Their negro troops

‘There are about sixty-five white men, and fifteen negroes, under the command of a Major Wilcox. They say that they come for peace, to protect us from our own lawless cavalry - to protect us, indeed! with their negro troops, runaways from our own plantations! I would rather be skinned and eaten by wild beasts than beholden to them for such protection.’ This is Eliza Frances Andrews, who died 80 years ago today, writing in her diary during the last days of the American Civil War. She was highly educated and part of a rich family that owned a large plantation with many slaves. Her diary, which is freely available online, captures the historic moment in early May 1865 when the Confederacy came to an end in her own home town.

Eliza was born in 1840 in Washington, Georgia, the daughter of a prominent judge and owner of a plantation with 200 slaves. She was among the first students to attend LaGrange Female College, and became very well-versed in French and Latin, literature, music, and the visual arts. The Civil War, though, spit her family: while her father was strongly against secession, her brothers went to fight for the Confederate States Army.

After the war Andrews worked as a journalist writing for various publications and as an editor, but when her father died and the family plantation had to be sold, she turned to education, teaching in schools, and later was appointed professor of French and literature. She continued to write after retirement, focusing on botany. She died on 21 January 1931. Wikipedia has more biographical information, as does The New Georgia Encyclopaedia.

For less than year during the Civil War, Andrews kept a diary, and she did so again in the early 1870s. The War-Time Journal of a Georgia Girl was published in 1908 by D Appleton, New York, and Journal of a Georgia Woman 1870-1872 was published by the University of Tennessee Press in 2002. Substantial parts of both books are available online at Documenting the American South and Googlebooks. The Civil War Women Blog also has biographical information and some extracts.

Here is Andrews herself introducing the her war-time diary: ‘To edit oneself after the lapse of nearly half a century is like taking an appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober. The changes of thought and feeling between the middle of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century are so great that the impulsive young person who penned the following record and the white-haired woman who edits it, are no more the same than were Philip drunk with the wine of youth and passion and Philip sobered by the lessons of age and experience. The author’s lot was cast amid the tempest and fury of war, and if her utterances are sometimes out of accord with the spirit of our own happier time, it is because she belonged to an era which, though but of yesterday, as men count the ages of history, is separated from our own by a social and intellectual chasm as broad almost as the lapse of a thousand years. In the lifetime of a single generation the people of the South have been called upon to pass through changes that the rest of the world has taken centuries to accomplish. The distance between the armor-clad knight at Acre and the “embattled farmers” at Lexington is hardly greater than that between the feudal aristocracy which dominated Southern sentiment in 1860, and the commercial plutocracy that rules over the destinies of the nation to-day.’

And here are some extracts from Andrews’ (long) entries for 4-5 May 1865, when the final cabinet meeting of the Confederacy was taking place in Washington, Georgia.

4 May 1865
‘I am in such a state of excitement that I can do nothing but spend my time, like the Athenians of old, in either hearing or telling some new thing. I sat under the cedar trees by the street gate nearly all the morning, with Metta and Cousin Liza, watching the stream of human life flow by, and keeping guard over the horses of some soldier friends that had left them grazing on the lawn. Father and Cora went to call on the President [the Confederate President - Jefferson Davis], and in spite of his prejudice against everybody and everything connected with secession, father says his manner was so calm and dignified that he could not help admiring the man. Crowds of people flocked to see him, and nearly all were melted to tears. Gen. Elzey pretended to have dust in his eyes and Mrs Elzey blubbered outright, exclaiming all the while, in her impulsive way: “Oh, I am such a fool to be crying, but I can’t help it!” When she was telling me about it afterwards, she said she could not stay in the room with him yesterday evening, because she couldn’t help crying, and she was ashamed for the people who called to see her looking so ugly, with her eyes and nose red. She says that at night, after the crowd left, there was a private meeting in his room, where Reagan and Mallory and other high officials were present, and again early in the morning there were other confabulations before they all scattered and went their ways - and this, I suppose, is the end of the Confederacy. Then she made me laugh by telling some ludicrous things that happened while the crowd was calling. . . It is strange how closely interwoven tragedy and comedy are in life.

The people of the village sent so many good things for the President to eat, that an ogre couldn’t have devoured them all, and he left many little delicacies, besides giving away a number of his personal effects, to people who had been kind to him. He requested that one package be sent to mother, which, if it ever comes, must be kept as an heirloom in the family. I don’t suppose he knows what strong Unionists father and mother have always been, but for all that I am sure they would be as ready to help him now, if they could, as the hottest rebel among us. I was not ashamed of father’s being a Union man when his was the down-trodden, persecuted party; but now, when our country is down-trodden, the Union means something very different from what it did four years ago. It is a great grief and mortification to me that he sticks to that wicked old tyranny still, but he is a Southerner and a gentleman, in spite of his politics, and at any rate nobody can accuse him of self-interest, for he has sacrificed as much in the war as any other private citizen I know, except those whose children have been killed. His sons, all but little Marshall, have been in the army since the very first gun - in fact, Garnett was the first man to volunteer from the county, and it is through the mercy of God and not of his beloved Union that they have come back alive. Then, he has lost not only his negroes, like everybody else, but his land, too.

The President left town about ten o’clock, with a single companion, his unruly cavalry escort having gone on before. He travels sometimes with them, sometimes before, sometimes behind, never permitting his precise location to be known. Generals Bragg and Breckinridge are in the village, with a host of minor celebrities. Gen. Breckinridge is called the handsomest man in the Confederate army, and Bragg might well be called the ugliest. I saw him at Mrs Vickers’s, where he is staying, and he looks like an old porcupine. I never was a special admirer of his, though it would be a good thing if some of his stringent views about discipline could be put into effect just now - if discipline were possible among men without a leader, without a country, without a hope. The army is practically disbanded, and citizens, as well as soldiers, thoroughly demoralized. It has gotten to be pretty much a game of grab with us all; every man for himself and the Devil (or the Yankees, which amounts to the same thing) take the hindmost. Nearly all government teams have been seized and driven out of town by irresponsibile parties - indeed, there seems to be nobody responsible for anything any longer. Gen. Elzey’s two ambulances were taken last night, so that Capt. Palfrey and Capt. Swett are left in the lurch, and will have to make their way home by boat and rail, or afoot, as best they can.

Large numbers of cavalry passed through town during the day. A solid, unbroken stream of them poured past our street gate for two hours, many of them leading extra horses. They raised such clouds of dust that it looked as if a yellow fog had settled over our grove. Duke’s division threatened to plunder the treasury, so that Gen. Breckinridge had to open it and pay them a small part of their stipend in specie. Others put in a claim too, and some deserving men got a few dollars. Capt. Smith and Mr Hallam called in the afternoon, and the latter showed me ninety dollars in gold, which is all that he has received for four years of service. I don’t see what better could be done with the money than to pay it all out to the soldiers of the Confederacy before the Yankees gobble it up.’

5 May 1865
‘It has come at last - what we have been dreading and expecting so long - what has caused so many panics and false alarms - but it is no false alarm this time; the Yankees are actually in Washington. Before we were out of bed a courier came in with news that Kirke - name of ill omen - was only seven miles from town, plundering and devastating the country. Father hid the silver and what little coin he had in the house, but no other precautions were taken. They have cried “wolf” so often that we didn’t pay much attention to it, and besides, what could we do, anyway? After dinner we all went to our rooms as usual, and I sat down to write. Presently some one knocked at my door and said: “The Yankees have come, and are camped in Will Pope’s grove.” I paid no attention and went on quietly with my writing. Later, I dressed and went down to the library, where Dr Cromwell was waiting for me, and asked me to go with him to call on Annie Pope. We found the streets deserted; not a soldier, not a straggler did we see. The silence of death reigned where a few hours ago all was stir and bustle - and it is the death of our liberty. After the excitement of the last few days, the stillness was painful, oppressive. I thought of Chateaubriand’s famous passage: “Lorsque dans le silence de l’abjection” &c. News of the odious arrival seems to have spread like a secret pestilence through the country, and travelers avoid the tainted spot. I suppose the returning soldiers flank us, for I have seen none on the streets to-day, and none have called at our house. The troops that are here came from Athens. There are about sixty-five white men, and fifteen negroes, under the command of a Major Wilcox. They say that they come for peace, to protect us from our own lawless cavalry - to protect us, indeed! with their negro troops, runaways from our own plantations! I would rather be skinned and eaten by wild beasts than beholden to them for such protection. As they were marching through town, a big buck negro leading a raw-boned jade is said to have made a conspicuous figure in the procession. Respectable people were shut up in their houses, but the little street urchins immediately began to sing, when they saw the big black Sancho and his Rosinante:

“Yankee Doodle went to town and stole a little pony; He stuck a feather in his crown and called him Macaroni.”

They followed the Yanks nearly to their camping ground at the Mineral Spring, singing and jeering at the negroes, and strange to say, the Yankees did not offer to molest them. I have not laid eyes on one of the creatures myself, and they say they do not intend to come into the town unless to put down disturbances - the sweet, peaceful lambs! They never sacked Columbia; they never burnt Atlanta; they never left a black trail of ruin and desolation through the whole length of our dear old Georgia! No, not they! I wonder how long this sugar and honey policy is to continue. They deceive no one with their Puritanical hypocrisy, bringing our own runaway negroes here to protect us. Next thing they will have a negro garrison in the town for our benefit. Their odious old flag has not yet been raised in the village, and I pray God they will have the grace to spare us that insult, at least until Johnston’s army has all passed through. The soldiers will soon return to their old route of travel, and there is no telling what our boys might be tempted to do at the sight of that emblem of tyranny on the old courthouse steeple, where once floated the “lone star banner” that Cora and I made with our own hands - the first rebel flag that was ever raised in Washington. Henry brought us the cloth, and we made it on the sly in Cora’s room at night, hustling it under the bed, if a footstep came near, for fear father or mother might catch us and put a stop to our work. It would break my heart to see the emblem of our slavery floating in its place. Our old liberty pole is gone. Some of the Irvin Artillery went one night before the Yankees came, and cut it down and carried it off. It was a sad night’s work, but there was no other way to save it from desecration.’

18th century India

The greatest Tamil diarist in history, Ananda Ranga Pillai, died 250 years ago today. He served under the French in Pondicherry, rising to becoming chief dubash (interpreter, broker and guide) under the governor general Joseph François Dupleix. All 12 volumes of his diaries translated into English are freely available online, and provide a remarkable first-hand account of colonised India in the 18th century.

Ananda Ranga Pillai was born in 1709 at Ayanavaram near Perambur, a suburb of Madras. His father, Thiruvengada Pillai, was persuaded to settle at Pondicherry by a brother-in-law, and eventually became a broker for the French, who ruled Pondicherry (now called Puducherry) mostly from 1673 until 1954. When his father died, in 1726, Ananda was appointed to the accounts service. He married Mangathayi Ammal and they had five children, although two of his sons died very young.

Over the next 20 years or so Pillai rose slowly to become, in 1748, the chief dubash of French India under Joseph François Dupleix, the governor general. Soon after, hostilities with the British broke out (again), and for a year or two, France’s power increased. Eventually, though Dupleix’s fortunes declined and he was replaced as governor general in 1754. With Dupleix’s departure, Pillai’s influence in the colony declined. Ill-health added to his woes, and he died on 16 January 1761 - exactly a quarter of a millennium ago - aged only 51. Wikipedia has a good biography (more substantial by far than the one for Dupleix).

Pillai kept detailed diaries for much of his life. These were handed down through the generations until discovered in a decrepit state in the 1840s. They were then translated from the original Tamil into French. Some decades later, in the 1890s, Lord Wenlock, the then Governor of Madras, ordered the diaries to be translated into English. They were edited by Sir J Frederick Price (assisted by K Rangachari), and then printed in 12 volumes (between 1904 and 1928) by the Government Press in Madras as The Private Diary of Ananda Ranga Pillai, Dubash to Joseph Francois Dupleix, Knight of the Order of St Michael and Governor of Pondicherry. The volumes - all available at Internet Archive - were subtitled ‘a record of matters political, historical, social and personal from 1736 to 1761’.

Here are two entries from the first volume:

21 November 1739
‘A remarkable incident which occurred this evening at 5, was the following. The ex-chief of the peons, actuated by jealousy at the appointment of Muttaiya Pillai in his place, instigated one of his men to commit thefts in the town. This individual had long been engaged in the business, and was at last apprehended, four or five months ago. When he was beaten, and pressed in other ways, he made a clean breast of the whole affair, from the very beginning, and mentioned the names of all the persons who had either seen his acts or heard of them, or who had either concealed the goods stolen by him, or harboured him.

These abettors, who were about fifteen or sixteen in number, were thrown into prison with him. The Council having heard their statements, discharged them all, with the exception of the thief, and five of the abettors, who were found to be seriously implicated. . . The offenders received the following punishments, under an order of Council. The thief was publicly hanged; a punishment which was carried out at 5 in the evening at the centre of the town in the bazaar-road, opposite to the court-house, on a gallows which had been temporarily erected there for the purpose; . . .

Of the remaining five criminals, Odavi . . . and the goldsmith were each awarded fifty stripes, their ears were cut off, and they were expelled beyond the bounds of Pondichery. The other three . . . were ordered to stand in a line and were whipped; each receiving twenty-five lashes. On two or three further charges, the punishment of whipping will again be inflicted on them, and they will then be released.’

7 February 1746
‘At noon, the Portuguese ship St Louis, . . arrived here from Madras, cast anchor, and fired three guns to salute the vessels in the roads: these were returned by a like number. Seven guns were then fired by the St Louis, in compliment to the fort, which replied with a similar salute. Four English sail came in pursuit of this ship. Having caught sight of her, they hove to at a distance. The captain inquired why they were following him. It appears that when the St Louis was on her way from Chandernagore, the English sailors at Madras seized and detained her in the roads there. When inquiry was made as to her nationality, the reply was she was Portuguese. . .

Those in charge of her were asked to sell all the merchandise that was on board, and to buy goods there in exchange. They agreed to this, pretended to bargain, deceived the English, set sail, and escaped during the night. The St Louis was therefore pursued on the following morning. Such was the explanation given. The three ships and the sloop which chased her arrived in the roads between 3 and half-past 4 in the afternoon, and cast anchor on the north-eastern side of the fort. Two others came from Fort St David, and anchored to the south-east. Of the four vessels which came from the north, one fired a gun, and then started southwards for Fort St David, bearing news to that place. When she arrived abreast of the anchorage, the Governor went to the fort, summoned all the soldiers who were there, distributed them in the batteries on the beach, directed them to load all the guns and mortars that were in these, and to keep ready powder, shot, shells, and grenades; in short, he made all the necessary preparations, and then, at half-past 5, proceeded home.

The inhabitants of the town who went to watch this strange sight numbered 10,000. The Governor noticing all these people, said to them: “You have been looking at this long enough; you now had better go home.” I also went, and saw what was going on. The goods which were brought in the Portuguese ship St Louis were wheat, rice, and candles; it is said that there were also some sundry goods from Chandernagore. This cargo was being unloaded by boats until 2 in the morning.’

The writer vs the orator

In his late 30s, Henry Fynes Clinton, an MP and classical scholar who died 230 years ago today, came to the conclusion that he would never make it as a public speaker, and carefully explained to his diary why he should, therefore, concentrate on ‘literary labours’. Indeed, the papers he left behind when he died were published as ‘Literary Remains’ and included his ‘Literary Journal’. The word ‘literary’, however, best describes the matter he writes of, not the quality of his language!

Henry Fynes Clinton was born on 14 January 1781 at Gamston, Nottinghamshire, and his father was rector at nearby Cromwell. They were direct descendants of Henry, second earl of Lincoln, who died in 1616. Although the family bore the name of Fynes for several generations, Henry’s father resumed the older family name of Clinton in 1821. Henry was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford.

From 1806 to 1826 Clinton was the Member of Parliament for Aldborough (in West Riding of Yorkshire), and although initially he had ambitions to become a speaker, he found he had little ability as an orator and increasingly took to concentrating on his classical studies. In 1809, he married Harriot Wylde, but she died the following year. That same year, he bought an estate at Welwyn, where he lived with his second wife, Katherine Majendie, who bore him several children.

Clinton wrote several important books on the Greek and Roman civilisations, and is considered to have applied an exacting and critical scholarship to ancient chronology, and to the dating of classical authors. He retired from parliament in June 1826, and was subsequently disappointed not to be appointed principal librarian at the British Museum. He died in 1852. Wikipedia has a short biography.

Rev C. J. Fynes Clinton edited his brother’s ‘Literary Remains’ and these were published by Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans in 1854 as Literary Remains of Henry Fynes Clinton Esq M A, author of ‘Fasti Hellenica’ and ‘Fasti Romani’; consisting of an Autobiography and Literary Journal and Brief Essays on Theological Subjects. The book is freely available at Internet Archive.

It is worth noting, however, that the word ‘literary’ in the titles of the book and the journal appears to have far more to do with the matter being discussed than the quality of the writing - despite a clear implication that he believed his writing had a purity of style and language! Here, though, are a few of the first entries in that ‘literary journal’, including a longish entry in which Clinton debates with himself the relative merits or being an author or a writer.

1 January 1819
‘Occupied with drawing out a plan of future studies, and in writing my Journal of former years.

It is now the ninth year since I returned to Greek literature. Within this period I have accomplished the following . . . 33,700 pages will give about 3,750 for the average number read in each year. I possess therefore nine Poets of the first rank; and among nine of the second rank, three principal ones, Theocritus, Lycophron, Apollonius: the three Historians, Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon: all the Orators: the twelve Scriptores, except Dion Cassius: of the ten Scriptores, Polysenus and Dio Chrysostom: of the forty, Stobseus: among the Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius, about half of Plato, the best of Aristotle. I have consumed too much time and labour, perhaps, in the Scholiasts.’

2-13 January 1819
‘During these days occupied in writing my Journal, and in reading Polybius, Euripidis Medea, Malthus on Population, the ‘Fasti Attici’ of Corsini.’

14 January 1819
‘Left Welwyn, and arrived in Dean’s Yard at twelve. House of Commons in the afternoon. Sworn in; my fourth election as a Member of Parliament.’

15 January 1819
‘House of Commons, two to four. After the House met, the Speaker is approved by the Lords. Oaths and subscriptions taken.’

16 January 1819.
‘Returned to Welwyn. On the following days I resumed my Journal, and proceeded with Corsini diligently, and finished his first volume on the 23rd. I then proceeded with my Chron. Grsec, and on February 2nd completed it to the end of Theopompus and Alcaemenes. This compilation, equal to about thirty quarto pages, has occupied eight entire days. I now lay it aside till a future opportunity of consulting the original works, on our return to Welwyn. For completion of the first part, perlegendi sunt Eurip. et Pind. Scholiastse, Apollodorus with Heyne’s notes.’

3 March 1819
‘My love of letters begins to revive, which has been dormant or extinct for some time past; and an inward alacrity and cheerfulness consequently succeeds to that spirit of despondency and dissatisfaction which I have lately felt. I perceive that I can never be a public speaker; but I observe that those whose lives have been passed as eminent public speakers, have not, in general, the faculty of being good writers: they generally fail in purity of style and language, points in which they might especially be expected to excel. Mr Pitt weakened the effect of his speeches by attempting to retouch those of them which appeared in print; and the published specimens of his eloquence do not justify to us who have not heard him the splendid testimony of his auditors. Mr Fox, when he applied himself to written composition, produced the feeble and languid history of James the Second. The style of Mr Wilberforce, in his treatise on Christianity, is verbose and heavy, and never rises above mediocrity. Although therefore I have not faculties for public speaking, which requires extempore powers, yet I may be capable of written composition, which is the fruit of meditation, diligence, care, and labour.

Nor is it perhaps to be granted that oratory is necessarily the highest effort of the faculties of man: it is only an exhibition of them in a particular form. The orator possesses from nature or practice the talent of putting forth all his powers at once; the writer produces his best efforts by meditation, time, and revision of his subject. But in a comparative estimate of genius, it will be inquired, not by what steps excellence is reached, but at what point of excellence men arrive at last. The orator indeed is always regarded with more indulgence than the writer can hope to receive. He possesses the advantage of being only measured against his contemporaries. He who is the best orator of his own age acquires all the present benefits that eloquence can confer. Demosthenes and Cicero were no more than this; although the standard of excellence in different times and countries may have been very different. But the writer, on the contrary, is compared with the compositions of other times and countries. He is measured with those who have cultivated the same kind of writing in all past times; and the wit and genius of ages are set in the balance against him. The standard, then, of excellence is more defined and ascertained, and more difficult to be reached, in written compositions, than in eloquence. The one is absolute, the other relative. He who is eminent as a public speaker, owes much of his fame to particular circumstances: but the reputation of a writer is founded upon a higher kind of merit.

I will not, then, because Nature has denied me the gifts of an orator, unwisely overlook or neglect the advantages and the usefulness of that literature of which I may yet be capable. There is a field in which I may still successfully labour. One advantage, and that the highest of all, I have already gained by literary occupations. Nine years are this day completed since I returned to these occupations upon my arrival in Dean’s Yard, after the events in 1810. In surveying my own mind during that period, I perceive that whenever I have been occupied and interested in literary labours, I have been safe, and innocent, and satisfied, and happy. But those periods in which I have deserted my habitual studies, have been intervals of danger, of temptation, of discontent, of evil thoughts. Can I have a stronger motive for continuing that course of studies? or shall I say that my labours have failed in being profitable, even though they produce no returns of fame or interest?’

I walked, walked, walked

‘A stormy day, within doors; so I rushed out early and walked, walked, walked! If peace and quietness be not in one’s own power, one can always give oneself, at least, bodily fatigue.’ This is Jane Carlyle, possibly England’s greatest woman letter writer, turning her hand, and thoughts and emotions, to a diary. Today is the 210th anniversary of her birth.

Jane Baillie Welsh was born on 14 January 1801 in Haddington, near Edinburgh, into a doctor’s family. As a child, she was considered something of a tomboy. At 10, her father employed Edward Irving to tutor her. She is said to have written her first novel when only 13. She also wrote verse, sang and played the piano. Two years after her father had died suddenly from typhoid, in 1821, Irving brought his friend, the writer Thomas Carlyle, with him on a visit to Haddington. Thereafter, Carlyle corresponded with Jane, ostensibly to help with her studies, although Jane’s mother disapproved of him.

Jane married Carlyle in 1826, and lived much in awe of his shining intelligence. Although they had two reasonably happy years, according to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB), Jane was very lonely after they moved to a remote farm at Craigenputtoch in Dumfriesshire. In 1834, though, they relocated to London, where they developed a busy social circle, and where Jane was influential in her husband’s success. Nevertheless, she continued to find life with Thomas difficult, partly because she was always in his intellectual shadow, despite being very clever and literate herself. Her resentment increased when Thomas seemed to transfer his loyalty to Lady Harriet, later Lady Ashburton.

Jane died in 1866, leading Thomas to retire from public life. However, he passed on her papers and letters, some of which which first appeared in 1883 as Letters and Memorials edited by James Anthony Froude. He also passed on a secret journal, though this was not included in any of the first publications. However, parts of the diary do appear in New Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle, published by John Lane in 1903. The letters especially, but also the journal, reveal a huge amount about Jane and the marriage.

According to the ODNB, ‘it is hardly disputed that [Jane] is the greatest woman letter writer in English. Her skill often lay in the immediacy of her letters; their appeal lies partly in the story that emerges from her self-dramatization. . . Their effectiveness has nothing to do with elegant prose, to which she could always rise, much to do with her sympathetic imagination, clear head, alertness, and a quick eye and ear for entirely natural expression.’

Although there is not very much biographical information about Jane Carlyle online (except at the excellent ONDB, which requires a subscription or UK library card login), Wikipedia and The Diary Junction have a few useful links. However, her letters are easily found online, as is the journal she wrote in 1855-1856, when her husband was already visiting Lady Ashburton at Bath House. The letters and journal can be found at The Carlyle Letters online, or Internet Archive.

Here are some of the first entries in the journal. They give a good feeling not only of Jane’s literary skill, but the depth and range of her emotional life.

21 October 1855
‘Neither my birthday nor newyear’s-day this; anniversaries on which I “feel it my duty,” usually, to bloom out into the best intentions, beginning and ending always with the intention to resume my old journal. But if “carried out” to the extent of a few pages, it has “gone,” even that smallest of good intentions, “to the greater number,” before a week was out! Decidedly I am no longer the little girl who used to say over her most difficult tasks, “I'll gar myself do it”!

The mother of Invention has garred me do so much against the grain, that I am too fatigued now to gar myself do anything I can get let alone. And after all; one may keep a journal very minutely and regularly and still be a great fool! all the greater perhaps for this very labour of selfconsciousness which is so apt to degenerate into a dishonest striving to “make a silk purse out of a sows ear” for posthumous admiration or sympathy - from one’s Executors; or even for present self-complacent mistification of oneself!

I remember Charles Buller saying of the Duchess de Praslin’s murder; “what could a poor fellow do with a wife who kept a journal, but murder her?” There was a certain truth hidden in this light remark. Your Journal “all about feelings” aggravates whatever is factitious and morbid in you; that I have made experience of; and now the only sort of journal I would keep should have to do with what Mr Carlyle calls “the fact of things”. It is very bleak and barren this “fact of things” as I now see it - very! And what good is to result from writing of it in a paper-book is more than I can tell. But I have taken a notion ‘TO’; and perhaps I shall blacken more paper this time, when I begin “quite promiscuously,” without any moral end in view but just, as the Scotch Professor drank whiskey “because I like it, and because it's cheap.” ’

22 October 1855
I was cut short in my introduction last night by Mr C’s return from Bath House. That eternal Bath House. I wonder how many thousand miles Mr C has walked between there and here, putting it all together; setting up always another milestone and another betwixt himself and me. Oh, good grasious! when I first noticed that heavy yellow House without knowing, or caring to know, who it belonged to, how far I was from dreaming that thro’ years and years I should carry every stone’s weight of it on my heart. (About feelings already! Well, I will not proceed - tho the thoughts I had in my bed about all that, were tragical enough to fill a page of “thrilling interest” - for myself; and tho’, as George Sand has shrewdly remarked, “rien ne soulage comme la rhètorique” [nothing soothes like rhetoric].)’

23 October 1855
‘A stormy day, within doors; so I rushed out early and walked, walked, walked! If peace and quietness be not in one’s own power, one can always give oneself, at least, bodily fatigue - no such bad succedaneum after all! - Life gets to look for me like a sort of kaleidiscope; a few things of different colours (black predominating) which Fate shakes into new and ever new combinations, but always the same things over again! Today has been so like a day I still remember out of ten years ago! The same still, dreamy October weather - the same tumult of mind contrasting with the outer stillness - the same causes for that tumult; then as now I had walked, walked, walked, with no aim but to tire myself; . . .’

25 October 1855
‘ “Oh good gracious alive”! what a whirlwind - or rather whirl-pool of a day! Breakfast had “passed off” better or worse, and I was at work on a picture-frame, my own invention and pretending to be a little “work of art”; when Mr C’s bell rang like mad, and was followed by cries of, “come! come! are you coming?” Arrived at the second landing, three steps at a time, I saw Mr C and Ann in the spare bed room, hazily, thro’ a waterfall! The great cistern had overflowed; and it was “raining and pouring down” thro’ the new ceiling, and plashing up on the new carpet! All the baths and basins in the house and even “vessels of dishonour” were quickly assembled on the floor, and I on my knees mopping up with towels and sponges. When the water ceased to pour thro the ceiling, it began to pour thro the roof of the bed! If the water had only been clean! but it was black as soot, and the ground of the carpet white! At last it faired in the Spare Room, and I retired to change my shoes and stockings, which were soaked, as if I had been fishing while doing this, I became aware of a patter-pattering in the drawing room; and looking in, perceived a quite romantic little lake on the green Brussels carpet! There too the water had flooded half the ceiling. More mopping with towels and sponges, and another pair of shoes and stockings soaked. Finally, after three hours of this sort of thing, I came down to the parlour fire; and the first thing I saw was great black splashes of wet on the parlour ceiling! What am I to do with all these spoiled ceilings and carpets? And how is ‘the water’ to be prevented coming again when it likes?

In spite of this disaster on the premises, and the shocking bad temper induced by it, I have had to put on my company-face to night and ‘receive’ [guests]. Decidedly I must have a little of “that damned thing called the milk of human kindness” after all; for the assurance that poor Mrs George was being amused kept me from feeling bored.

And I have no notion of bed; would rather go on writing - ever so many pages “about feelings”; my heart is so very sore tonight! But I have promised myself not to make this Journal a miserere. so I will take a doze of morphia and do the impossible to sleep.’

26 October 1855
‘My morphia a dead failure last night - gave me neither sleep nor rest; but only nausea. So much the better perhaps. If morphia had always, instead of only at long intervals, its good effect on me - making me all whole, for the time being, like a cracked dish boiled in sweet milk, I dont know what principle would be strong enough to keep me from slowly poisoning myself with it. Today then I have been up to nothing, naturally.’

31 October 1855
‘Rain, rain, rain! “Oh Lord, this is too ridiculous”! (as the Annandale Farmer exclaimed, starting to his feet, when it began pouring, in the midst of his prayer for a dry hay-time.) I have no hay to be got in, or anything else to be got in that I know of; but I have a plentiful crop of thorns to be got out, and that too requires good weather. . . The evening devoted to mending; Mr C’s trousers among other things! “Being an only child” I never “wished” to sew mens trousers - no never!’

1 November 1855
‘At last a fair morning to rise to! Thanks God! (Mazzini never says “thank God,” by any chance; but always “Thanks God.” And I find it sound more grateful!) Fine weather outside in fact; but in doors, blowing a devil of a gale! Off into Space then! to get the green mould that had been gathering on me of late days brushed off by human contact.’

6 November 1855
‘Mended Mr C’s dressing-gown and washed some “finery” (as the Laundress calls it - lace-caps and collars). Then off to Geraldine who gave me a nice little “early dinner” . . . Peacefully sated with revenge and food, we streamed off to Pimlico and bought clogs

As usual staying out till twilight. I am very idle just now, and cause of idleness in others - at least one other (Geraldine). But it is not wilful idleness exactly. Much movement under the free sky is needful for me to keep my heart from throbbing up into my head, and maddening it. They must be comfortable people those who have leisure to think about going to Heaven! My most constant and pressing anxiety is to keep out of Bedlam - that’s all! Ach! If there were no feelings; what steady sailing craft we should be (as the nautical gentleman of some novel says.)’

Very fiery comets

Buried exactly three hundred years ago was one Jacob Bee of Durham. He is only remembered today because he left behind a diary chronicling - albeit in brief - public and private events for the best part of 25 years. He was particularly fond of recording astronomical phenomena, such as blazing stars and fiery comets.

The son of Nicholas Bee and Margaret Ussie, Jacob Bee was born in Durham, and baptised on 19 June 1636. He is recorded as being a skinner and glover, i.e. a tradesman who skinned dead cattle and goats, or who bought their skins from slaughtermen, cured them, and turned them into leather goods, particularly gloves. Aged 22, he married Elizabeth Rabbet.

It also seems Bee may have kept an ale-house for some part of his life; in any case he certainly did a little brewing, the ‘grains’ being sold by his wife after each brewing. He also possessed a stable and loft, but having not prospered in business, and aged 65, he became an out-pensioner of the hospital of Sherburn-house. He died early in 1711, and was buried on 11 January at St Margaret’s, Durham.

Bee is probably only remembered today because he left behind a diary, which is now held by Durham University Library. This was edited and annotated for a volume called Six North Country Diaries published in 1910 for the Durham-based Surtees Society. The full text is available online at Internet Archive.

Here are a few typical entries, starting with almost all of the published extracts for 1682.

27 March 1682
‘John Maddison’s child Margaret went out of Durham to Newcastle for London to be toutcht for the evill.’

April 1682
‘Two great floods of watter upon Wednesday and Thursday, being the 26th and 27th of April.’

6 May 1682
‘The first day that men and women servants presented themselves to be hired in Durham markett.’

31 May 1682
‘Betwixt 11 and 12 at night, was a very fearfull thunder, with flalshes of fire, very tirrible.’

28 July 1682
‘Captain Thomas Featherston, of Stanhope hall, departed this life, being Friday, at night about 11 a clock.

15 August 1682
‘A blazing stare appeared.’

6 September 1682
‘Mr William Witherington, one of the bead-men of Abby church [died].’

28 September 1682
‘. . . Sofly, sone to Richard Sofly, was borne, being Thursday: and Elizabeth Dobinson was her midwife and the first that ever she [had] laid.’

20 November 1682
‘Being Munday this yeare and a great wind which blew one half of the west end of a window in Abby church.’
‘William Ross, junior, departed this life.’

25 January 1683
‘A sad cruel murther comitted by a boy about eighteen or nineteen years of age, nere Ferryhill, nere Durham, being Thursday, at night. The maner is, by report: When the parents were out of dores a young man, being sone to the house, and two daughters was kil’d by this boy with an axe, having knockt them in the head, afterwards cut ther throts: one of them being asleep in the bed, about ten or eleven yeares of age: the other daughter was to be married at Candlemas. After he had kil’d the sone and the eldest daughter, being above twenty yeares of age, a little lass, her sister, about the age of eleven yeares being in bed alone, he drag’d her out in bed and killed her alsoe. [The same Andrew Millns alias Miles, was hang’d in irons upon a gybett nere Ferryhill upon the 15th day of August, being Wednesday, this year 1683.]’

4 November 1684
‘A foot race was runn betwixt Fairebearnes, a butcher, and a countrey-man called John Upton, and runn upon Elvittmoore, the hardest run that ever any did see. The countrey-man wone upon hard tearmes, being runn soo nerely that scarce any could judge, when they had but one hundred yards to runn, whether should have it.’

17 January 1685
‘John Borrow departed this life, and ‘twas reported, that he see a coach drawn by six swine, all black, and a black man satt upon the cotch box. He fell sick upon’t and dyed, and of his death severall apparations appeared after.’

20 December 1689
‘A figure of a comet appeared about three-quarters of an hour after four at night, the first appearance was in the form of a half-moon, very firie, and afterwards did change itselfe to a firye sword and run westward.’

23 April 1699
‘Upon St George’s day there fell haile in and about Durham that was estemated to be, by report, five inches about, some reports seven, and some four, but I am sure they were three inches and more.’

The Sheltering Sky

Today is the centenary of the birth of Paul Bowles, author of The Sheltering Sky, and lover of Morocco where he lived most of his life. He was not a natural diarist, far from it in fact, but towards the end of his life he was persuaded to keep a journal for a year or so by a publisher friend. At the time, Bowles made no pretence that his life or the diary was of the slightest interest - ‘Very little to write about’ he reports to his journal regularly - nevertheless he was a literary figure, and in demand, not least by the Italian film director, Bernardo Bertolucci, who was making a film of The Sheltering Sky.

Bowles was born in New York City on 30 December 1910. He began writing short stories and composing music as a child. Although he enrolled at the University of Virginia he did not stay, preferring to travel to Paris where he met Gertrude Stein. He returned to Virginia in 1930 but, before long, had opted to go back to Europe, first to Berlin to study music with Aaron Copland, and then to Paris again.

For a decade or so, from 1937, Bowles settled in New York where he became a well-known composer writing music for plays (such as South Pacific) and ballets (such as Yankee Clipper). He also wrote a large variety of travel books, worked as a music critic for the New York Herald Tribune, and prepared translations from French and Spanish. In 1938, he married Jane Auer, another writer, though their relationship was unconventional since they both pursued intimate friendships with members of their own sex.

In 1947, Bowles moved to live permanently in Tangier (Auer joined him in 1948) where he wrote his first novel, The Sheltering Sky. This proved to be a best-seller, and remains a classic today. Several other novels and short story collections followed, and, although he focused on writing, he did also continue some composing. In the 1950s, Bowles began translating Moroccan literature into English. In 1970, he founded the Tangier literary magazine Antaeus with Daniel Halpern (who was also forming the independent publishing company Ecco Press). Later Antaeus was based in New York, and it lasted until 1994.

After the death of his wife in Spain in 1973, Bowles spent the rest of his life in Tangier, something of a celebrity writer, regularly receiving visitors, and giving interviews. In 1990, he made a cameo appearance at the beginning and end of the movie made by Bernardo Bertolucci of The Sheltering Sky. He died in 1999. Wikipedia has a lot more biographical information as does ‘The Authorised Paul Bowles Web Site’ and various obituaries (The New York Times, The Guardian.)

Bowles was not a diarist, not at all, but in the late 1980s, Halpern, his friend and collaborator on Antaeus, persuaded him to keep a journal for a year or so. It was published by Ecco Press in 1991 as Days - Tangier Journal 1987-1989. Here is part of the preface by Bowles explaining why he decided to keep a diary.

‘Three years ago Daniel Halpern wrote me asking if I kept a diary. I replied that I did not and never had, not seeing any reason for engaging in such an activity. He wrote again, suggesting that I start one immediately, since he would like to include whatever resulted in an issue of Antaeus to be devoted to diaries, journals, and notebooks. I told him that I thought the result would be devoid of interest, since I would have nothing to report. All he wanted, he responded, was a record of daily life in today’s Tangier. I agreed to try and did what I could with the project, although I was not very faithful, often allowing two weeks or more to elapse without writing anything. What went on during the periods of silence I have no idea, but doubtless the unrecorded days were even more humdrum than the others. I suppose the point of publishing such a document is to demonstrate the way in which the hours of a day can as satisfactorily be filled with trivia as with important events.’

And here are three extracts from the slim book.

20 June 1988
‘Very little to write about. I’ve been receiving clippings in various languages, all of them announcing Bertolucci’s intention of filming The Sheltering Sky. But in the cinema world any statement can be construed as propaganda, so I still have no idea as to whether or not he’ll make the movie. People find it hard to believe that Helen Strauss included no time-limit clause in the contract when she sold the film rights back in the fifties. So if Bertolucci has acquired them, I don’t know from whom.’

24 June 1989
‘Last night Bertolucci sent a car for me, to take me to the Minzah for dinner. At the beginning of the meal he said: “At last, it’s happening.” “Yes. For two years I’ve been wondering whether it would,” I told him. Everyone connected with the making of the film was there, including the producer, whom I’d met a few years ago. . . A very noisy floor show was going on for the benefit of a huge group of shrieking tourists. Bertolucci brought up the subject of music . . . I suspect he’d like electronic material rather than symphonic. Much easier, much cheaper . . . Scarfiotti had mentioned that he’d like to use Agadez as the setting for the final city in the south. I hope this can be managed, and that they don’t try to shoot everything in Morocco. I can appreciate their not wanting to get involved with the Algerians, but Morocco is no substitute for Algeria or Niger.’

27 August 1989
‘Bertolucci now thinks I should appear in certain scenes of the film. I don’t understand exactly why, and therefore suspect this to be a whim which he’ll possibly be thinking better of sooner or later.’

Inescapable metaphysic

José Lezama Lima, one of Cuba’s most celebrated literary figures of the 20th century, was born one hundred years ago today. To mark the centenary, a new edition of his diaries, first published in 1994, has been issued. A review on the Cuba Now website claims that Lezama’s inescapable metaphysic sprouts in every line of the diaries.

Lezama was born on 19 December 1910 in a military encampment, near Havana, where his father was a colonel. He studied law, and practised for a while, but was mostly interested in writing. His first significant poem Muerte de Narciso (Death of Narcissus) was published in 1937, and stunned the literary establishment in Havana because of its erudition on mythology and its linguistic exuberance.

Firmly settled in the Cuban capital (he only made two short trips abroad in his lifetime) Lezama led a new generation of avante garde writers. He published several collections of poetry and essays, and launched and ran various literary journals. It was not until 1966, though, that he published the novel, Paradiso, which brought him international fame and acclaim.

The glbtq website says this of the book: ‘Paradiso - a vast creative space that combines autobiography, fiction, and poetry in an endless proliferation of language - does not examine the specificity of homosexual desire, but rather homosexuality as part of an aesthetic view of existence. Lezama’s novel is a work of pure aestheticism in which the richness of language is the true protagonist.’

At home, however, the book encountered numerous obstacles before being published in a limited edition. This was partly because of its failure to back the Cuban revolution, and partly because of the homosexual content. It is a measure of Lezama’s literary importance, glbtq says, that Castro’s regime, relatively new at the time and opposed to homosexuality, ever allowed Paradiso to be published at all. Lezama died in 1976. There is a little more biographical information available at the Making Queer History website, and at Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica. Cuba Literaria, though, has several articles (in English and Spanish) about Lezama (photos and cartoons).

A first edition of Lezama’s brief diaries - Diarios: José Lezama Lima - was compiled and edited by Lezama’s friend, the journalist Ciro Bianchi, and published in 1994 by Ediciones Era. A second edition has now been published by Ediciones Union to commemorate Lezama’s centenary year. To present the new edition, a ceremony was held earlier this year at the Pabellón Cuba, one of Havana’s main exhibition centres, with Bianchi, the poet César López, and Abel Prieto, the minister of Culture. See Diario de la Juventud Cubana for a brief article on the event.

There is very little information - at least in English - about Lezama’s diaries on the internet. The Cuba Now website notes that the diary manuscripts cover only a period from October 1939 to July 1949, with a few extra jottings from 1957-1958. It says: ‘Lezama’s ineludible metaphysic, a result of his encyclopedic knowledge and deep Cuban roots, sprouts in every line’ of the diaries. (By ‘ineludible’, which is a Spanish word, I presume the writer meant to say in English ‘inescapable’.)

Those who take a look at the journals hoping to drink from the intimacy of the writer, the review goes on to say (also rather confusingly), ‘might not have all of their expectations met since the diaries are only open to personal confessions’. However, the diaries ‘treasure thoughts that could have become poems, chronicles or seeds of an essay’. One writer has said the diaries ‘are not actually less of a fiction than his fictions.’ The review concludes: ‘[The diaries] are a tool for those looking to decode the magnitude of this disdainful, ironic, passionate man who handled indifference with total dignity and fame with total indifference.’

Postcript: Another towering figure in Cuban literature, José Martí, kept a diary only in the last year of his life - the so-called War Diaries - which was published in English in José Martí: selected writings (Penguin 2002). Much of this book can be viewed on Googlebooks. Jose Lezamo Lima considered Martí’s War Diaries as ‘the greatest poem ever written by a Cuban’.

Pinch their thighs

‘My faith, it it’s coquetry, I’m caught, if you can call it being caught to experience keen pleasure.’ This is the great womaniser and early French realist writer Stendhal confiding to his diary exactly 200 years ago today. According to Robert Sage, the editor and translator of his journals, Stendhal was an egotist with ‘a positive mania’ for recording his life and thoughts, for ‘putting black on white’.

Marie-Henri Beyle was born in Grenoble in 1783 but his mother died when he was only seven, and he disliked his father and his home life. He left at 16 for Paris where, in 1800, through the influence of a relative, he travelled to Italy and signed up with Napoleon’s army, and took part in the Italian Campaign. Within a couple of years, though, he was back in Paris determined to become a writer, and a playwright in particular. In 1806, when his father had stopped his allowance and a love affair with an actress had failed, he was again helped, by his influential relative, to a position in Napoleon’s administration. During the next few years, he travelled extensively in Germany, and was part of Napoleon’s 1812 campaign into Russia.

After Napoleon’s defeat, Beyle went to Milan where he met Byron among others, and published books on travel and painting, using the pen-name Stendhal, as well as biographies of Napoleon and Rossini. He was an inveterate womaniser, anxious to make sexual conquests and falling in love regularly; he was also considered something of a dandy. In 1820-1821, with prominent liberals being arrested, and suspicions that he was a French spy, Stendhal returned to Paris. The following year, he published his innovative psychological analysis of love, De L’Amour (On Love); but in 1827, critics panned his first novel Armance.

After the accession of King Louis-Philippe, Stendhal was appointed a consul in Trieste, but the Austrians refused to accept him, and he went to a lesser post at Cività Vecchia in the Papal States. In 1830 he published Le Rouge et le Noir (The Red and the Black), and then, after a sojourn in Paris and some travelling in France, La Chartreuse de Parme (The Charterhouse of Parma). Both novels are considered among the earliest and foremost works of literary realism. He died in 1842. Further biographical information can be found at Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Brittanica, the International Napoleonic Society, and J J Haldane’s website Stendhal Forever.

Stendhal kept a private journal for much of his life. A selection of diary entries first appeared in French in 1888 as Journal de Stendhal, with further entries emerging in 1911. The full texts, edited and annotated by Henry Debraye and Louis Royer, were published in five volumes between 1923 and 1934. Then, in 1937, Henri Martineau published a further five volume edition of the complete text - taking up nearly two thousand pages. The diaries first appeared in English in 1954, thanks to Doubleday in New York - The Private Diaries of Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle) - edited and translated by Robert Sage. A Victor Gollancz edition came out in London the following year.

In his introduction, Sage says: ‘[Beyle] had a positive mania for “putting black on white”: thinking and writing were almost synonymous. Immediately a thought came to his mind, the impulse was to jot it down somewhere, anywhere, on the margin of a book or manuscript if one were within reach, in the dust on the furniture if it were not; there were even occasions when he scratched notes on his bedroom slippers, his suspenders, or across the crystal of his watch. Throughout his youth the diaries served as the principal recipient for this torrent of egotism. Everything went into them: the most intimate details of his love affairs; his impressions - largely unfavourable - of plays, books, and his fellow men; his own rare triumphs and frequent blunders; his experiences in the army, as a functionary and dandy of the Empire; . . . his medical prescriptions and his amatory theories; his dreams and disgusts; his reflections on the manners and morals of his century; his everlasting pursuit of elusive womanhood; his extravagant ambitions and his humiliating setbacks - all the thousand and one things that held his attention a minute or a decade during the period when his destiny, like that of France, was linked to the fortunes of Napoleon.’

And here are two extracts from The Private Diaries of Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle).

13 December 1810
‘Outside the D of R (whom I sleep with once a week), I’m as chaste as the devil. As the result, I’m getting fatter. It seems to me that since I’ve been an Auditor I’ve forgotten my amorous disposition. Possibly it feeds the fire in my head. I believe I could easily lose the habit of women. I lack almost entirely the talent of possessing common women, otherwise I’d have struck up a conversation a hundred times with Mme Boucher (I believe), of the Buffa, and at the end of six days I’d have had her.

Yesterday, I wrote to the little Bereyter. I had some fun Tuesday with Amélie and Mimi. “You are very agreeable, I take great pleasure in seeing you.” The next thing is to pinch their thighs and be capable of giving myself up to all possible gaiety. I sang aloud a superb song, for I composed the words and music as I went along. . .

I wrote some letters to the terrible Probus, but I never speak to him and hardly ever see him. I haven’t spoken to him about business in his office since the day he railed at me a bit after a three-hour conference with M Six and M Costaz. The latter is a model of self-importance. That’s the only way to hold your own with a man of Probus’s kind, and all the mighty ones are somewhat alike in that respect. It makes me indignant to be obliged to put on the soporific mask of the most kill-joy silliness in order to succeed with the bores in power.’

18 December 1810
‘My faith, it it’s coquetry, I’m caught, if you can call it being caught to experience keen pleasure.

There were fifteen or twenty people present, they were about to start some games; she was beside the fireplace, two women kept me from approaching her. She came over to me with that decision given by a keen desire to which one yields, in order to come over to me she took four or five steps, and stopped to speak to me in the middle of the salon. I’m not very sure what she said to me, I didn’t pay much attention to it; in this salon I was like a prince who is vain and who finds himself among people to whom his ribbons, his orders and all his dignitaries are invisible. I happened to be near the sofa to the right of the door, I was playing with the children to give myself countenance. She suddenly came over, seated herself beside me and said: “Mama told me to ask you if it’s true that the louis is going to be demonetized the first of January etc. . .” (not altogether said in those terms).

I replied, and at once the conversation turned to what interested us. Her face, on which the expression of feeling is extremely rare, had such a look of loving me, and her eyes regarded me with so much happiness that I restrained myself just as I was about to take her hand. We happened to change places a moment later, and, while seated, she spoke to three ladies who were standing up, I at her side. A man was mentioned, and she asked, “Is he young? Is he amiable? Does he look intelligent?” with the liveliest and warmest expression of happy love. She congratulated herself on her choice and took pleasure in praising, in his presence, the lover to whom hasn’t yet confessed her love, and, as she talked, in urging him to be aggressive. Her face was animated and full of passion. Her soul seemed to be stirred. If, during the past year, she’d had a quarter of this expression in one of our languishing tete-a-tete, it would at once have become delightful. I looked at her fondly, and her soul being stirred, she must have read in mine.

Surely it was the fredetto that was beginning to take effect. Every time she told me that she’d be home she added a phrase begging me to come to see her.

In all the time I’ve known her, this was the day when I saw the most ardent expression of love in her. Things had reached a point where all would have been over at once if we’d been alone.’

A lover without joy

Benjamin Constant, one of France’s most important Napoleon-era political thinkers, died 180 years ago today. He is mostly remembered today, at least in the English-speaking world, for his novel, Adolphe, considered a French classic. His diaries were not published until more than 50 years after his death and caused a ‘great stir’ among writers of the day. Paul Bourget, for example, wrote of Constant revealing himself in his diary as a ‘passionate being with no hope’, a ‘lover without joy’.

Henri-Benjamin Constant de Rebecque was born in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1767, to descendants of Huguenots who had fled France in the early 16th century. His father was a Swiss officer in the Dutch service. Constant was educated by private tutors and then studied at universities in Erlangen, Oxford and Edinburgh. He was chamberlain to the Duke of Brunswick for several years, and married Baroness Chramm, a lady of the court, in 1787. But five years later, he abandoned his office and his wife in favour of the French Revolution and Anne Louise Germaine de Staël with whom he had an extraordinary relationship, both intellectual and passionate, for over a decade.

After the coup in 1799 that effectively made Napoleon ruler of France, Constant was nominated a member of the tribunate, but was expelled in 1802 and went into exile, mostly in Weimar and Geneva, where he continued to consort with de Staël, though the two split in 1806. Two years later, he secretly married Charlotte von Hardenberg. In the mid-1810s, Constant published an important work criticising the Napoleonic regime, De l’esprit de conquête et l’usurpation (On the spirit of conquest and on usurpation).

In 1816, shortly after his return to Paris, Constant published his only novel, Adolphe, now considered a French classic. It tells the story of an illicit relationship, one in which the lovers are isolated from friends and society. The novel is considered a barely disguised account of his relationship and break-up with de Staël - although this was denied by Constant. Thereafter, Constant was active in French politics, sitting in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower legislative house of the Restoration-era government. Said to have been one of its most eloquent orators, he was also a leader of a liberal group. In the 1820s, he published De la religion, a five-volume history of ancient religion. He died in Paris on 8 December 1830. For more information see Wikipedia or Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Constant certainly kept a diary, a part of which was first published in 1895 as Journal Intime. Renee Winegarten, a literary critic and author, who recently brought out Germaine de Staël and Benjamin Constant: A Dual Biography (published by Yale University Press) says of her sources: ‘Particularly invaluable is Benjamin’s private diary, which caused a great stir among leading writers when it was first published toward the end of the nineteenth century, for this is one of the most penetrating documents ever penned by a man who was fascinated by himself and his innermost being, and who noted down every passing thought and feeling, no matter how fleeting or contradictory it might be.’ Indeed, she refers to Constant’s diary throughout her book - a few pages of which can be viewed at Amazon.

There are few other references to Constant’s diary, unfortunately, anywhere on the internet. One short extract can be found here: ‘Goethe: Difficulty of all conversation with him. What a pity that he has been caught up in the mystic philosophy of Germany. He confessed to me that the basis of this philosophy was Spinozism. Great idea that the mystic followers of Schelling have of Spinoza, but why try to bring in religious ideas and what is worse, Catholicism? They say that Catholicism is more poetical. “I would rather have Catholicism do evil,” says Goethe, “than be prevented from using it to make my plays more interesting.” ’

And thanks to the New England Review one can read online an analysis by the French novelist and critic, Paul Bourget, of Adolphe and Journal Intime written in 1899.

‘Since the publication of Benjamin Constant’s Journal Intime and his Lettres à sa famille we have known that the magic of the novel resides first and foremost in its being the most unusual and the most courageous of self-portraits. He is at one and the same time so sensitive that he cannot bear his mistress’s suffering, so anxious that he cannot trust her love, so selfish that he cannot conceal from her his most transient moods, so lucid that he cannot overlook a single one of his personal failings. This simultaneously superior and maimed creature, in whom the most appalling indecisiveness combines with the most mature self-knowledge, and who seems to have retained of sensitivity all that tortures while losing everything that is appealing, this arrogant young man with no illusions, this passionate being with no hope, this lover without joy, is Constant himself, as his diary and letters reveal him. There is not a sentence in his book that does not reveal a secret wound in his soul, one of the most tormented of our time. He pushed the candor of his confession so far as to deny his Adolphe every excuse that circumstances afford our worst failings, and sought the explanation for his sorry hero’s actions solely in a character that is none other than his own.’

Sat the old Duchess

‘We were ushered into the dirtiest room I ever beheld, empty, and devoid of comfort. A few filthy lamps, stood on a sideboard - common chairs were placed around very dingy walls - and in the middle of this empty space, sat the old Duchess, a melancholy specimen of decayed royalty.’ So wrote Lady Charlotte Campbell (later Bury) exactly 200 years ago in the very first entry of a private diary which would become famous some 30 years later. Charlotte had just begun working for the Princess of Wales, also known as the Duchess of Brunswick, and the diary is full of intimate - and not always flattering details - about her and royal society.

Charlotte, born in 1775, was the daughter of Elizabeth Gunning Campbell, Duchess of Hamilton, and the 5th Duke of Argyll. As a young lady in society, she was considered both beautiful and charming. In 1796, she married her distant cousin Colonel John Campbell with whom she had nine children - although only two survived her. On becoming a widow (Campbell died in 1809), she was made lady-in-waiting in the household of George IV’s wife, otherwise known as the Princess of Wales, Duchess of Brunswick, and afterwards Queen Caroline.

Subsequently, Charlotte married Rev Edward Bury, and wrote a number of novels - such as Flirtation and The Divorced. She died in Chelsea in 1861. A little further biographical information is available at Wikipedia, and some links can be found at The Diary Junction.

Lady Bury is remembered today largely because of a diary she kept while working for the Princess of Wales, and which first appeared in two volumes in 1838 as Diary Illustrative of the Times of George IV. It was published anonymously by Henry Colburn in London, and Charlotte herself never admitted she was the author. Various magazines of the day, though, argued that given the intimate details depicted, the author could only be Lady Charlotte. The book proved very popular, and further editions followed. The full texts of the 1838 and other versions are available at Internet Archive.

The book begins with no other introduction or preface than a first paragraph entitled ‘Advertisement’: The authenticity of the following Diary and Letters is too apparent to be questioned. The reader, however, cannot fail to notice certain discrepancies which occur in the work, and more particularly in the earlier portions of it, by which it would appear to have been the intention of the editor who first undertook to prepare it for the press, to disguise - by assuming the masculine style in the Journal, and substituting the feigned for the real sex of the personage addressed in the Letters - the evident fact of the former having been written by a female, and of the latter being communications to one of the same sex. The reader, by being made aware of this circumstance, will be the less surprised at the other discrepancies which occur, with regard to dates; some of the Letters being brought i at periods quite at variance with the dates of the Journal.’

The author herself begins: ‘Courts are strange, mysterious places; those who pretend most to despise them covet being within their precincts - those who once obtain an entrance there generally lament their fate, and yet, somehow or other, they cannot break their chains. I believe, nevertheless, that it is all one whether these circles of society, which stand apart from the rest of the world, exist under one form of government, or under another; whether under Emperors, Kings, Protectors or Consuls; they may vary as to modes and designations, but courts are courts still, from the earliest times even to these days. Intrigues, jealousies, heart-burnings, lies, dissimulation, thrive in them as mushrooms in a hot-bed. Notwithstanding, they are necessary evils, and they afford a great school both for the heart and head. It is utterly impossible, so long as the world exists, that similar societies should not exist also; and one may as well declaim against every other defect attendant upon humanity, and endeavour to extirpate crime from the world, as pretend to put down courts and their concomitant evils.’

December 1810
‘Lady M_ C_ called upon me by appointment; we went together to Her Royal Highness the Duchess of B_k. She thought more of me than she had ever done before, because I was on the road to royal favour, she herself being in her own estimation an engrafted sprig of royalty. We rumbled in her old tub all the way to New-street, Spring Gardens, much to the discomfiture of my bones; for if ever the vehicle had springs, time had stiffened their joints as completely as it has done those of its soi-disant royal mistress. Lady M_ C_ was grandly gracious, and gave me dissertations on etiquette, such as it existed in her young days, till we reached our destination. We were ushered into the dirtiest room I ever beheld, empty, and devoid of comfort. A few filthy lamps, stood on a sideboard - common chairs were placed around very dingy walls - and in the middle of this empty space, sat the old Duchess, a melancholy specimen of decayed royalty. There is much goodness in her countenance, and a candour and sincerity in her manner, and even in her abrupt and rough conversation, which is invaluable in a person of her rank, whose life must necessarily have been passed in the society of those whose very essence is deceit. Her former friendship, for friends very dear to me, of whom she spoke in terms of respect and love, gave an interest to the visit which it could not otherwise have had. I sat, therefore, patiently listening to Lady M_ C_ and Her Royal Highness, who talked of lords and ladies of the last century, and wondered at those of the present, and passed trippingly over the peccadillos of their own contemporaries, to vent all their moral indignation upon those of mine.

Old Mr L_ne was announced: poor man, what did he get by his attendance on royalty? the ill will of all parties. He knows many things which, if told, would set London on fire. Soon after his entrance, Lady M_ C_ arose, and, kicking her train behind her, backed out of the room in capital style. How the heart dilates or closes in the presence of different persons! It must surely be very unwholesome to be with those in whose society the latter is the case.

Went to Kensington - a great ball - every body of the highest fashion - Dukes of Portland and Beaufort, Earl Harrowby, &c. &c. As I always wished the royal hostess well, I was glad to observe that the company then frequenting the palace were of the best. I sat down by some old friends, and felt that to be near them was a comfort, surrounded as I was by persons for whom I cared not, and who cared not for me; but the Princess beckoned to me, and taking my arm, leant upon it, parading me around the apartments. The inner room was set out with refreshments, and a profusion of gold plate - which, by the way, in after times I never saw: was it taken away, or was it otherwise disposed of? I know not. Sofas were placed around the tables, and the whole thing was well managed.

Her Royal Highness wished the company to come into this banquetting room; but, either out of respect, and not knowing whether they ought to do so or not, or because they preferred the outer room, no one would come in, except Lady O_d, Lord H Fitzgerald, and Lord G_r, who was forcibly seized upon by Lady _d. Altogether, in my quality of looker-on, I could not but think that lady was no honour to society; and it was only surprising to remark in her instance, as well as in that of many others, how well impudence succeeds, even with the mild and the noble, who are often subdued by its arrogant assumption of command.

The Princess complained of the weight of some jewels she wore in her head, and said they gave her the head-ache; then turning to a person who was evidently a favourite, asked, “May I not take them off now that the first parade is over?” He replied in his own doucereux voice, “Your Royal Highness is the best judge; but, now that you have shown off the magnificence of the ornament, I think it would be cruel that you should condemn yourself to suffer by wearing it longer. In my opinion you will be just as handsome wiliiout it.”

I was convinced from the manner in which these words were spoken, that that man loved her. Poor soul! of all those on whom she conferred benefits, I think he was the only man or woman who could be said to have loved her, - and he ought not to have done so.

I dined again at Kensington. There were assembled a company of the very first persons of the realm. I was glad to see that what had been told me of low company, was not true.’

9 December 1810
‘This day, I found Her Royal Highness sitting for her picture. She received me with her usual graciousness of manner, and desired me to “come and sit,” - her phrase for feeling comfortable and at one’s ease. She informed me that Mr S_, the painter, engaged upon the picture, was only altering the costume of a portrait taken many years back, which she said was by no means doing his talent justice. Certainly the picture was frightful, and I have often regretted that I never saw a tolerable likeness painted of her. Although during the last years of her life she was bloated and disfigured by sorrow, and by the life she led, the Princess was in her early youth a pretty woman; fine light hair - very delicately formed features, and a fine complexion - quick, glancing, penetrating eyes, long cut, and rather sunk in the head, which gave them much expression - and a remarkably delicately formed mouth; but her head was always too large for her body, and her neck too short; and latterly, her whole figure was like a ball, and her countenance became hardened, and an expression of defiance and boldness took possession of it, that was very unpleasant. Nevertheless, when she chose to assume it, she had a very noble air, and I have seen her on more than one occasion, put on a dignified carriage, which became her much more than the affectation of girlishness which she generally preferred.’

Notes to myself

‘I will be what I will be - and I am now what I am. Here is where I will devote my energy. My power is with me, not with tomorrow.’ So wrote Hugh Prather, who has just died, in his so-called diary, published as Notes to Myself some 40 years ago. The book, which has now sold over 5 million copies, is said to have inspired many to keep similar diaries.

Prather was born in early 1938 in Dallas, Texas, into a fairly oddball family - his father married four times, and his mother three times, providing him with a host of disfunctional step-parents, including one who was a murderer, and another who was an embezzler! Prather studied English at Southern Methodist University before doing some graduate work in psychology at University of Texas.

After his first marriage ended in divorce (with one child), Prather married, in 1965, Gayle Halligan with whom he had two further children. When, as Prather says, the flower children lost their way, and the ideal that all people should be allowed to do their own thing ‘deteriorated into angry, judgemental riots’, he and Gayle took a job on a ranch in Colorado, where Prather cleaned out Beaver dams and Gayle cleaned cabins.

Having been an aspiring poet and writer for several years, there, on the ranch, he decided to collect together the notes from what he called his diary - existential musings - and send them off to a small publisher. It was a life-changing decision. Real People Press, a husband and wife team that had only published three other books, decided to gamble on Prather’s journal calling it Notes to Myself. It soon became a word-of-mouth success, and before long The New York Times was calling Prather ‘an American Khalil Gibran’. Bantam published a 20th anniversary edition in 1990, which is still in print, and the book has to date sold over 5 million copies.

Thereafter, Prather wrote many other, what are now called, self-help books, often collaborating with his wife: The Little Book of Letting Go, How to Live in the World and Still Be Happy, I Will Never Leave You: How Couples Can Achieve The Power Of Lasting Love, and so on. The couple also ran relationship seminars, and did relationship counselling. For a while they ran The Dispensable Church, in Santa Fe, combining elements of various religions; and later Prather became a lay minister for a United Methodist church. Prather died on 15 November, in a hot tub and from a heart attack, according to his wife.

There is not very much biographical information on the internet about Prather: Wikipedia’s article is all too brief, but The New York Times has an informative obituary (as do other US newspaper). He is not much remembered in the UK, where no newspaper seems to have afforded him an obituary.

Notes to Myself has been labelled a diary or journal, and may well have inspired many to keep diaries. The Washington Post says ‘thousands of people became diarists and started examining their own lives after Mr Prather’s public introspection’. However, it is clearly not a diary in the usual sense of the word, there are no dates attached to any of the entries, nor are any of the entries at all about Prather’s daily life, instead they are all aphoristic (to borrow the descriptive adjective from The New York Times).

Brief extracts from Notes to Myself and other Prather books can be found on quotation websites, such as Famous Quotes and Authors.

‘Another day to listen and love and walk and glory. I am here for another day. I think of those who aren’t.’

‘When I get to where I can enjoy just lying on the rug picking up lint balls, I will no longer be too ambitious.’

‘I'm holding this cat in my arms so it can sleep, and what more is there.’

However, some of Notes to Myself can be browsed at Googlebooks.

Prather says, in his introduction to the 20th anniversary edition: ‘Notes to Myself is the journal of a young man whose personality is yet unformed and whose approach is yet untested. I was plagued with questions of career, sexual expression, feelings of inadequacy, and especially a longing to know oneness with Gayle and all others. . . Notes to Myself was essentially a stack of yellow sheets (which I called my diary) where I went to sort things out, where I put down my pains and problems, and my very deep longing to break through to some truth.’

Here are two further extracts from the book.

‘My prayer is: I will be what I will be, I will do what I will do.

All I want to do, need to to, is stay in rhythm with myself. All I want is to do what I do and not try to do what I don’t do. Just do what I do. Just keep pace with myself. Just be what I will be.

I will be what I will be - and I am now what I am. Here is where I will devote my energy. My power is with me, not with tomorrow. I will work in rhythm with myself, not what what I “should” be. And to work in rhythm with myself I must stay deeply connected to myself. Tomorrow is shallow, but today is as deep as truth.

God revealed his name to Moses, and it was I AM WHAT I AM.’

***

‘There is a part of me that wants to write, a part that wants to theorize, a part that wants to sculpt, a part that wants to teach. . . To force myself into a single role, to decide to be just one thing in life, would kill off large parts of me.

My career will form behind me. All I can do is let this day come to me in peace. All I can do is take the step before me now, and not fear repeating an effort or making a new one.’

I have been indolent

‘This is the second day when I have been indolent and failed to carry out all that I had set myself. Why so? I do not know. However, I must not despair: I will force myself to be active.’ This is the great Russian writer, Leo Tolstoy, who died a century ago today. Though best known for his novels, such as War and Peace and Anna Karenina, he was a diarist of some distinction too. His earliest diary entries reveal a very self-analytical man, intent on pressing himself to be productive, and chastising himself when failing in his endeavours - even, for example, about the very act of writing a diary.

Tolstoy was born at Yasnya Polyana, in Tula Province, Russia, in 1828. The youngest of four sons, he was orphaned at the age of nine and subsequently brought up by one aunt and then another, both of whom lived in high society. He was educated by tutors, and then at Kazan University, although he dropped out to join his brother in the army. He served as a second lieutenant during the Crimean War, and the experience led not only to the publication of his Sevastapol Sketches but to a lifelong belief in pacifism.

After leaving the army in 1856, Tolstoy spent some time in St Petersburg, where he became increasingly interested in education. He also travelled to Europe, visiting schools in France and Germany for example. And then, on his return to Yasnya Polyana, he set up a progressive school for peasant children. In 1862, he married Sofia Andreyevna Bers who was only 18. Subsequently, Tolstoy seems to have given up his educational activities to concentrate on family life (he had a very large family) and his writing.

Tostoy’s great novels - War and Peace and Anna Karenina - were written in the 1860s and 1870s respectively. In 1876, Tolstoy underwent a spiritual conversion; and issues of social reform then underpinned his later plays and novels. The conversion also affected the way of his life. He dressed in homespun clothes, ate only vegetables, renounced alcohol and tobacco, and did manual work. He became increasingly difficult and unhappy, and, in the last days of his life, left home in the middle of winter in search of a simpler life, only to die at a railway station - 100 years ago today on 20 November 1910. Further biographical information can be found at Encyclopaedia Britannica, Wikipedia or Encyclopedia.com. The Diary Junction has various diary-related links.

Diaries were a way of life for Tolstoy, and indeed for his family. Jay Parini, writing recently for The Guardian, about a new edition of Sofia Tolstoy’s diaries, makes this modern analogy: ‘For Leo Tolstoy and his extended household, diaries were an early version of Facebook. Everyone had his or her own page, and most people were fanatical recorders of their own feelings. The great man himself kept voluminous diaries, making entries almost to the day of his death. His doctor, his secretary, his disciples, his children, and - most of all - his wife also kept journals. Of these, the greatest diarist of them all was Sofia, the Countess Tolstoy.’ Indeed, Parini makes a very similar comment for The Times, in an article about his novel, The Last Station, based on Tolstoy’s last days and sourced from the family’s diaries, and how it was finally released as a film earlier this year.

A first and early collection of Tolstoy’s diary entries - The Diaries of Leo Tolstoy - Youth 1847-1852 were translated by C J Hogarth and A Sirnis and published by J M Dent (London) and E P Dutton (New York) in 1917. And, in the same year, Knopf (New York) published The Journal of Leo Tolstoi (1895-1899). It was not until the 1980s, that Athlone Press published a more definitive edition in two volumes - Tolstoy’s Diaries - edited and translated by R F Christian. The first volume covered the years 1847-1894, and volume two the years 1895-1910. They have recently been re-issued by Faber Finds.

Here, though, are several extracts from the very beginning of the early diaries, when Tolstoy was still in his young 20s. (In the extracts about his planning for the following day, the dates seem to be a bit mixed up, but the sense of his intent is clear, as is his disappointment at being so indolent.)

1850
June 14th, 1850, Yasnaya Polyana.‘Again I betake myself to my diary - again, and with fresh ardour and a fresh purpose. But for the what-th time ? I do not remember. Nevertheless, even if I cast it aside again, a diary will be a pleasant occupation, and agreeable in the re-reading, even as are former diaries.

So many thoughts enter my head, and some of them appear very remarkable; they need but to be scrutinized to issue as nonsense. A few, however, are sensible, and it is for their sake that a diary is required, since a diary enables one to judge of oneself.

Also the fact that I find it necessary to determine my occupations beforehand renders a diary additionally indispensable. Indeed, I should like to acquire a habit of predetermining my form of life not merely for a day, but for a year, several years, the whole of the rest of my existence. This, however, will be too difficult for me, almost impossible. Nevertheless I will make the attempt - at first for a day in advance, then for two. In fact, as many days as I may remain loyal to my resolutions, for so many days will I plan beforehand.

By resolutions I mean, not moral rules independent of time and place, rules which never change and which I compile separately, but resolutions temporal and local, rules as to where and for how long I will abide, and when and wherewithal I will employ myself.

There may arise occasions when these resolutions may need to be altered; but if so, I will permit myself to make deviations only in accordance with rule, and, on all such occasions, explain their causes in this diary.

For June 15th. From 9 to 10, bathing and a walk; from 10 to 12, music; from 6 to 8, letters; from 8 to 10, estate affairs and office.

At times the three years past which I have spent so loosely seem to me engaging, poetical, and, to a certain extent, useful: wherefore I will try frankly, and in as much detail as possible, to recall and record them. This will constitute a third purpose for a diary.’

15 June 1850
‘Yesterday I carried out all that I had set myself.

For June 15th. From 4.30 to 6, out in the fields, estate affairs, and bathing; from 6 to 8, continuation of my diary; from 8 to 10, a method of music; from 10 to 12, the piano; from 12 to 6, luncheon, a rest, and dinner; from 6 to 8, rules and reading; from 8 to 10, a bath and estate affairs.’

16 June 1850
‘Yesterday I carried out badly what I had set myself; but why I will explain later. For June 16th. From 5.30 to 7, to bathe and be afield; 7-10, the diary; 10-12, play; 12-6, luncheon, a rest and dinner; 6-8, write on music; from 8 to 10, estate management.

For June 16th. From 5.30 to 7, to bathe and be afield; 7-10, the diary; 10-12, play; 12-6, luncheon, a rest and dinner; 6-8, write on music; from 8 to 10, estate management.’

17 June 1850
‘Rising at 8 o’clock, I did nothing until 10. From 10 to 12 I read and posted my diary; from 12 to 6 I had luncheon and a rest - then reflected on music, and dined; 6-8, music; 8-10, estate affairs. This is the second day when I have been indolent and failed to carry out all that I had set myself. Why so? I do not know. However, I must not despair: I will force myself to be active. Yesterday, in addition to leaving undone what I had set myself, I betrayed my rule.

I have noticed that when I am in an apathetic frame of mind a philosophical work never fails to rouse me to activity. At the moment I am reading Montesquieu. I think that I grow indolent because I have undertaken too much, and keep feeling that I cannot advance from one occupation to another so long as the first one be undone. Yet, not to excuse myself on the score of having omitted to frame a system, I will enter in my diary a few general rules, with a few relating to music and estate management. One of my general rules: That which one has set oneself to do, one should not relinquish on the ground of absence of mindlor distraction, hut, on the contrary, take in hand for the sake of appearances. Thoughts will then result. For example, if one shall have planned to write out rules, one should take one’s notebook, sit down to the table, and not rise thence till one has both begun and finished one’s task.’

8 December 1850
‘Moscow. I kept this diary only for five days. Now it is five months since last I took it into my hands!

However, let me try to remember what I have done meanwhile, and why I evidently wearied of my then pursuits. During the past period a quiet life in the country has wrought in me a great revolution : my old follies, my old need to interest myself in affairs, have shed their fruit, and I have ceased to frame castles in Spain, and plans which no human capacity could execute. Above all - and it is a conviction most favourable to me - stands the fact that I no longer place reliance upon my own judgment alone, I no longer despise the forms generally accepted of mankind. There was a time when everything ordinary seemed to me unworthy of my notice : whereas now I accept as good and true but few convictions which I have not seen applied and practised by many. It is strange that I should have despised that which constitutes man’s greatest asset, his power of comprehending the convictions of others, and observing in practical execution those convictions! And it is strange that I should have given rein to my judgment without in the least verifying or applying that judgment! In a word, and to put it very simply, I have now come to my senses, I am grown a little older.’