then, in 1934, he joined the Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene where he did research into physical anthropology and genetics.

A committed Nazi, Mengele joined the Waffen SS during World War Two, serving on the Eastern Front until wounded. Thereafter, in 1943, he was appointed a medical officer at Auschwitz, where Jews were selected either for labour, extermination or medical experimentation. During his 21-month stay at (what became known as) the most notorious of all the prison camps, Mengele was in charge of many bizarre and brutal medical experiments - said to have killed more than 400,000 prisoners.

After the war, Mengele famously escaped to South America, where he lived secretly in Argentina. But when, in 1960, Mossad captured Adolf Eichmann, another high-level Nazi that had managed to escape from Europe, Mengele fled to Paraguay, and later to Brazil, where he died in 1979. (His death was not, in fact, certified until some years later when DNA evidence was used to prove the corpse of a man buried as Wolfgang Gerhard was Mengele not Gerhard, a neo-Nazi whose name he’d taken). For more information on Mengele see Wikipedia, or the many websites with information on the Holocaust, such as the Jewish Virtual Library.

A notebook written by Mengele in 1960, while in hiding in Argentina, surfaced recently for the first time ( thanks to Mengele’s son Rolf, according to press reports) when the well-known American firm Alexander Autographs, based in Stamford, Connecticut, put it up for auction. Its website gives many details. The document is ‘a child’s bound 6 1/4" x 8 1/4" composition notebook ironically titled in Spanish print: ‘Illustrated Zoology’, and which occupy fully every one of the 180 pages contained therein. Only the very first page bears a date, that being June 10, 1960.’

Alexander Autographs explains that the notebook is a ‘political and personal manifesto, a stream-of-consciousness ramble offering an incredible view into the mind of an obviously unrepentant and quite insane murderer still on the run fifteen years after escaping his crimes in collapsing Nazi Germany’. Interspersed with his lengthy diatribes on eugenics, political theory and the superiority of the German race, the auction company adds, are routine references to his childhood, the local flora and fauna in the area, and other more mundane subjects.

The Mengele document was put up for sale at an auction on 20-21 January, but, apparently, failed to meet its reserves. Soon after, however, the company confirmed that it had secured a private sale to an anonomous buyer - an ‘East Coast Jewish philanthropist’ whose grandmother had once met Mengele. Many of these news reports - though not all - refer to Mengele’s notebook as a ‘diary’: Nazi doctor Josef Mengele’s diary up for sale (The Daily Telegraph); Grandson of Auschwitz survivor buys Mengele's diary (Haaretz); ‘Angel of Death’ Diary Shows No Regrets (Der Spiegel); Family of Auschwitz Survivor Buys Mengele Diary (US News).

However, it is clear that the Mengele notebook is not a diary at all but, as the auctioneers say, more of a manifesto. Here are some extracts as translated and made available by Alexander Autographs.

‘I arrived in this house exactly a year ago. However, this anniversary gave me no reason to celebrate. . . I was solely responsible for my decisions. I hope that people close to me show some patience, and I hope they don’t endanger things.’

‘Beauty is a primary force of selection.’

‘There’s no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in nature. There’s only ‘appropriate’ or ‘inappropriate’ . . . The ‘inappropriate’ elements are kept from reproducing.’

‘What is ‘good’ is built out of many different fundamentals, which are all elements of the immortal soul. Maybe these values aren’t limited to our ‘human existence.’ Think about loyalty! It’s a result of breeding, as for example in dogs, man’s oldest companion. But you cannot breed qualities that weren’t there all along!!’

‘The youth movement honored the traditions of our ancestors while remembering our primary cultural values. We had to remember our inner strength, and this was of utmost importance after World War I and the shameful peace that followed. This burden was designed to keep our people in a constant condition of decay. We had to find the deepest sources of German strength to make our restoration possible. We could not expect other people to help us, and we couldn’t rely on religion. . . What has the Catholic Church done to amend or get rid of the absurd Treaty of Versailles? They had a chance to influence the synods of the Protestant Churches, which make up two thirds of the German people. The new strength had to come from the Germans themselves, and this is exactly where it came from. The youth movement laid the spiritual foundation for the national uprising that was to follow World War I. Later on, the youth movement became part of the great political organization, the Hitlerjugend. . . We had to liberate Germanic history from Roman and Catholic influences. . . We were ready for another attempt to change the empire’s shameful history. In the end, this heroic way of life prevailed, and ten years later all of Germany embraced it.’

‘British rule in India wasn’t that bad. . . The casts are gone, and everything turns into a gooey mass. This new society can be ruled easily through Bolshevik doctrine and ideology. . . Brahmans are built nicely; some of them even have blue eyes. . . And this is because Brahmans used the highest cast to preserve their noble blood. They are the descendants of Nordic peoples who once conquered and ruled India . . . They have managed to protect their racial traits through thousands of years . . . This cannot be achieved by mixing the highest with the lowest class. It can only be done by selecting the best. I don’t think I’ll have to explain how incredibly difficult this will be . . . Books and education can foster existing qualities, but they cannot produce them.’

‘We will need an army of chemists, physics, biologists, doctors, mathematicians, engineers and administrators to master this giant energy problem that is coming.’

‘However, there’s no school on this planet that will turn a moron or some other simpleton into a gifted human being. You can promote natural tendencies that are already genetically present, but nobody can create intelligence or higher abilities.’

‘If we don’t want the physically or mentally disabled left to their natural fate, and if we want them to be a burden on society, we should at least be ethical enough to make sure that their inferior genes aren’t passed on . . . The real problem is to define when human life is worth living and when it has to be eradicated. The age of technology has created new conditions. (Idiots can get jobs in factories, and they can now make a living raising a family by moving sheet metal strips around and punching buttons.) They want a higher birthrate and to promote families with many children. They actually make sure that an idiot with many kids gets a continuous pay raise. . . The feeble minded person (‘village idiot’) was separated from farmers because of his social status and low income. This separation is no longer the case in the age of technology. He is now on the same level with the farmer’s son who went into the city.’

‘We have to prevent the rise of the idiot masses. This goal isn’t new at all, and some countries started implementing political measures to reach this goal. They were stopped for political and ideological reasons; even though they showed promising results.’

‘The law to prevent genetically deficient offspring has to be reinstated. However, the law will lose its edge if marriages with only one genetically sufficient partner are legal.’

‘Abandon feminist ideology; biology doesn’t support equal rights . . . Women shouldn’t be working in higher positions. Women’s work has to depend on fulfilling a biological quota.’

‘Birth control can be done by sterilizing those with deficient genes. Those with good genes will be sterilized when the number of 5 children has been reached.’

Diary briefs

Dentist Jack Liss and the Jewish Legion - Houston & Texas News

Captain Scott’s last diary now viewable online - The Guardian, British Library

Dance based on diaries of transgender activist - San Francisco Chronicle

Devizes Museum raises £900 to buy prisoner of war diary - The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald

Happy griping Ted!

It’s Ted Koppel’s birthday today, his 70th. Congratulations. A good day perhaps - or not - to revisit a diary he wrote throughout 1999. Although not so well known in Europe, Koppel is one of the most highly respected journalists in the US, having fronted ABC’s top news interview show, Nightline, for 25 years. He is the epitome of the formal, well-mannered, objective, and impersonal journalist, says one media watcher, but the diary reveals, in fact, that he’s not only full of gripes in his daily life, but that he’s never really comfortable being ‘off camera’.

Edward James ‘Ted’ Koppel was born in Lancashire, England, on 8 February 1840, the son of Jewish parents who had fled from Hitler’s Germany. In 1953, the family moved again, this time to the US, where Ted studied science at Syracuse University before doing a masters in Mass Communications Research and Political Science at Stanford. In 1963, he became a naturalized US citizen, and he married Grace Anne Dorney, with whom he has four children. That same year he was taken on by ABC Radio News and thus became its youngest ever correspondent.

By 1966, Koppel was working for ABC Television and went to Vietnam as a war correspondent. He returned in 1968 to cover Richard Nixon’s presidential campaign and then was sent to Hong Kong as bureau chief. From 1971 to 1980, he was ABC News’ chief diplomatic correspondent, an assignment that included covering Henry Kissinger as Secretary of State, a tour of duty that took him, ABC says, more than a quarter of a million miles during the days of Kissinger’s ‘shuttle diplomacy’.

In 1980, Koppel was given the role of anchor for Nightline, then television’s first late-night network news programme. He stayed with the show, becoming its managing editor also, until 1985. In its short biography of Koppel, ABC says he has won ‘every major broadcasting award’ and lists a good many of them. Wikipedia notes, however, that Koppel was criticised ‘for being a conduit for the government’s point of view’. After his retirement from Nightline and ABC in 2005, Koppel has worked with National Public Radio, The Discovery Channel, and the BBC among other organisations, and earlier this year he was reportedly in negotiations for a return to ABC (see Politico).

In 2000, Alfred A Knopf (part of Random House) published a diary that Koppel had kept all through 1999, the last year of the century - Off Camera: Private Thoughts Made Public. Random House says that in this book, Koppel ‘finally lets us know the man behind the face we’ve trusted late at night for almost twenty years’; and that, with ‘riveting insight and lucid prose, [he] chronicles the year of Monica and Y2K, of shootings at Columbine, of the death of JFK, Jr’. It concludes: ‘Witty, provocative, and wise, this book is indispensable.’ Off Camera can be previewed at Googlebooks.

Reviewers did not agree. Paul Martin Lester makes this pithy point near the start of his review for the Journal of Mass Media Ethics: ‘For the entire year of 1999, [Koppel] kept a day-by-day diary that “contains opinions I would never express on the air”. And after reading his journal, I can objectively say - that’s a good thing.’ He says the book reveals that Koppel ‘is never really comfortable with being “off camera” ’. For the rest of the review, Lester gripes about how much of the book Koppel spends griping. Here is Lester in full flow:

‘[Koppel’s] book is filled with gripes for every day of the year. He complains about the price of Cap’n Crunch cereal at his local market. He calls Valentine’s Day cards, “the cold-blooded commercialism of our most tender moments”. He dismisses traveling in the Balkans with this direct quote: “The toughest thing about traveling in the Balkans is traveling in the Balkans”. He calls ex-President Jimmy Carter’s op-ed piece in The New York Times criticizing ex-President Bill Clinton’s Kosovo strategy “tacky”. He doesn’t like the violence portrayed by the World Wrestling Federation. He calls 900 telephone sex operators, “verbal prostitutes”. And over several days he tediously describes and unnecessarily complains about his trouble in getting a caller id feature installed on his home telephone. Who would have thought that Ted has the same troubles, as you and me?’

And Lester has nothing better to say about Koppel’s attacks on his own industry: ‘He wails against the media without offering a day’s worth of thinking about possible remedies.’

Lester concludes: ‘This is an ill-conceived, egotistical, colossal waste of time - not because it lets us inside the life and mind of one of the nation’s most respected journalists, but because that life and mind, as presented in this work, is so banal. Having to report his daily events and thoughts in which he admits, “there have obviously been days when my only motive has been ‘to get the damned thing done’ ” leaves him with little time for self-reflection. But perhaps that’s a good thing. I want to like Ted Koppel the interviewer. I really don’t need to know that he threw up behind a haystack after smoking for the first time as a child growing up in England.’

Bruce Fretts at Entertainment Weekly is no less scathing, unfortunately. Many of the entries, he says, deal with such mundane matters as grocery shopping and shoddy airline and phone-company service. Worse, Fretts goes on: ‘He obsessively wrings his hands over Americans’ lack of concern for foreign issues, droning on for days on end about far-flung conflicts (he spends much of April and May overanalyzing the US’ role in Kosovo). After the networks fail to provide live prime-time coverage of an earthquake in Turkey, he grouses that “neither Princess Di nor JFK Jr was among the dead or injured, so I suppose the two thousand or more dead Turks are of insufficient interest.” It’s a fair point but one he runs into the ground. Koppel offers his own most accurate critique when he writes, “I'm beginning to sink into old-fartism.” ’

As I was skipping past

‘Rosalie, our little seamstress, . . . is always alone in the sewing room and yesterday, . . . as I was skipping past her, she said, ‘You’re looking quite pale, mamzelle Henriette, are you tired?’ ‘I’m more frustrated, Rosalie!’ ‘And with what?’ ‘Oh with myself, I suppose!’ ‘But you’re very fortunate, mamzelle!’ ‘Me fortunate?’ This is Henriette Desaulles, a precocious 15 year old French-Canadian, synthesising for her diary a conversation she had had earlier in the day. The diary is considered to be a ‘valuable testimony of private life in the 19th century’, and today is the 150th anniversary of the writer’s birth.

Henriette was born in Saint-Hyacinthe, a city in Quebec, Canada, on 6 February 1860, into a well-known middle class family. She was educated at a local convent. In 1881, she married Maurice Saint-Jacob and together they had seven children. Maurice died in the mid-1890s while campaigning as a liberal candidate. Subsequently, Henriette wrote a celebrated literary column in Montreal’s Le Devoir under the pseudonym Fadette. There is almost no other information about her freely available on the internet, especially in English. The Diary Junction has links to websites with biographical information in French.

Henriette’s memory, however, has been kept alive because of a diary she kept as a teenager and in the years before her marriage. This was first published in its original language (French) in 1971 in Montreal by Hurtubise as Fadette - Journal d’Henriette Dessaulles, 1874-1880. It was translated and published in English by Hounslow Press as Hopes and Dreams: The Diary of Henriette Dessaulles, 1874-1881. Liedewy Hawke, the translator, won the 1986 Canada Council Prize for Translation as well as the John Glassco Translation Prize. Library and Archives Canada has various editions of the diary listed in its index.

Unfortunately, it seems there are no extracts of Henriette’s diary online except for the one made available by the website of McCord Museum of Canadian History, which also displays a picture of the original pages. The museum says Henriette was ‘a remarkably perceptive adolescent’ and that her diary provides a ‘valuable testimony of private life in the 19th century’. The entry below, it says for example, shows ‘the very different daily realities experienced by people in different social classes’.

23 October 1875
‘Rosalie, our little seamstress, . . . is always alone in the sewing room and yesterday, . . . as I was skipping past her, she said, ‘You’re looking quite pale, mamzelle Henriette, are you tired?’
‘I’m more frustrated, Rosalie!’
‘And with what?’
‘Oh with myself, I suppose!’
‘But you’re very fortunate, mamzelle!’
‘Me fortunate?’
‘But of course! You have good parents, everything you could ever want, you’re rich, you live in a fine house, you have people waiting on you hand and foot, you have a good education! Not many people are as fortunate as you.’ I didn’t reply immediately, for what could I say to her?
‘And you, Rosalie, I asked finally, ‘aren’t you fortunate?’
‘Please excuse me, mamzelle, she replied, ‘I’m quite content with my fate.’
‘You live with you’re family?’
‘No, they’re all dead. I rent a small room where I live all alone, but not for long since I work here every day from seven in the morning til seven at night. When I leave here in the evening I go to the church to pray, and go straight to bed when I get home because I have to be up at five in the morning!’
‘And Sundays?’
‘I spend a lot of time in church and, from time to time, I write to my nephew who is a vicar in the United States.’
‘And you’re content like this?’
‘Yes, I perform my duties as best I can for the Good Lord, and I know that He will do the same for me.’ ’

Music of twelve moons

The rather oddly named Ole Bull was born 200 years ago today. He was not, as his name might promise, a Spanish torero, but a virtuoso Norwegian violinist! Incredibly famous in his day he is sometimes called Norway’s first superstar. He was not a diarist, but there are a few rather lovely quotes about him in other people’s diaries, not least those left by Henry Longfellow and his wife.

Bull was born on 5 February 1810 - two centuries ago today - in Bergen, Norway (then part of a union with Sweden). He was a precocious musician, and it is said that by the age of five he could play all the songs his mother played on the violin, and that by nine he was performing solo for the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra. After failing at university, he joined the Musical Lyceum, a musical society, and became its director. He also became director of the Theater Orchestra in 1828.

Thereafter, though, he moved to live in Germany and then Paris where he became acquainted with the style of the Italian virtuoso, Niccolò Paganini, and where he performed with Chopin. His fame soon spread, and over the coming decades he would give thousands of concerts across Europe, and in the United States (where he bought land and started the New Norway community). According to Wikipedia, Robert Schumann called Bull among ‘the greatest of all’, and said he was on a level with Paganini for the speed and clarity of his playing. Bull was particularly famed for his improvisations, and the rich tone of his play, and also for promoting Norwegian folk music and culture.

Bull married Alexandrine Félicie Villeminot in 1836 and they had six children, although only two survived him. His wife died in 1862, and Bull then courted and married Sara Chapman Thorp, 40 years his junior, and they had one child. Bull died in 1880, and was a given a spectacular funeral procession. For more information see Wikipedia or Violinman.com.

A lot more information about Bull can be obtained online, however, by a visit to Googlebooks and browsing Ole Bull: Norway’s Romantic Musician and Cosmopolitan Patriot written by Einar Ingvald Haugen and Camilla Cai (published by University of Wisconsin Press in 1993). Therein also can be found some diary extracts about Bull.

April 1834 - Count di Rangone writing in his diary about Bull playing in Bologna:

‘There was in his playing a mixture of the bizarre and the poetic, and much of Paganini’s mode of playing. It was astonishing to hear him perform a two-voiced melody in a single stroke of the bow, with pizzicato, trills . . . and harmonics. He distinguished himself in many other ways also. He is an outstanding violinist, and he won spontaneous and ardent applause.’

May 1844 - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow writing about Bull after a concert at the Melodeon, Boston:
‘a great violinist’.

- Fanny Longfellow in her diary about the same concert:
‘a new Orpheus, with a soul for a violin. When we drove home, I seemed to see twelve moons instead of one.’

- And Margaret Fuller (another member with Longfellow of the Transcendental School) in her diary about the same concert:
‘The Mountains of Norway, and the Siciliano and Tarentella were the great pieces. - He played . . . Memories of Havana . . . I do not know whether the piece was fine or not. I soon forgot it, and was borne away into the winged life.’

3 November 1855 - Bull was visiting an old townsman and schoolmate of his, Peder Andersen, who had emigrated to the US and settled in Lowell Massachusetts. Peder’s wife Martha writing about Ole Bull in her diary (as commented on by Haugen and Cai in their biography):

‘He entertained us with a fund of anecdotes and grotesque imitations, and after smoking a cigar, played Carnival of Venice and many Norwegian airs.’ In conversation with her Bull had said that ‘the artist must be a compound of burning lava and of ice; his imagination must be on fire, but his reason must be cool and calm, and no passion must be suffered to interrupt the expression of pure feeling.’ She reported that Bull kept his arms rigid as wood while playing, but after playing he suffered from pain and was physically exhausted. ‘The very presence of an unfriendly person is painful and any jar upon his feelings will cause tears.’