A dose of illness

Today marks twenty years since the death of one Britain’s strangest murderers, Graham Young, a man so obsessed with poisons that he killed and harmed people simply for the sake of experiment. And, while poisoning them, he kept a detailed diary of doses administered and their effects. More recently, a Japanese teenager, inspired by Young, nearly killed her mother, and blogged about the process.

Young was born in North London, in 1947, but his mother died a few months later. After a couple of years with his aunt, the toddler was reunited with his father and new wife Molly. He grew up a peculiar child, according to biographies, anti-social, and reading a lot of sensationalist fiction. As a teenager, he became very focused on chemistry and toxicology, and repeatedly managed to acquire small amounts of poisons from local chemists, ostensibly for school experiments. A fellow school pupil, said to be Young’s first victim, was lucky not to die from a cocktail of poisons he’d administered.

Thereafter, it seems, Young focused on his own family so as to be able better to observe the effects of his poisoning. His elder sister, Winifred, was found to have suffered from belladonna poisoning in 1961, but no action against Graham was taken. The following year Molly, his stepmother, died. Though poisoning was not given as cause of death at the time, it was established later that Graham had been administering antimony over time, and then killed her with thallium. Indeed, he had been poisoning all the family, including himself.

After the death of Molly, Young was sent to a psychiatrist, and then was finally arrested in May 1962. He confessed to attempted murders of his father, sister and friend, though the murder of his stepmother could not be proved because the body had been cremated. He was sentenced to 15 years in Broadmoor Hospital, an institution for mentally unstable criminals, and released after nine.

On his release, in February 1971, Young found work as a store man with a photographic supply firm which used thallium (his references having excluded the cause of his incarceration at Broadmoor). Soon, the foreman grew ill and died, and also a sickness swept through his workplace which was mistakenly blamed on a virus. A second work colleague died before an investigation led to Young’s arrest in November 1971.

Police found thallium in Young’s possession, and a diary in his flat under the bed. Entitled ‘A Student’s and Officer’s Casebook’, it was hand-written in loose-leaf pages, with the names of victims denoted by their initials. It contained a careful record of the doses he had administered, their effects on his victims, and whether he was going to allow them to live or die. At Young’s trial, he pleaded not guilty and claimed the diary was fiction; nevertheless, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. He died in his cell at Parkhurst prison on 22 August 1990 aged only 42. 

Several books have been written about Young: Obsessive Poisoner, by his sister Winifred; and St. Albans Poisoner: Life and Crimes of Graham Young by Anthony Holden. A 1995 film - The Young Poisoner’s Handbook - was based on Young’s story. And there is no shortage of information on the internet, see Wikipedia or Murderpedia. 

Here are several (undated) extracts from Young’s diary: 

‘I have administered a fatal dose of the special compound. . . it seems a shame to condemn such a likeable man to such a horrible end. . . he is doomed to premature decease.’

‘F is now seriously ill. He has developed paralysis and blindness. Even if the blindness is reverse, organic brain disease would render him a husk. From my point of view his death would be a relief. It would remove one more casualty from an already crowded field of battle.’

‘It looks like I might be detected. . . I shall have to destroy myself.’ 

‘Di irritated me yesterday, so I packed her off home with a dose of illness.’ 

Five years ago this month, and across the other side of the world, a Japanese teenage girl began poisoning her mother, not for any grudge against her, but because she wanted to experiment with thallium. The mother was hospitalised, and in October 2005, the girl was arrested. The family said they did not want her charged, but a family court sent her to reform school. According to a BBC report, based on Japanese newspaper accounts, the girl had been inspired by a book about Young, and had herself kept a blog diary about her mother’s condition.

Seventy wax matches

Wilfrid Scawen Blunt was born 170 years ago today. A famous breeder of Arab horses, a notorious womaniser, and a fierce anti-imperialist, he was also an interesting diarist, though the public had to wait more than 50 years following his death for revelations about his many affairs. A century ago today - the diaries reveal simply - Blunt was celebrating his 70th birthday with family, and being given a cake holding seventy wax matches.

Blunt was born in 1840 into an old Sussex family at Petworth House, but his father died when he was only two, and his mother when he was 15. Thereafter, he was educated at Stonyhurst and Oscott, before entering the diplomatic service aged 18. For more than a decade, he served in several European capitals and South America, adopting a self-styled Byronic image, and taking full advantage of his single status in privileged society. He had love affairs wherever he went, and sometimes published poetry about them.

In 1869, Blunt left government office, and married Lady Anne Noel, Byron’s granddaughter in fact. Within a couple of years, he had inherited family estates, not least the one at Crabbet Park. In 1873, Anne gave birth to Judith, their only child who survived past infancy. The Blunts travelled frequently, and lived much in the Middle East, often moving around on horseback together. With pure bred Arab stallions imported from the Middle East, they set up a stud farm at Crabbet Park which would become internationally famous, and survive nearly a century. Wikipedia says ‘at least 90% of all Arabian horses alive today trace their pedigrees in one or more lines to Crabbet horses’. 

Aged around 40, Blunt started to become increasingly outspoken on international issues, taking a firm anti-imperialist stance, opposing British rule in Egypt, and British policy in the Sudan and sympathising with Muslim aspirations. He propagated his ideas in books such as The Future of Islam and Ideas about India. In 1888, he even served a term in prison for championing Irish home rule and defying the then Irish chief secretary, Arthur Balfour. (Later on, it is said, Blunt was to get his revenge on Balfour by seducing and making pregnant his own cousin, Mary Elcho, who happened to be a very close friend and confidant of Balfour.) 

Blunt’s high-handed ways and constant infidelities (several of them long-term and with society women), however, eventually led, in 1906, to an acrimonious separation from his wife. Blunt claimed they had been reconciled by the time of her death in 1917, but afterwards there was a bitter lawsuit over the ownership of the stud which Blunt eventually lost to Judith, his daughter. His own death came in 1922. There is more biographical information at Wikipedia, The Fitzwilliam Museum website, and Aisha Bewley’s website on Islamic topics. 

Among his various talents, Blunt was also a diarist of some repute. My Diaries: Being a Personal Narrative of Events 1888-1914 was published in two volumes just before his death in 1921 by Martin Secker. But earlier, he had used extracts from his diaries in political books such as The Secret Occupation of Egypt (1907), India under Lord Ripon (1909), and Gordon at Khartoum (1911). However, some of his diary material also contained highly personal revelations - particularly about his affairs - and this was not opened to the public (by The Fitzwilliam Museum which holds the manuscripts) until 50 years after his death, in 1972. Thereafter, in 1979, Weidenfeld & Nicolson published Elizabeth Longford’s biography - A Pilgrimage of Passion - based on the full range of his diaries. 

Here is the very first diary entry in India under Ripon - A Private Diary published by T Fisher Unwin, London, in 1909, the full text of which is available at Internet Archive. George Robinson, 1st Marquess of Ripon (born at 10 Downing Street, the second son of Prime Minister Frederick John Robinson) held many government posts, but was Viceroy of India from 1880 to 1884.

12 September 1883

‘Left home by the 10 o’clock train, and spent the day in London. A letter had come from Eddy Hamilton by the morning’s post asking to see me before I went abroad, and I went to Downing Street at one o’clock, Mr Gladstone is away yachting, and Eddy is acting Prime Minister, and a very great man. I had not been to Downing Street since last year - just upon a year ago - when I went to ask for Arabi’s life. Eddy was extremely amiable this time, and asked me what I was going to do in the East. I told him my plans exactly - that I was going first to Egypt, and should call on Baring and, if I found him favourably disposed, should propose to him a restoration of the National Party, but if he would not listen I should go on to Ceylon and India; that I could not do anything in Egypt without Baring’s countenance, for the people would not dare to come to speak to me; but, if Baring would help, I thought I could get the Nationalist leaders elected at the elections - all depended on the action of our officials. 

Also as to India - that I had no intention of exciting to rebellion; that I should go first to Lord Ripon, then to Lyall, and afterwards to the provinces; that the subjects I wished principally to study were the financial condition of the country, that is to say, to find out whether our administration was really ruining India, and to ascertain the views of the natives with regard to Home Rule. Of both these plans Eddy seemed to approve, said that Baring would be sure to wish to see me, and listen to all I had to say, and, though he did not commit himself to anything very definite about the rest, did not disapprove. With regard to India, he said he would write to Primrose, Lord Ripon’s private secretary, to show me all attention; so on the whole I am highly satisfied with my visit. 

I had some talk with Eddy about Randolph Churchill. He said that my connection with him in Egyptian affairs did me harm, but I don’t believe that, and I look upon Churchill as quite as serious a politician as the rest with whom I have had to deal. On Egypt I think he is sincere, because he has an American wife, and the Americans have always sympathized with freedom there. I believe, too, that he is at a turning point in his character, and means to have done with mere random fighting, and we both agreed that he has a career before him. For my own part I like Churchill. He does not affect any high principles, but he acts squarely.’ 

And here is a diary extract from exactly a century ago today (taken from My Diaries: Being a Personal Narrative of Events 1888-1914)

17 August 1910

‘My birthday of seventy, which I am spending at Clouds [a country house designed by Philip Webb and built 25 or so years earlier for the Wyndhams, in Wiltshire, to whom Blunt was related], a long and delightful day; also and on this I pride myself, I was able with my cup and ball to catch it on the point nine times out of twelve, which shows that my eyesight is not failing. In the evening we had the traditional birthday cake with the children, lighting it up with seventy wax matches. Guy’s boys amuse me. George, a boy of sixteen, still at Wellington School, but has grown a slight moustache and affects the way of a young man. He is very good-looking, and spends most of his time with the servants in the pantry and the housekeeper’s room, where he talks nonsense to the maids and helps footmen to clean the knives, smoking a briar pipe with twist tobacco, the most horrible stuff. Upstairs he has a fine assurance with pronounced opinions, as a man of the world. He is to go into the Foreign Office, and seems to have an amusing career before him. Dick, the younger, is of a strict scaramouch type, cleverer but less good-looking. [Dick Wyndham was the father of Joan Wyndham, a noted 20th century diarist who died recently in 2007]. Olivia is an audaciously pretty girl of thirteen, also with a career of pleasure before her, ready for all possible wickedness in a wicked world. They spent the day making a grand pic-nic with the servants and governesses to Pertwood on the Downs, where they had sack and three-legged races and all sorts of boisterous fun, of which Dick, who dined at table, gave us a naive account.’

Of Edinburgh and Glasgow

‘Edinburgh is by no means a despicable town.’ So thought Elizabeth Percy, Duchess of Northumberland, according to her diary entry 250 years ago today. A few days later, though, she was judging Glasgow a much better place - ‘by far the finest Town I ever saw.’

Elizabeth, born in 1716, was the only daughter of General Algernon Seymour, 7th Duke of Somerset, and his wife, Frances. She married Sir Hugh Smithson in 1740 and they had two sons. Ten years later, on her father’s death, she inherited his barony of Percy and her husband inherited his earldom of Northumberland. Together, the couple began improving their estates and great houses - Alnwick Castle, Syon House, and Northumberland House. Elizabeth’s entertainments, especially at Northumberland House, with the best musicians, were famous at the time; she was also a patron of leading painters and craftsmen.

In 1761, Elizabeth became a Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Charlotte, a post she held until 1770. However, she appears to have fallen from favour, possibly because of her custom of going about with a larger retinue of footmen than Her Majesty herself, for which the Queen is said to have indirectly reprimanded her. Thereafter, she travelled extensively in Britain and on the Continent, keeping a diary for much of the time. She died in 1776, and her eldest son, Hugh, succeeded to become the 2nd Duke of Northumberland. Wikipedia has a short biographical entry. 

Her diaries were first edited by James Greig and published by Hodder and Stoughton, London, in 1926 as The Diaries of a Duchess. The book includes a foreword by Alan Percy, the 8th Duke of Northumberland. According to Harriet Blodgett, author of the Duchess’s entry for the Oxford National Dictionary of Biography (subscription required, or library card access) the diaries reveal ‘a personality fascinated not only by pomp and show - through its detailed descriptions of ceremonies, dress, and jewels - but also by exciting calamities like disastrous explosions, mob hysteria and rioting, and romantic elopements with social inferiors.’

Here is the Duchess writing about visits to Edinburgh and Glasgow. 

8 August 1760 

‘Abbey of Holyrood House. My morning visitors were . . . We walk’d all over the Palace from some of the Windows you have a view of Arthur Seat an immense Rock, wch Ly Milton told me her Grandfather remembered it all cover’d with wood, but it is now entirely bare. The Apartments are very fine, I think fully equal to Hampton Court in some of them are hung up some pictures (he having no rooms of his own large enough to contain them) of Lord Mortons [James Douglas, Lord Clerk Regiser, and trustee of the British Museum] wch he bought in France of the Battles of Alexr. said to be Copys of the Famous Ones by Le Brun [French painter] himself. The Gallery is 130ft long & furnish’d with ye portraits of all the Kings of Scotland including James ye 6 (the 1st of England). I went also to see Mary Q of Scots Bedchamber (a very small one it is) from whence David Rizzio was drag’d out & stabb’d in the Ante Room, where is some of his Blood which they cannot get wash’d out. When we had view’d the Abbey we went to the Parliament House & saw the Lords of Session sitting. We then saw the Court of Exchequer & by taking ye Ld Chief Baron’s [? chair] empower’d myself to dispose of all the Treasure of Scotland. 

Edinburgh is by no means a despicable town. It is extreamly populous its Inhabitants are suppose to exceed 50,000. The Lanes may for ought I know be dirty, but the principal streets are by no means so they are spacious and well paved. It is a Mile from the Abbey to the Castle, but divided by the Nether Bow Port which is a very handsome Gate. The lower part is the Cannon Gate & the upper the High Street. Considering how many Familys perhaps live in a house & that the City is very ill supplied with Water it is surprising to see it so neat as it is. The most extraordinary sight is the height of the Houses. I myself having counted one of thirteen storys high the shops being painted on the outside with whatever the indweller sells. Land about this City letts from 3:10 to 4l per Acre, the figure of 4 which see on many houses denotes a Merchant. It is not by the Laws of the Police permitted to any One to sell anything in Edinburgh before 8 O’Clock in the morning. I went next to the Castle which seem to be impregnable from its situation which is on a high Rock, the view from it is very fine. One see the Dean, the charming Firth of Forth, Leith, Inch Keith, Herriot’s Hospital, a noble regular Gothic Building, The Hills of Fife & those above Stirling.’ 

12 August 1720

‘Glasgow . . . is extreamly large & well paved & most magnificently built. It is by far the finest Town I ever saw. It is very populous, its Inhabitants being computed at 36,000. Both the people & the Town are remarkably clean & neat & the former handsomer than any I saw in the Lowlands. We had a very good Inn here.

We were visited by ye Ld Provost & all the Magistrates & the Commg Officer. We walk’d to see the flax Manufacture. Then we went to the University where we were joyned by all the Professors &c. We saw the Pictures & afterwards the Boys painting & the Library which is a good plain Room. We then went to Foulis’s Shop where we recd an Express from Ld Warkworth, informing us of the Battle of Warbourg & his safety. We then adjourned to the Town Hall with Ld Provost, Magistrates, Professors, Scholars, Officers &c where a parson said a very long Grace to ye drink.

A thousand Toasts were drank & my Lord was made a freeman of the City. The Town Hall is a very Noble Room it is 54 Feet long & 27 broad & high. The Chimney piece wch was made at London is a very fine One of Statuary Marble with 2 entire figures of Women. We came back to ye Inn where Mr Campbell the Advocate & we had for Supper a Bird I had never seen before call’d the Tormachin [Ptarmigan]. It is a kind of Moor fowle, White on the back, of a very highest flavour. They feed on the Tops of the very highest Rocks far above where the heather grows.

Commerce & Arts flourish much in Glasgow. Their chief Exports are Linen, Herrings & Tobacco, & their Imports French, Spanish, Portuguese & Madeira Wines & Rum. They have not yet got the Art of adulterating their Wines, so have them all in perfection. Madeira sells for 36 S/- the Pipe. Turtle is no more unknown to the Magistrates of Glasgow than to the Aldermen of London. The Sabbath is very strictly observ’d here, insomuch that the Post is not permitted to come in till Evening Service is over, nor are people suffered to walk out, & Civilizers go about to all the Houses to see that no Business or Amusements are carried on, & not a soul, except going to or from Church, is ever seen on the Streets on a Sunday. All the people here seem very industrious.’

Earthquakes in Florence

Exactly half a millennium ago today, Florence suffered two earthquakes in the morning, and another in the afternoon; two more came the next day. Indeed, 1510 was a bad year for the town, with thunderbolts, fever, fires and murders. We know all this thanks to Luca Landucci, a chemist but, more importantly, a diarist - one of Europe’s earliest. Not much is known, though, about Landucci personally, other than that he lived in Florence, was trained as a bookkeeper and ran a small chemist’s shop. His diary, which begins in 1450, focuses on the cycle of daily events, which seem to have been much affected not only by plague but by raids and sieges on Florence.

Landucci’s diary entries cease on his death in 1516, but the published version of the diary also contains additional diary entries to 1542 made by an anonymous writer. It was translated into English in 1927 by Alice de Rosen and published by J M Dent as A Florentine Diary from 1450-1516. Wikipedia has a little more information, and The Diary Junction has a few links to websites with extracts from the diary, including The Society for Medieval Military History. The diary is freely available online in Italian at Internet Archive. 

Here are a series of entries, not hitherto available online, from the year 1510, including one from 500 years ago today (give or take calendar differences!)

11 June 1510

‘A thunderbolt fell at San Donnino, killing a father and son, and two other children of his were frightened out of their wits and had fallen ill. At this time a girl was found drowned in a well, and it was never discovered who she was, no one seeming to know her; and there seemed no one in all the country round who had lost anyone.’

19 June 1510

‘The festaiuoli of San Giovanni (directors of the festivities) published a proclamation that no shops were to be opened from the 20th June till San Giovanni was over, without their permission, on pain of a fine of 25 lire; and those who received permission had to pay, some two grossi and some three or four. This was very hard upon the poor, because the proclamation said that it was not meant for the wool mercers, nor the silk mercers, nor the bankers; therefore it was considered an injustice and a mean and infamous thing to force the artisans to be idle.

At this time there was an epidemic of influenza, with a cough and fever, in Florence and all through Italy. Almost everyone suffered from it; the fever lasted four or five days, and was called in Florence the male del tiro (shooting complaint). The reason of this was that amongst all sorts of celebrations on the day of San Giovanni, the first consisted in jousting in the Piazza, that is to say, a number of men-at-arms, fully armed with lances as if they were on a field of battle, were made to perform feats of arms; then a man walked on a tight-rope; and lastly they hunted a bull. It was extremely hot that day, and then it poured with rain, which soaked everyone who was out of doors. A great number of raised seats had been made, and the whole of Florence was there, and many foreigner besides; and people having got wet when they were so heated is supposed to have caused the influenza.’

7 August 1510 There were two earthquakes at 6 in the morning, and at 7 came a third; and the next night there were two more at the same hour of the night. We heard that in the country round Bologna there had been such a severe storm of wind that it destroyed many houses. Think of the consequences to the fruit! At this time the foundations and pavement of the Ponte a Rubiconte were renewed.’

24 September 1510

‘The Pope reached Bologna.’ 26 September 1510 ‘Two cardinals came to Florence - no, three cardinals - who were going to Bologna to the Pope. They lodged at Santa Croce.’ 30 September 1510 ‘Two more cardinals came, on their way to Bologna. They lodged at the Servi.’ 

17 October 1510

‘They left here, and went in the direction of Pisa and Lucca, to cross into France and not to go to the Pope, being French and somewhat in fear of the Pope, besides not wishing to insult the king. During these days it was said that the King of France was coming to Bologna with two armies, to besiege the Pope, so that the Pope was supposed to have misgivings. It was also said that he thought of living in Florence. And then the King of France came, and advanced as far as Bologna, escorted by the sons of Messer Giovanni, who believed that the people would rise at their instigation; but there was not a movement, so that if the Pope had wished, he might have defeated the king when he first began to retire, before he withdrew to a considerable distance. Thus the Holy Father had no longer any misgivings, and expected to have Ferrara without delay.’

2 November 1510

‘The following accident occurred at the Ponte Rubiconte: They were rebuilding the wall between the Porticciuola and the bridge, and as there was plenty of water, about 12 braccia, the gravel and lime were brought by river in certain little boats. On these boats they had made a platform, and whilst some 25 men were carrying the gravel on to the little platform by the side of the wall, and were approaching it, the said boats filled with water, from the great weight, and drew down the platform and the men, so that three or four men were drowned. They afterwards used a large vessel with a platform. I saw some of the men drawn out of the water.’ 

4 December 1510

‘The apothecary’s shop at Canto de’ Tornaquinci, kept by the sons of Gampiero, apothecary at San Felice, was burnt down; the site belonged to Cardinal Rucellai. It was completely destroyed, nothing being left except a few copper utensils, which were found under the ashes quite spoilt; the walls were razed to the ground.’ 

22 December 1510

‘A plot was discovered against the Gonfaloniere, a certain man called Prinzivalle having intended to murder him. He was the son of Luigi della Stuffa, of Bologna, and it was said that he had proposed three ways of killing Soderini; first, to murder him in the Council-chamber; secondly, in his own room; and, thirdly, when he went out. A woman discovered this, and it was imparted to Filippo Strozzi, who as soon as he heard of it, went immediately to warn the Signoria; and they sent for Luigi della Stufa, the man’s father, and detained him in the Palagio.’

Dr Fuller’s infusion

Three centuries ago today, a country lawyer called Timothy Burrell, began taking a new system of ‘bitter infusion and stomachie wine’. A month later, he switched to Dr Cox’s infusion, and a month later, he was back on Dr Fuller’s potions. Such details, spare but fascinating, are to be found in a journal and account book which Burrell kept for over 20 years, and which is in print thanks to The Sussex Archaeological Society, and freely available online thanks to Googlebooks. 

 Timothy, born in 1643, in Cuckfield, Sussex, was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, before being called to the bar. He practised law in London, but then returned to Cuckfield, where he lived at Ockenden House. He married three times, and the third wife died giving birth to his only child, a daughter in 1696. He, himself died in 1717.

For over 20 years, from 1693 to 1714, Burrell kept a journal and account book, and this surfaced in the mid-19th century, when it was edited and annotated by Robert Willis Blencowe for Sussex archaeological collections relating to the history and antiquities of the county, Volume 3, published by The Sussex Archaeological Society in 1850. The journal - which contains entries in Latin and Greek as well as small sketches - relates entirely to domestic matters, and mostly to the cost of things. A little more information about Fuller can be found at Wikitree. The full text of the diary is freely available at Internet Archive. 

Here is one entry concerning the costs of a funeral from 1708, and most of the entries for the year 1710, including the one from exactly three centuries ago today. (The quoted translations from Latin are provided as footnotes in the Sussex archaeological collections.)

9 January 1708 ‘These are the funeral charges on the internment of my dear sister Jane Burrell, who died on the 16th January, 1708. To G Wood, for crape and worsted for the shroud, £1 6s, and for making it, 8s; for making and nayling the coffin, £2 2s; for bays to line it, 11s, and cloth to cover it, £1 6s; for black crape, hatbands, gloves, 6s; favour knots, wine, and use of pall, £15 1s. To Mr Middleton, for sermon, £2 3s. To the clerk and sexton, for the passing bell and grace, 2s 6d. To Mr Daw, for his bill for charges for commission and probate of the will, £2 9s. The total expenses were £35 9s 6d.’ 

26 March 1710

‘Two bushels of wheat which I sent to John Sturt the miller, weighed 124lbs sack and all; there were brought back 111lbs, so that 13lbs were wanting. To John Lord, to buy stockings, 1s 6d; for 2 neck-cloths, 4s 6d; breeches and drink, 5s. I pay’d the saddler for John Coachman falling drunk of his box, when he was driving to Glynde, in part of his wages, £1 7s 6d.’ 

22 May 1710

[Original in Latin: ‘Maria Christiana Goring came, a most welcome guest; she went away the 26th of June.’]

2 June 1710

‘For the things bought by my sister for my daughter at London I paid £37 13s. For a scarlet camlet cloake, £3 9s.’

25 June 1710

‘I paid to Nanny West for her wages, due at Lady day, £1 10s, besides 10s to Dr White, and 27s to Fishenden the apothecary.’

6 August 1710

[Original in Latin: ‘I began Doctor Fuller’s system of bitter infusion and stomachie wine.’]

8 September 1710

[Original in Latin: ‘I tried that of Dr Cox.’] 

10 October 1710

[Original in Latin: ‘I began a new system of Dr Fuller’s, on Monday, after 12 o’clock in the forenoon. To Anne Chaloner, an old maid and poor, the daughter of my nurse, I gave 2s 6d.’]

Diary briefs

Details emerge from Mladic’s secret wartime diary - The New York Times

On board HMS Medusa, 1802-1810 - University of Glasgow, BBC

After You by Natascha McElhone (diary kept after the death of her husband) - Penguin Books, The Guardian

E. M. Forster - A New Life by Wendy Moffat (using unpublished diaries) - Bloomsbury, The Independent

A planters life!

‘I said my prayers and ate milk and pears for breakfast. About 7 o’clock the negro boy that ran away was brought home. My wife against my will caused little Jenny to be burned with a hot iron, for which I quarreled with her.’ Such was life, 300 years ago today, in the household of William Byrd, a gentleman planter and a man often at odds with his wife over the use of money and the treatment of slaves. We know a lot about his private life - including when he danced his dance and rogered his wife! - thanks to his secret diaries, which were not decoded or published until the 194os.

William Byrd II was born in 1674 at Westover Plantation in Charles City County, Virginia, his father having emigrated from England and become an Indian trader and slave importer. Byrd was sent to England to be schooled and to study law, but returned to Westover on the death of his father in 1705 to run the, by then, large and rich estate. By marrying Lucy Parke, the daughter of Colonel Daniel Parke II, a wealthy land owner and also the governor of the Leeward Islands, Byrd increased both his wealth and power in the region. In 1709, he was made a King’s Councilor, an appointment he held for the rest of his life.

Although Byrd fought with his wife almost daily, it seems, they also loved each other passionately. But she died young, in 1715, from smallpox. That same year, he returned to England where he stayed until 1726. Thereafter, having married again (Maria Taylor) he settled into his role as head of the plantation, and part of the ruling clique. He built a large house at Westover, helped found the city of Richmond, and collected the largest library in the colonies. He died in 1744. More biographical information is available online from Wikipedia or The British Empire.

However, Byrd is mostly remembered for his talent as a writer. The History of the Dividing Line Betwixt Virginia and North Carolina, an account by Byrd of the surveying of the border between the US states of North Carolina and Virginia in 1728, is considered one of the earliest colonial literary works and a minor humorous masterpiece.

Byrd was also a letter writer and diarist of some note, though some of his diaries written in shorthand were not decoded or published until the 20th century. Dietz Press published The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover 1709-1712 (edited by L B Wright and Marion Tinling) in 1941, and Another Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover, 1739-1741, the following year. Nearly 20 years later Oxford University Press published The London Diary, 1717-1721, and other writings.

Several websites have substantial extracts from Byrd’s diaries, including the National Humanities Center, and student resource pages at University of Maryland. Here are a few typical examples.

9 April 1709
‘I rose at 5 o’clock and read a chapter in Hebrew and 150 verses in Homer. I said my prayers devoutly and ate milk for breakfast. My wife and I had another scold about mending my shoes but it was soon over by her submission. I settled my accounts and read Dutch. I ate nothing but cold roast beef and asparagus for dinner. In the afternoon Mr Custis complained of a pain in his side for which he took a sweat of snakeroot. I read more Dutch and took a little nap. In the evening we took a walk about the plantation. My people made an end of planting the corn field. I had an account from Rappahannock that the same distemper began to rage there that had been so fatal on the Eastern Shore. I had good health, good thoughts and good humor, thanks be to God Almighty. I said my prayers.’

15 July 1710
‘About 7 o’clock the negro boy [or Betty] that ran away was brought home. My wife against my will caused little Jenny to be burned with a hot iron, for which I quarreled with her. It was so hot today that I did not intend to go to the launching of Colonel Hill’s ship but about 9 o’clock the Colonel was so kind as to come and call us. My wife would not go at first but with much entreaty she at last consented. About 12 o’clock we went and found abundance of company at the ship and about one she was launched and went off very well, notwithstanding several had believe the contrary. When this was over we went to Mr Platt’s to dinner and I ate boiled beef. We stayed till about 5 o’clock and then returned home, where all was well. I found an express from above with a letter from Joe Wilkinson desiring to be discharged from my service when his year was out.’

12 August 1710
‘I had a quarrel with my wife about her servants who did little work. I wrote a long and smart letter to Mr Perry, wherein I found several faults with his management of the tobacco I sent him and with mistakes he had committed in my affairs. My sloop brought some tobacco from Appomattox. Mr Bland came over and dined with us on his way to Williamsburg. I ate roast shoat for dinner. In the afternoon Mr Bland went away and I wrote more letters. I put some tobacco into the sloop for Captain Harvey. It rained and hindered our walk; however we walked a little in the garden.’

24 September 1710
‘The Governor’s horses got away but Colonel Hill sent men after them and got them again. We had chocolate for breakfast and about 10 o’clock rode home to my house, where we refreshed ourselves and then the Governor and I went to church in the coach and my wife was terribly out of humor because she could not go likewise. Mr. Anderson preached very well and pleased the Governor. After church I invited abundance of gentlemen home where we had a good dinner. My wife after much persuasion came to dinner with us. The company went away in the evening and the Governor and I took a walk on the river side. The Governor was very willing to favor the iron works. We sat up till 9 o’clock.’

31 December 1710
‘My daughter was very sick all night and vomited a great deal but was a little better this morning. All my sick people were better, thank God, and I had another girl come down sick from the [slave] quarters. I danced my dance. Then I read a sermon in Dr Tillotson and after that walked in the garden till dinner. I ate roast venison. In the afternoon I looked over my sick people and then took a walk about the plantation. The weather was very warm still. My wife walked with me and when she came back she was very indisposed and went to bed. In the evening I read another sermon in Dr Tillotson. About 8 o’clock the wind came to northwest and it began to be cold.’

1 January 1712
‘I lay abed till 9 o’clock this morning to bring my wife into temper again and rogered her by way of reconciliation. I read nothing because Mr Mumford was here, nor did I say my prayers, for the same reason. However I ate boiled milk for breakfast, and after my wife tempted me to eat some pancakes with her. Mr Mumford and I went to shoot with our bows and arrows but shot nothing, and afterwards we played at billiards till dinner, and when we came we found Ben Harrison there, who dined with us. I ate some partridge for dinner. In the afternoon we played at billiards again and I won two bits. I had a letter from Colonel Duke by H-l the bricklayer who came to offer his services to work for me. Mr Mumford went away in the evening and John Bannister with him to see his mother. I took a walk about the plantation and at night we drank some mead of my wife’s making which was very good. I gave the people some cider and a dram to the negroes. I read some Latin in Terence and had good health, good thoughts, and good humor, thank God Almighty. I said my prayers.’

28 August 1712
‘I danced my dance. The weather was cloudy and warm. My wife was indisposed for want of sleep, having been disturbed by mosquitoes, which we have more of this year than ever I knew. I read some law till dinner and then I ate some hogs’ haslet. In the afternoon I went to the granary to see the people work and then returned and read some Latin till the evening and then I took a walk about the plantation and saw my people making cider. My wife was indisposed very much at night which made me go to bed soon. I said my prayers and had good health, good thoughts, and good humor, thank God Almighty. In the night my wife was disturbed with mosquitoes and could not sleep herself nor would she let me sleep.’

Sabara on my wall

In the mid-1980s, I was living in Brazil, in Rio de Janeiro, and exactly a quarter of a century ago today, I had travelled to a small pretty colonial town in Minas Gerais state called Sabara. There, I chanced on a festival, which included a brass band contest and a running event. A month or so later, back in Rio, I went to my first auction, and, experienced an astonishing coincidence, one which led me to buy a painting of a Sabara church - it has hung on a wall of wherever I’ve been living ever since.

I have indulged The Diary Review twice before with entries from my own diaries, one about The Demolition Decorators and one about Love in Pyrghos. Here is a third indulgence from my Pikle website: one entry written on that day in Sabara 25 years ago, and another written later about the aucton.

Sunday 14 July 1985, Sabara
‘Have escaped from the bustle of the city to Sabara where there is a different form of bustle - a festive jollity. A few dozen people gather in groups around two bands. One - wearing light green denim suits with even lighter green shirts beneath - consists of youths , and the other - in darker green military suits - wears blue ties with white shirts and hats. Now, though, in the distance we hear a third band marching towards us. The sun shines but is threatened by grey and dense clouds approaching. Several people, clearly organisers, carry papers and refer to them occasionally. Now the band is loud, just around the corner, a car is diverted from driving through the street. Here they are - blue suits and caps with blue ties. All three bands are similarly sized and similarly configured. Some of the younger women are tapping their feet to the melody. And yes, here comes a fourth band - light blue shirts and grey trousers. This one is half women (hence the absence of jackets).

It’s a band competition, of course. To see all the musicians file under the newly-painted grey and bright red arches wearing their clean and pressed uniforms, carrying their gleaming silver instruments, is a rare picture.

Why do I sometimes want to cry when I look into the faces of these people. It’s been happening a lot in the last few days, few weeks - a face at a window, a waiter in a restaurant, a shop assistant. I am sensitive to something without or within me - I don’t know what. Looking at these faces perhaps I’m aware in myself a lack of a sense of belonging or place, and, yes, for a framework in which I don’t have to struggle for emotional acceptance. But I don’t think it is so clearly my own yearning, or only my own yearning because I am also keenly sensible to the dramatic monotony of people’s lives - but, as an outsider, a voyeur, an escaper from the monotony, I have no right to engage in elements of pity.

Praca Rita. It is here, I suppose, the competition will take place. There is an air of preparation. It is an extraordinarily pretty square. Its centrepiece is a round wooden bandstand painted blue and white and built on a wall of slate, encircled by cobbles. There are several lawns and flowerbeds and mosaic pavement areas with white benches. Seven flat-topped trees have rowan style leaves and giant seed pods; the base of the trunks and the bulging root formations are painted white. In the bandstand are loudspeakers and two small tables holding various trophies. Food, jewellery and gift stalls are being laid out in the square, but in a quiet way, hardly disturbing the tranquil preparations of the organisers or the growing level of chatter among the arriving crowds.

A banner in Praca Melo Viana tells me that a marathon will take place, with 3m cruzeiros in prizes, and 34 trophies and 70 medals. This square is not so pretty, its various elements resting uncomfortably next to each other. At the narrow end is Dan Pedro II with its shops while at the broader end, some remaining walls of the church Nossa Senhora do Rosario dos Pretos stand as a focus for the centre of the village. The tourist info says this church is no more than a monument to the work and talent of slaves: its building was interrupted when slavery was abolished. To the left of the walls is an old baroque public fountain - the Chafariz do Rosario. A brass tap emerges out of the mouth of the two ugly pouting faces. Some women scrub their pots here regardless of the tourists or the festivities.

It’s around 10:00 and I’m back in Praca Rita. It’s full of people. The six or seven bands have been marching through the village, and now they’re back. It’s a stirring sound hearing them all play together. I asked the name of one appealing tune - Cisne Branco, meaning white swan.

My mind is fertile today, and I want to make an observation about taking advantage of the fun, the novelty, the optimism of fairs and festivals. When I travelled I was always grateful for help given me by people met here and there. I was aware that I was taking from the world, and never giving back. I was, thus, determined to pay my debt back in terms of giving lifts and hospitality. I believe I have gone some way towards doing that. But now I realise that I owe a sort of festival debt. All the celebrations, fetes, festivals, fairs I’ve attended leave me in the red. When, if, I settle down I will owe the world, time and effort towards making the monotony of life more colourful.

The crowd is milling. One band has moved to the stand and begins the competition. After the first piece, a luxurious deep and rich voice joins the band, the words she sings are full of hope and nationalism. I wanted her to go on forever.

I found some public toilets with toilet paper. I was most grateful for I haven’t defaecated in three days, and it was the first time I’d used toilet paper in months - it’s a much less clean method than water.

Within the confines of the thick and roofless walls of the ruined Rosana is another, smaller church. It is modest by comparison, but the inside is charming, painted white with strips of blue (like Praca Rita). A sizeable platform has been erected in the square for a dance, presumably tonight, with seats all around.

Praca Rita 1:15. The bands still continue to play taking turns on the blue and white bandstand. The marathon runners, now exhausted, are scattered round the village; some alone are taking off their shoes; others are exercising their limbs; others stand casually around, their faces streaked with salt, talking to admiring friends or relations. I slept for a while in Praca Melo Viana, comfortably on my back with the sun on my face. Now I sit in a blue and white restaurant waiting for the inevitable rice and beef. (After yesterday’s rice and beef at the university canteen, I desperately wanted a toothpick or dental floss to clean the unnatural crack between my lower left molars - all day it nagged, and yet all day, as it happens, I’d carried my bag around and it held both floss and toothpicks!).

Museo de Ouro 2:30. This must be one of my top ten of small museums (I remember another wonderful one in Arles). Gold panning and mining instruments are displayed in the cellar rooms, along with scales of various types. 17th and 18th century furniture fills the upstairs rooms.

I should have known the bus station would have a queue a mile long. I walked and walked along the river seeing truck drivers bucket water over their dusty vehicles, children flying kites, boys sitting reading or dreaming on rarely used railway tracks, women carrying burdens on their heads making their ways along well-worn paths. Fortunately, a coach stopped for me. I ran up its steps full of gratitude and virtually fell into a wall of tracksuited smiles and gleaming gold and silver trophies.’

Friday 16 August 1985, Rio
‘I also treated myself to an auction. Here is the sequence of events, the synchronous events. I was interested in buying a windsurfer (that will be a real treat if I ever get round to it) so I bought Rio’s equivalent of Exchange & Mart - Balcao. Of course, my eye wondered to the book and antique section where I found an auction advertised for that very evening. How could I resist. I found the auction room near the old tunnel. It was a long narrow room with perhaps 30 rows of six chairs. The auctioneer looked like a business shark - in one hand he held a miniature wooden hammer, and in the other a small microphone. A few pictures were hung on the walls and I could see a few paintings piled on the floor. Only one painting caught my eye - a glass-framed rough-coloured sketch of a church. I sat as close to the front as I could. Middle class, young-to-middle-aged painting lovers filled the room to bursting. A waiter idled up and down the corridor offering glasses of wine (good idea that). I flicked through a catalogue and only one item attracted my eye - Igreja da Sabara - and this was because I’ve been to Sabara very recently, and loved it. Lot 44. I decided to wait patiently for lot 44 before leaving. As the sale progressed I did not see one painting brought to the front and auctioned that I would ever consider hanging on my wall. Prices varied between 200,000 and 5m. I was surprised, but pleased, to be able to understand the auctioneer’s figures. Honest to the laws of mathematics, it never occurred to me for a minute that lot 44 would turn out to be the same painting as I’d noticed and liked on the wall. The synchronicity was pure, and - as a consequence I’m sure - a spell fell over the entire audience of maybe 200 people allowing me to buy lot 44 for the minimum price of 200,000. I slipped away thoroughly pleased with myself.’

The greatest ballet in Europe

Marius Petipa, one of the most influential ballet masters and choreographers of all time, died a century ago today. Born in France, he spent most of his life in St Petersburg creating lavish ballets for the Imperial Theatres, some of which still survive. He was almost certainly a diarist of habit, according to Lynn Garafola, a dance historian and critic, though only diaries from the end of his life survive. Garafola re-found these diaries, and translated them from the original French into English for a dance magazine in the early 1990s. Her introduction to them is available online, but the diaries themselves are not. She says of them that they are the ‘scaffolding of a life that made art not with words but in the wordless medium of movement’.

Petipa was born in Marseilles in 1818 and educated at the Grand College in Brussels. Both he and his brother Lucien were drawn into the dance world by their father Jean, a ballet master. Petipa’s debut came when he was still a child in one of his father’s productions in Brussels. As a consequence of the Belgian revolution the family moved to Bordeaux and then to Nantes where Petipa became a principal dancer in 1838. A year later, Petipa and his father toured the US. Subsequently, Petipa lived and danced in Spain for four years, an experience which had a significant influence on his developing choreographic work, before moving to St Petersburg, where he joined the Imperial Theatres as a dancer in 1847.

By the 1850s, Petipa was becoming more involved in choreography. He married a fellow dancer Mariia Surovshchikova in 1854, and they had two children. She danced in many of his ballets, A Regency Marriage, for example, The Parisian Market and The Blue Dahlia. His first major success came in 1862, with The Pharaoh’s Daughter, which led him to become recognised as one of the Imperial Theatres ballet masters, and in 1871 he rose further, to become the Premier Maître de Ballet. In the mid-1870s, he separated from his wife and married another dancer, Lyubov Savitskaya, more than 30 years his junior, who bore him six children.

Over the next three decades, Petipa produced over 60 ballets, most of them lavish spectacles that could only have been produced in the opulent atmosphere of the Imperial Russian court. He always researched his ballets exhaustively with detailed plans, including for painters and composers, that subsequently became the basis of modern classical ballet in Russia. Famously, he collaborated with Tchaikovsky on The Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty. Eventually, his ballets fell out of fashion and he retired, or was retired, around 1903. Ill health obliged him to move to Gurzuf in southern Russia in 1907. He died three years later, on 14 July 1910. Further biographical information can be found at Wikipedia, Royal Opera House or Ballet Encyclopedia.

It is likely that Petipa was a habitual diarist, but only a collection of diary entries from the end of his life - between the ages of 84 and 89 - have come to light. Excerpts were first published in a Russian translation (from the French originals), which then were then translated into German in 1975. Extracts from this were translated yet again into English and appeared in Dance Magazine in 1978. However, in the early 1990s, Lynn Garafola, now Professor of Dance at Barnard, the New York liberal arts college for women, re-found the original diaries at Moscow’s Central State Archive of Literature and Art. She then translated and edited them for publication in Studies in Dance History (Vol 3.1 spring 1992) - but there appear to be no extracts of the diary entries themselves available anywhere on the internet. Moreover, printed volumes of Studies in Dance History are not easy to find.

However, Garafola’s informative introduction to the diaries IS available online, at Googlebooks, as part of a collection of her essays entitled Legacies of Twentieth-century Dance and published by Wesleyan University Press in 2005. In the introduction she says: ‘Although these are the only diaries to come to light, they are almost certainly not the only ones he wrote. On the contrary, the unvarying form of the entries, their absolute regularity . . , and the fact that they pick up in medias res leave no doubt that diary-keeping had long been part of his daily routine.’

Garafola adds that the diaries she translated cover a significant period in Petipa’s life, ‘for it witnessed the completion of his last two ballets, The Magic Mirror and The Romance of the Rosebud and the Butterfly, and his forced retirement from the Imperial Theatres’. She also explains that Petipa’s diary entries are ‘brief and matter-of-fact - the scaffolding of a life that made art not with words but in the wordless medium of movement’.

The Diary Junction has several Petipa links, and Wikipedia has one brief diary extract from his diaries. In 1907 he wrote: ‘I can state that I created a ballet company of which everyone said: St Petersburg has the greatest ballet in all Europe.’

Weiser goes to Ohio

Conrad Weiser, a German immigrant but one of America’s great early Indian interpreters and a key figure in the development of colonial Pennsylvania, died 250 years ago today. One of many important missions took him west into the Ohio Valley to meet several Indian tribes who were in conflict with Pennsylvania over the interpretation of a treaty signed four years earlier, and during that journey he kept a diary which is freely available online.

Weiser was born in 1696, in the Duchy of Württemberg, now part of Germany. By 1709, the people in that area were suffering from French invasions as well as from disease. His mother died from the fever, and his father soon took the family to England as refugees. There they joined three thousand other Germans on ten ships, paid for by the English Crown, to cross the Atlantic and live in camps in the New York colony. After a few years, though, Weiser and his family moved 50 miles north in the colony to settle in the Schoharie Valley.

Young Weiser, aged only 15 or 16, volunteered to live with the Mohawk indians further along the valley, and thus learned much about their language and customs. In 1720, he married a German girl, and in 1729 they moved to build a homestead near the present town of Womelsdorf, in Pennsylvania, which became a centre of hospitality both for Germans and visiting Indians.

From the early 1730s, Weiser became the official interpreter for Pennsylvania, and was involved in every important Indian transaction for several decades. He was a key player, Wikipedia’s biography says, in treaty negotiations, land purchases, and the formulation of Pennsylvania’s policies towards Native Americans, especially the Iroquois. Indeed he helped keep them allied with the British as opposed to the French, thus contributing to the continued survival of the British colonies and the eventual victory of the British over the French in the French and Indian Wars.

During the second half of the 1730s, Weiser became enamored of a Baptist preacher and went to live on a monastic settlement away from his wife and children, leaving only for visits to his family and for diplomatic missions. In 1741, though, he returned home and to the Lutheran church. Otherwise he was a busy man of considerable talents, not least as a farmer, merchant and tanner. He helped plan the new town of Reading, founding a church there, and to establish Berks County. He was appointed as a colonel during the French and Indian Wars, during which he planned and established several forts. He died 250 years ago today, on 13 July 1760. There is plenty of information about Weiser online, not least at the websites of Berks HIstory Center and the Conrad Weiser Homestead museum.

One of Weiser’s deeds was to act as interpreter for the Treaty of Lancaster, between representatives of the Iroquois and the colonies of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia in 1744. But, in the years that followed, colonial officials in Pennsylvania (and Virginia) acted as if the Iroquois had sold them settlement rights to the Ohio Valley; the Iroquois believed otherwise.

In 1748, Pennsylvania sent Weiser to Logstown, a trade village on the Ohio River, where he held council with chiefs representing 10 tribes, including the Iroquois, and negotiated a treaty of friendship. Weiser kept a diary of that journey, but it was not published until 1904, when The Arthur H. Clark Company included it in its first volume of Early Western Travels, edited by Reuben Gold Thwaites - Conrad Weiser’s Journal of a tour to the Ohio; August 11-October 2, 1748.

Here are a few entries from the early part of the diary. The full text - including many interesting and useful footnotes - can be read at Internet Archive. (One note is worth reproducing, about wampum, the traditional, sacred shell beads: ‘The importance of ‘wampum’ in all Indian transactions cannot be over-estimated. It was used for money, as a much-prized ornament, to enforce a request . . , to accredit a messenger, to ransom a prisoner, to atone for a crime. No council could be held, no treaty drawn up, without a liberal use of wampum.’)

24 August 1748
‘Found a dead Man on the Road who had killed himself by Drinking too much Whisky; the Place being very stony we cou’d not dig a Grave; He smelling very strong we covered him with Stones & Wood & went on our Journey; came to the 10 Mile Lick, 32 Miles.’

25 August 1748
‘Crossed Kiskeminetoes Creek & came to Ohio that Day, 26 Miles.’

26 August 1748
‘Hired a Cannoe; paid 1,000 Black Wampum for the loan of it to Logs Town. Our Horses being all tyred, we went by Water & came that Night to a Delaware Town; the Indians used us very kindly.’

27 August 1748
‘Sett off again in the morning early; Rainy Wheather. We dined in a Seneka Town, where an old Seneka Woman Reigns with great Authority; we dined at her House, & they all used us very well; at this & the last-mentioned Delaware Town they received us by firing a great many Guns; especially at this last Place. We saluted the Town by firing off 4 pair of pistols; arrived that Evening at Logs Town, & Saluted the Town as before; the Indians returned about One hundred Guns; Great Joy appeared in their Countenances. From the Place where we took Water, i.e. from the old Shawones Town, commonly called Chartier’s Town, to this Place is about 60 Miles by Water & but 35 or 40 by Land.

The Indian Council met this Evening to shake Hands with me & to shew their Satisfaction at my safe arrival; I desired of them to send a Couple of Canoes to fetch down the Goods from Chartier’s old Town, where we had been oblig’d to leave them on account of our Horses being all tyred. I gave them a String of Wampum to enforce my Request.’

28 August 1748
‘Lay still.’

29 August 1748
‘The Indians sett off in three Canoes to fetch the Goods. I expected the Goods wou’d be all at Chartier’s old Town by the time the Canoes wou’d get there, as we met about twenty Horses of George Groghan’s at the Shawonese Cabbins in order to fetch the Goods that were then lying at Franks Town.

This Day news came to Town that the Six Nations were on the point of declaring War against the French, for reason the French had Imprison’d some of the Indian Deputies. A Council was held & all the Indians acquainted with the News, and it was said the Indian Messenger was by the way to give all the Indians Notice to make ready to fight the French. This Day my Companions went to Coscosky, a large Indian Town about 30 Miles off.’

30 August 1748
‘I went to Beaver Creek, an Indian Town about 8 Miles off, chiefly Delawares, the rest Mohocks, to have some Belts of Wampum made. This afternoon Rainy Wheather set in which lasted above a Week. Andrew Montour came back from Coscosky with a Message from the Indians there to desire of me that the ensuing Council might be held at their Town. We both lodged at this Town at George Croghan’s Trading House.’

31 August 1748
‘Sent Andrew Montour back to Coscosky with a String of Wampum to let the Indians there know that it was an act of their own that the ensuing Council must be held at Logs Town, they had order’d it do last Spring when George Croghan was up, & at the last Treaty in Lancaster the Shawonese & Twightwees have been told so, & they stayed accordingly for that purpose, & both would be offended if the Council was to be held at Coscosky, besides my instructions binds me to Logs Town, & could not go further without giving offence.’

Young Ward’s passion

‘My spirit has been for almost two months the lowest it has ever been in my life, on account of the profound disappointment in the love which I had acquired for a girl, so pretty but so false.’ So wrote a young Lester Frank Ward, considered by some as the father of American sociology, with the very first entry in his diary a century and a half ago today. A few days later, he writes, ‘My girl I am going to abandon you eternally, you whom I have loved so deeply! It will kill me, but let me perish.’ A month later, though, all has changed: ‘And there we bathed ourselves in the passion of love until the crowing of cocks announced it was day.’

Ward was born in Joliet, Illinois, in 1841. Largely self-educated, he did study for a while at the Susquehanna Collegiate Institute in Towanda, Pennsylvania. He married his ‘girl’, Elizabeth Bought (or Vought), in 1962, and he served in the Union Army during the Civil War. Thereafter, he moved to Washington DC, where, for 15 years, he was employed by the United States Treasury Department. During this period he studied at (what would become) George Washington University.

In 1882, he was appointed Assistant Geologist in the US Geological Survey. Thereafter, he was promoted to Geologist in 1883, and Paleontologist in 1892. He was also an Honorary Curator of the Department of Fossil Plants at the US National Museum between 1882 and 1905. After that he took a faculty appointment at Brown University. He died in 1913. For further information see The American Sociological Association, the City of Joliet website, or Wikipedia.

Although Ward was considered one of the foremost paleobotanists of his time, he is probably best remembered for his pioneering work in sociology. His 1883 book Dynamic Sociology was considered revolutionary. It argued that progress depended on a planned society guided by a benevolent government which provided universal education, freedom from poverty and happiness for all. When this book was first published, apparently, no US university was running courses in sociology yet by the time of the second edition, in 1896, they all were. Further important books followed: Outlines of Sociology (1898), Pure Sociology (1903) and Applied Sociology (1906).

As a young man, Ward, writing in French, kept a diary before, during and after his Civil War experience. The manuscript was found among an archive of his documents in Brown University library, translated by Elizabeth N Nichols, and published for the first time by G P Putnam’s Sons, New York, in 1935 as Young Ward’s Diary.

The book’s editor, Bernhard J Stern, says: ‘[The diary] is not merely an interesting psychological record through adolescence and young manhood, of the developing pattern of a unique personality. It is a sociological and historical document. Its chief value lies in the ingenuous manner in which it protrays the customs and mores of rural Pennsylvania prior to the Civil War, the life of a rank and file soldier during the conflict, and the post-war political and cultural scene in the nation’s capital.’

The first section of diary entries (according to Stern’s editing) ends in August 1862 when Ward becomes a soldier in the Union Army. Intriguingly, he seems to have got married and not even confided in his diary (despite the recording of many far more mundane matters). On 13 August he ends that day’s entry with ‘. . . I must go to bed with my wife.’ Until this entry, he has always written about his ‘girl’. And five days later, in his last entry of the section (as defined by Stern) he writes: ‘The day for setting out for the war is here. Five days of our honeymoon I have spent with my wife, but this morning I must leave her, perhaps for ever! - I must leave the sweetness of her company for the difficulties and fatigues of military camp. Terrible change! I am furious this morning because my father-in-law has discovered our marriage. I am afraid that he cannot keep it secret. I worked in his hay almost all the week. Saturday evening I had a letter from Hiram.’

Here are the earliest entries in Ward’s diary: some text from opposite the first entry, the first entry itself - from exactly 150 years ago today - and a few subsequent entries.

‘I have finally decided to write in French to practice it. I am just as struck with an idea which excites me. I am going to write a journal in French beginning with the fourth of July 1860, which was last Friday. I shall write at least as often as every Sunday, and every day as long as it is possible. What a good idea!’

Sunday 8 July 1860
‘In undertaking a journal of events which concern me, I shall record a few of the most interesting things which have transpired since the fourth of this month. Without further ceremony, then, I commence.

The morning of the Fourth, so memorable to this powerful nation, found me in a state of profound lethargy resulting from much fatigue. I had intended to arise at a much earlier hour to shoot a pistol which I had prepared the night before, but it was so late when I got up that I was ashamed to shoot it. My spirit has been for almost two months the lowest it has ever been in my life, on account of the profound disappointment in the love which I had acquired for a girl, so pretty but so false. I sent her a letter that day, telling her that I wish only to see her once more and to receive only one more letter from her. I procured a half dollar from Mr Owen on the Fourth, with which I bought two strings for my violin, which I enjoy very much.’

Monday evening 9 July 1860
‘I cultivated the corn this morning for the first time this year. I was a little annoyed with the horse’s not keeping to the row.

In the afternoon I gathered and bound sheaves.

When night came I had a fine time playing on the violin while Baxter played the tambourine. My heart was very light regarding the girl whom I loved, and whom I no longer esteem.

But everyone has gone to bed, and I must wash my feet before going myself.’

Wednesday noon 11 July 1860
‘I could not write last night because Baxter wished to write a letter. I bound the sheaves all day yesterday, and only got my supper very late, and it made me very tired. That was Tuesday night, and I went to the post office to look for the promised letter from the girl, but did not find it, so I came to the conclusion that I never wished to see her again. My heart is light. I was almost sick cutting the corn all morning.

My girl I am going to abandon you eternally, you whom I have loved so deeply! It will kill me, but let me perish.’

Thursday evening 12 July 1860
‘Since the last time I wrote in my journal much has happened to me. Erastus came here last night and game me a letter from the girl which she had sent me some time previously. It contained answers to several of my letters. She is annoyed with me for calling her nonchalant and cruel. I am going to answer it as soon as possible. [. . .]’

[. . .]

Sunday morning 19 August 1860
‘Hearing mention of an Episcopal meeting at six o’clock in the evening I decided to attend it. After having finished a letter I went to Sunday School and finally to the girl’s, taking her a music book. I talked with her for an hour or two, and she entertained me wonderfully - when I returned and got something to eat, I went to church.

Mr Douglas, the minister, after having gone through all the ceremonies which belong to this church (which were, incidentally, very interesting to me), preached a very practical and profound sermon. The girl was there, and as I passed her on the stairs which lead to the gallery I saw her standing on the steps. It was a very awkward manoeuver to approach her and ask for her company to another service.

But I accomplished it casually, and she could not refuse. We went at once to another church, chatting and enjoying ourselves marvellously. She fascinated me. I remembered my previous love. What a charming girl. If I could once more press my lips on hers and draw from them my soul’s satisfaction! We returned in the evening talking all the time but more gravely than before. We arrived at the door, I entered with her, she lit a lamp and we sat down together talking, but I could not keep myself from feasting my eyes ardently and with intensity on the object of beauty and attraction at my side. Girl, I thought, if you were true to me what a happy man I should be! I took the hand which I loved, and looked at it. We spoke little more from that moment, while I looked steadily at her face and was conquered.

I could no longer keep my place. Leaning forward I received her sweet and tender form in my arms and in an instant her face was covered with kisses. What a sublime scene! Who could have words to express my emotions?

And there we bathed ourselves in the passion of love until the crowing of cocks announced it was day.’

Diary briefs

Li Peng’s Diary on sale in the US! - Wall Street Journal

Diary evidence about homeopathy in cancer death patient - ABC News

Livingstone’s diary to be scientifically examined - New Scientist

Penguin reissues Keith Haring Journals - Amazon, Penguin

In darkness and fear

The Undaunted Women of Nanking: The Wartime Diaries of Minnie Vautrin and Tsen Shui-Fang is being published today in the UK. It tells the story of the Rape of Nanking, in which Japanese soldiers killed hundreds of thousands of civilians and raped many tens of thousands of women. The diaries kept by Vautrin, an American missionary, have already been published and are available online, but this is the first time those of Tsen Shui-Fang, her Chinese assistant, have been made public as well.

The Nanking Massacre or Nanjing Massacre, also known as the Rape of Nanking, was a six-week period following the Japanese capture of the city, the former capital of the Republic of China, on 13 December 1937. During this period, hundreds of thousands of civilians were murdered and an estimated 20,000-80,000 women were raped by soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army. The massacre has been, and remains, an extremely contentious political issue between China and Japan, with some Japanese historians trying to downplay the extent of the massacre.

Yale University hosts The Nanking Massacre Project website which provides a digital archive of documents and photographs from American missionaries and others who witnessed the Rape of Nanking. One of these was John Rabe, a German businessman, who helped establish a safety zone in the city, protecting upwards of 200,000 people. He died in 1950, and his diaries were first published in the 1990s - see also The Diary Junction.

Another of the Project’s ‘witnesses’ was Minnie Vautrin. Born in Illinois in 1886, she studied education at the city university, and was then sent to China by the United Christian Missionary Society as a missionary, where she helped build and found Ginling Girls College in Nanking, eventually taking over as Master of Studies. In late 1937, with the Japanese army pressing on Nanking, and most of the faculty having fled, she was left in charge of the college campus

Earlier the same year, Vautrin had begun to write summary notes on her life and work in order to circulate them to friends (reducing the number of letters she needed to send) but, within a few weeks, these notes had become detailed daily diary entries. She kept writing a diary through to April 1940, and the last entry reads: ‘I’m about at the end of my energy. Can no longer forge ahead and make plans for the work, for on every hand there seems to be obstacles of some kind. I wish I could go on furlough at once, but who will do the thinking for the Exp Course?’ Two weeks later, she suffered a nervous breakdown and returned to the US, and a year to the day after she left Nanking, she ended her own life. See Wikipedia, as well as the Yale site, for a little more biographical information.

Vautrin’s diaries, like those written by Rabe, were discovered (or rediscovered) by Iris Chang when writing The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War, a book which became a best selller, but which also attracted some historical criticism - see Wikipedia. Subsequently, Southern Illinois University Press published American Goddess at the Rape of Nanking: The Courage of Minnie Vautrin by Hua-ling Hu, which was heavily based on Vautrin’s diaries. In 2008, the University of Illinois Press published Terror in Minnie Vautrin’s Nanjing: Diaries and Correspondence, 1937-38 (available for preview on Googlebooks).

Now, Southern Illinois University Press has published (early June in the US, and today, 30 June, in the UK - see Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk) The Undaunted Women of Nanking: The Wartime Diaries of Minnie Vautrin and Tsen Shui-fang. The publisher says: ‘Tsen Shui-fang’s diary is the only known daily account by a Chinese national written during the crisis and not retrospectively. As such, it records a unique perspective: that of a woman grappling with feelings of anger, sorrow, and compassion as she witnesses the atrocities being committed in her war-torn country. Tsen Shui-fang’s diary has never before been published in English, and this is its first translation.’

The publisher’s blurb also explains that the editors - Hua-ling Hu and Zhang Lian-hong - have added informative annotations to the diary entries from sources including the proceedings of the Tokyo War Crimes Trial of 1946, Vautrin’s correspondence, John Rabe’s diary, and other historical documents. Also included are biographical sketches of the two women, a note on the diaries, and information about the aftermath of the tragedy, as well as maps and photos - some of which appear in print here for the first time.

The typed manuscript of Vautrin’s diary is freely available for view at the Nanking Massacre Project website. Here are two extracts:

Wednesday 15 December
‘It is so difficult to keep track of the days - there is no rhythm in the weeks any more.

From 8:50 this morning until 6 this evening, excepting for the noon meal, I have stood at the front gate while the refugees poured in. There is terror in the face of many of the women - last night was a terrible night in the city and many young women were taken from their houses by the Japanese soldiers. Mr Sane came over this morning and told us about the condition in the Hansimen section, and from that time on we have allowed women and children to come in freely; but always imploring the older women to stay home, if possible, in order to leave a place for younger ones. Many begged for just a place to sit out on the lawn. I think there must be more than 3,000 in tonight. Several groups of soldiers have come but they have not caused trouble, nor insisted on coming in. . .

The Japanese have looted widely yesterday and today, have destroyed schools, killed citizens, and raped women. One thousand disarmed Chinese soldiers, whom the International Committee hoped to save, were taken from them and by this time are probably shot or bayoneted. . .’

Thursday 16 December
‘Tonight I asked George Fitch [a Chinese-born American missionary head of the YMCA in Nanking] how the day went, and what progress they had made toward restoring peace in the city. His reply was ‘It was hell today. The blackest day of my life.’ Certainly it was that for me too.

Last night was quiet, and our three foreign men were undisturbed, but the day was anything but peaceful. . .

There probably is no crime that has not been committed in this city today. Thirty girls were taken from Language School last night, and today I have heard scores of heartbreaking stories of girls who were taken from their homes last night - one of the girls was but 12 years old. Food, bedding and money have been taken from people - Mr Li had $55 taken from him. I suspect every house in the city has been opened, again and yet again, and robbed. Tonight a truck passed, in which there were 8 or 10 girls, and as it passed they called out ‘Giu ming’ ‘Giu ming’ - save our lives. The occasional shots that we hear out on the hills, or on the street, make us realize the sad fate of some man - very probably not a soldier. . .

Mr John Rabe told the Japanese commander that he could help them get lights, water and telephones service but he would do nothing until order was restored in the city. Nanking is but a pitiful broken shell tonight - the streets are deserted and all houses in darkness and fear.’

Miracle of happiness

‘The only adorable thing I can imagine is for my Grandmother to put me to bed and bring me a bowl of hot bread and milk, and, standing with her hands folded, the left thumb over the right, say in her adorable voice: ‘There darling, isn’t that nice?’ Oh, what a miracle of happiness that would be.’ This is part of the earliest extant diary entry - written one hundred years ago, or was it? - by the much-feted New Zealand writer Katherine Mansfied who died of TB aged only 34.

Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp was born in Wellington, New Zealand, in 1888, but when only 15 went to study at Queen’s College, London. After returning to New Zealand in 1906, she took up the cello, but her father, a banker, refused to allow her to turn professional. Instead, she studied typing and bookkeeping at Wellington Technical College. A friend of the family eventually persuaded Kathleen’s father to allow her an allowance of £100 a year, so she could return to London.

There, in 1908, she embarked on a Bohemian lifestyle, and a relationship with Garnett Trowell, a musician. When that broke down, despite her being pregnant, she married George Brown more than 10 years her senior. After resuming with Garnett for a short while, her mother arrived from New Zealand and sent her to Germany, where she suffered a miscarriage. Mansfield’s time in Bavaria was to have a significant effect on her literary outlook, partly because she was introduced to the works of Anton Chekhov, and partly because her experiences there formed the foundation of her first published collection of stories, In a German Pension, a work that brought her much literary attention.

On returning to London in 1910, she devoted herself to writing short stories, contributing to The New Age, and publications such as Rhythm/The Blue Review edited by John Middleton Murry. She also began a relationship with Murry, one that would go through many ups and downs, some of them caused by Mansfield’s affairs, the death of her brother in 1915, and illness (she was diagnosed with TB in 1917). They married in 1918, but separated weeks after the wedding, before getting back together again the following year.

That year - 1919 - Murry became editor of Athenaeum, a prestigious weekly journal, for which Mansfield would contribute many reviews. Mansfield also became more prolific with her fiction in the last years of her life, writing many short stories. According to Wikipedia’s biography, Miss Brill, the bittersweet story of a fragile woman living an ephemeral life of observation and simple pleasures in Paris, established Mansfield as one of the preeminent writers of the Modernist period. The title story from that 1920 collection, Bliss, was also praised. And her subsequent collection, The Garden Party, published in 1922, received widespread critical acclaim. However, Mansfield’s TB was also taking hold, and in October 1922 she moved to Gurdjieff’s Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man in Fontainebleau, France, seeking a cure, but died the following January. New Zealand Edge has more biographical information.

After her death, in 1927, Murry edited his wife’s diary (as well as many other manuscripts), and a collection of extracts were published - as Journal Of Katherine Mansfield - by Constable in London and Alfred A Knopf in New York. This compilation has since been reprinted many times, and has contributed hugely to a romantic view of Mansfield. Murry, for example, in his introduction says this: ‘[There is] a peculiar quality of her work I can only describe as a kind of purity. It is as though the glass through which she looked upon life were crystal-clear. And this quality of her work corresponds to a quality in her life. Katherine Mansfield was natural and spontaneous as was no other human being I have ever met. She seemed to adjust herself to life as a flower adjusts itself to the earth and to the sun. She suffered greatly, she delighted greatly; but her suffering and her delight were never partial, they filled the whole of her.’

But see Hermione Lee’s review for The Guardian of the most recent republishing (by Persephone) of Murry’s original version. She says: ‘this reissued Journal is a historical document which requires wary reading. Murry’s proprietary introduction plays up his part in his wife’s writing (“I believed in it, published it ... and printed it with my own hands”) and presents her as a creature of simple spontaneity (“She seemed to adjust herself to life as a flower adjusts itself to the earth and to the sun”). Any check of his extracts against the complete journals shows up his protectiveness of her - and of himself. A long, dramatic account of her journey to the French front in February 1915, for instance, bafflingly omits the reason for her going, to see her lover Francis Carco - their sensually described love-making, of course, all cut out. The Murrys’ stormy, intense friendship with the Lawrences is played down and chastened here (unlike in Mansfield’s brutally and brilliantly explicit letters about them) . . .

But although the Journal is a compromised document, it is still very well worth having this reprint. After so many versions of her, we probably no longer think of Mansfield as a “terribly sensitive mind” (her own phrase, picked up by Virginia Woolf in her ambivalent review of the Journal, reprinted here). She may seem to us now no longer Murry’s romantic, solitary, tragic heroine, but more sexually reckless and socially excitable, temperamentally damaged by illness, and as malicious and chilling as she could be appealing and vulnerable. But for all Murry’s tidying up, her startling, vivid, intimate voice still comes pouring off these pages.’

According to Murry’s introduction to the 1927 version of the Journal, ‘Mansfield ruthlessly destroyed all record of the time between her return from New Zealand to England in 1909, and 1914’, except for the following fragment. This, therefore, is the first of Mansfield’s extant diary entries. As edited by Murry, it appears Mansfield has provided the month, ‘June’, but that Murry himself gives the year by saying this fragment ‘belongs to 1910, to that stay in Bavaria . . .’ and by inserting ‘1910’ in square brackets at the start of the fragment. All the biographical information I can find, though, seems to point to ‘that stay in Bavaria’ as being in 19o9!

‘June [1910]
It is at last over, this wearisome day, and dusk is beginning to sift in among the branches of the drenched chestnut tree. I think I must have caught cold in my beautiful exultant walk yesterday, for to-day I am ill. I began to work but could not. Fancy wearing two pairs of stockings and two coats and a hot-water bottle in June, and shivering . . . I think it is the pain that makes me shiver and feel dizzy. To be alone all day, in a house whose every sound seems foreign to you, and to feel a terrible confusion in your body which affects you mentally, suddenly pictures for you detestable incidents, revolting personalities, which you only shake off to find recurring again as the pain seems to grow worse again. Alas! I shall not walk with bare feet in wild woods again. Not until I have grown accustomed to the climate . . .

The only adorable thing I can imagine is for my Grandmother to put me to bed and bring me a bowl of hot bread and milk, and, standing with her hands folded, the left thumb over the right, say in her adorable voice: ‘There darling, isn’t that nice?’ Oh, what a miracle of happiness that would be. To wake later to find her turning down the bedclothes to see if my feet were cold, and wrapping them up in a little pink singlet, softer than cat’s fur. . . Alas!

Sunday morning
Yet another Sunday. . . It is raining again to-day - just a steady persistent rain that seems to drift one from one morning to the other. When I had finished writing I went down to supper, drank a little soup, and the old Doctor next me suddenly said: ‘Please go to bed now,’ and I went like a lamb and drank some hot milk. It was a night of agony. When I felt morning was at last come, I lighted a candle, looked at the watch, and found it was just a quarter to twelve! Now I know what it is to fight a drug. Veronal was on the table by my bed. Oblivion - deep sleep - think of it! But I didn’t take any. Now I am up and dressed. . .’

See The Diary Junction for links to some extracts available online.