Thomas Edison’s diary

Thomas Edison, one of the most famous and prolific inventors of all time, died 80 years ago today. The distribution of electricity and the incandescent light bulb, the phonograph, and the motion picture camera are all counted among his contributions to, what is often called, ‘modern life’. Although not known as a diarist, he did - for a few days in the summer of 1885 - keep a journal; and this document is considered to be the only document he left behind with thoughts and feelings of a personal nature.

Edison was born in Milan, Ohio, in 1847, but the family moved to Port Huron, Michigan, when he was seven, where he spent the rest of his childhood. At some point, he suffered from a disease which left him hard of hearing for the rest of his life. While still a young teenager, he sold sweets and newspapers on trains, and then became a roving telegraph operator. In 1868, he was employed as a night operator for Western Union; and, by the following year, he had moved to New York City, where, in his spare time, he worked on inventions. After repairing the telegraphic gold price indicator for Western Union, it then commissioned him to improve the stock ticker, which led to the Edison Universal Stock Printer.

In 1871, Edison married Mary Stilwell, only 16 at the time, and they had three children, before she died in 1884. With the proceeds from the sale of his patents to Western Union, he set up his own company, manufacturing stock tickers and printing telegraphs. By 1876, though, he had sold the company so as to have funds to build an industrial research laboratory, the first of its kind, at Menlo Park, New Jersey.

The following year Edison invented the phonograph, the first machine that could record the sound of someone’s voice and play it back. And the year after that, he began work on the idea of a light bulb, and he launched the Edison Electric Light Company. He demonstrated his carbon filament lamp in 1879. By the mid-1880s, Menlo Park had expanded to occupy two city blocks, and Edison and his team had invented, among other things, a system for electricity distribution and a carbon microphone. After the death of Mary, Edison met and married Mina Miller (with whom he would have three more children) and moved to Llewellyn Park in West Orange. Here he built a new laboratory, far larger than the facility at Menlo Park.

Edison was always much engaged with commercialising his products. Chief among these was electricity and its delivery - by 1887, there were well over 100 Edison power stations delivering direct current (DC) electricity. But he also became increasingly engaged in a very public battle with George Westinghouse who was promoting the distribution of alternating current (AC), which was more efficient to distribute. Edison continued working until his death on 18 October 1931. Among many other achievements, his organisation made major developments with the phonograph, x-rays, storage batteries, and motion pictures. Further information is available from The Library of Congress, ThomasEdison.com, and The Thomas Edison Papers.

Edison is not known to have kept a diary through his life, but for one short period, in July 1885, he did write one - indeed, this manuscript is the only known volume kept by him specifically to record thoughts and feelings of a personal nature. It includes observations on art, literature, and religion, along with comments about his dreams, his health, and his feelings toward his future wife, Mina Miller. It was first edited by Dagobert Runes and published by the Philosophical Library, New York, in 1948, as The Diary and Sundry observations of T A Edison. In 1971, The Chatham Press published The Diary of Thomas A Edison with an introduction By Kathleen L McGuirk.

Photographs of the diary’s pages (46 images) can be viewed online at The Thomas Edison Papers website (which currently has 175,000 of Edison’s papers digitalised), hosted by Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey; and the transcribed text can be read at the Ayn Rand Institute website. Here is one full day’s entry.

19 July 1885
‘Slept as sound as a bug in a barrel of morphine. Donned a boiled and starched emblem of respectability. Eat food for breakfast. Weather delightful. Canary seed orchestra started up with same old tune, ancestor of this bird sang the self same tune 6,000 years ago to Adam down on the Euphrates, way back when Abel got a situation as the first angel. Read Sunday Herald, learned of John Roach’s failure - am sorry - he has been pursued with great malignity by newspapers and others, from ignorance I think. Americans ought to be proud of Roach, who started in life as a day laborer and became giant of industry and the greatest shipbuilder in the United States, employing thousands of men and feeding innumerable families. What has he now for this 40 years of incessant work and worry. People who hound such men as these I would invent a special Hades, I would stricken them with the chronic sciatic neuralgia and cause them to wander forever stark naked within the arctic circle.

Saw in same paper account of base ball match. This struck me as something unusual. Read more about that immeasurable immensity of tact and beauty Madame Recamier. I would like to see such a woman. Nature seems to be running her factory on another style of goods nowdays and won’t switch back until long after I’m baldheaded. Damon went out to assist the tide in. Daisy told me something about a man who kept livery stable in Venice. In afternoon went out in yacht. On first trip all our folks, and lot of smaller people, sailed around for an hour. Returned and landed the abbreviated people. Started for Cottage Park where we took on board the charming Mrs Roberts brevet Recamier, and a large lady friend whose name has twice got up and jumped out of my mind. Then sailed away for Rock buoy, and for some occult reason Damon didn’t stop and change his mind but headed for Liverpool. Went out two miles in ocean, undulations threatened to disturb the stability of the dinner of divers persons, returned at 7 p.m. Then Damon took out a boat load of slaves of the kitchen.

Damon and I after his return study plans for our Floridian bower in the lowlands of the peninsular Eden, within that charmed zone of beauty, where wafted from the table lands of the Oronoco and the dark Carib sea, perfumed zephyrs forever kiss the gorgeous flora. Rats! Damon took the plans to Boston to place them into the hands of an archetectualist to be reduced to a paper reality. Damon promised to ascertain probable cost chartering schooner to plough the Spanish main loaded with our hen coops. Dot came in and gave us a lot of girlish philosophy which amused us greatly. Oh dear, this celestial mud ball has made another revolution and no photograph yet received from the Chataquain Paragon of Perfection. How much longer will Hope dance on my intellect? Miss Igoe told me of a picture she had taken on a rock at Panama NY. There were several others in the group, interpolated so as to dilute the effect of Mina’s beauty. As she stated the picture was taken on a rock I immediately brought my scientific imagination to work to ascertain how the artist could have flowed collodion over a rock and put so many people inside his camera. Miss Igoe kindly corrected her explanation by stating that a picture was taken by a camera of a group on a rock. Thus my mind was brought back from a suspicion of her verbal integrity to a belief in the honesty of her narrative.

After supper Mrs G, Daisy and Louise with myself as an incidental appendage walked over to the town of Ocean Spray, went into a drug store and bought some alleged candy, asked the gilded youth with the usual vacuous expression, if he had any nitric peroxide, he gave a wild stare of incomhensability. Then I simplified the name to nitric acid, which I hoped was within the scope of his understanding. A faint gleam of intelligence crept over his face whereupon he went into another room from which he returned with the remark that he didn’t keep nitric acid. Fancy a drug store without nitric acid. A drug store nowdays seems to consist of a frontage of red, blue and green demijohns, a soda fountain, case with candy and toothbrushes, a lot of almost empty bottles with death and stomachatic destruction written in Latin on them, all in charge of a young man with a hatchet shaped head, hair laid out by a civil engineer, and a blank stare of mediocrity on his face that by comparison would cause a gum indian in the Eden Musée [to] look intellectual. On our return I carried the terrealbian gum drops.

Moon was shining brightly. Girls called my attention several times to beauty of the light from said moon shining upon the waters, couldn’t appreciate it, was so busy taking a mental triangleation of the moon, the two sides of said triangle meeting the base line of the earth at Woodside and Akron Ohio. Miss Igoe told us about her love of ancient literature, how she loved to read Latin, but couldn’t. I told her I was so fond of Greek that I always rushed for the comedies of Aristophanes to read whenever I had the jumping toothache. Bed - Mina, morning.’

Farington on Dance

Nathaniel Dance Holland, a painter of some distinction and a founder member of the Royal Academy, died 200 years ago today. Although he didn’t keep a diary himself, he is mentioned many times in Joseph Farington’s diary, one of the most important sources of historical information about the London art world in the period.

The third son of architect George Dance the Elder, Nathaniel was born in 1735. He studied art under Francis Hayman, a painter and illustrator, and then, in 1754, went to live in Italy, where he developed a considerable reputation as a portrait painter. In 1760, he was commissioned to paint four versions of a now famous conversation piece (an informal group portrait) in front of the Colosseum. Soon after, he was also commissioned for a full-length portrait of Edward, Duke of York.

On his return to England in 1766, Dance continued working as a successful portrait painter. With Hayman and his architect brother George Dance the Younger, he was one of the founder members of the Royal Academy in 1768. Among his notable portraits were those of King George III, Captain James Cook and actor David Garrick.

In 1773, both Dance and Thomas Gainsborough refused to exhibit at the Royal Academy after a disagreement with the president, Sir Joshua Reynolds, but Dance returned to the Academy exhibition in 1774, showing Orpheus Lamenting the Loss of Eurydice, and, in 1776, The Death of Mark Anthony. In 1782 he moved to Cranbury Park, Hampshire, the home of a widow, Mrs Harriet Dummer, who he married the following year.

Dance resigned from the Royal Academy in 1790, the year of his election to Parliament, but he did continue to exhibit as an amateur. He was made a baronet in 1800, and the same year took the name Holland by royal decree. He died on 15 October 1811. A little further information is available at Wikipedia, though the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (which requires login) has a much better article.

There is no evidence that Dance kept a diary. However, Joseph Farington mentions Dance in his diary quite often. Farington was born in 1747 in Leigh, Lancashire, the second of seven sons of the local vicar. After studying in Manchester, he went to train with Richard Wilson in London and won several prizes, awarded by the Society of Artists, for landscape drawings. He joined the Royal Academy when it was founded, and remained an active member for most of his life. Although he produced some important artistic books - Views of the Lakes of Cumberland and Westmorland and History of the River Thames - he is much better remembered for his diary, with its vivid portrayals of the London art scene in the late 18th century and early 19th century. Farington’s diary was first published by Hutchinson in the 1920s, in four volumes, and these are all freely available at Internet Archive.

Here are a few entries about Nathaniel Dance from Farington’s diary.

11 October 1793 ‘The Prince of Wales has desired N[athaniel] Dance to paint his portrait, which has much embarrassed the latter, who is very unwilling to do it.’

28 January 1794
‘Went this morning with G. Dance to N. Dances in Mortimer Street. The landscape the latter has painted is very ably executed, and very clear. He remarked on the custom of painters observing the foreground objects in masses of brown. His parts in shade are as much made out as those in light.’

18 March 1794
‘Dance recommended the painting clear skies with Ultramarine and White alone and then to use Ivory Black, with White for the cloud tints; adding in some cases a little vermilion or Naples yellow. He said Sir Joshua Reynolds recommended the using Black for his cloud tint, which he said would always be in harmony with the Blue and White.’

30 April 1794
‘News to-day of a victory over the French, near Cambray. The general opinion is that Lawrence this year is inferior to Hoppner. Jones and Hearne think the handling in Dances landscape poor and thorny: that the colouring has too much sameness: and that the greens are not of a true colour. Jones particularly objected to it. They both said how much the subject would gain by being differently coloured.’

26 May 1796
‘N, Dance I met & Sir George Beaumont joined us. Dance told us He had this day paid the Duke of Dorset £4,000 for his seat in the new parliament, and a treat there [East Grinstead] cost him £50 more. I asked him [how] He wd. be circumstanced if a new parliament shd. be called in a year or two. He said He had no agreement, it was all upon honor; but He should think himself very ill used, if required to pay again at the end of so short a time.’

21 April 1807
‘At Eleven o’Clock I called on Sir Nathaniel Holland [Dance had changed his name by this time to Dance-Holland]. We talked of the sale of Barry’s pictures. He said Barry’s Birth of Pandora was a very incompetent attempt to do something great. It was deficient both in design, in form, & in colouring. Jupiter was a Huge figure in the upper parts but the lower limbs were so small in proportion that such a figure could not stand. It was the case with several other figures in that picture; and many of the limbs appeared to have been executed in imitation of parts which He had looked at in the antique, but these limbs were not of the same character with the other parts of the figure to which He had attached them. What attempt there was at colouring was as bad as possible, He seemed to have no sense of it. On the whole He sd. Barry Had talked & bullied people into a belief of His being a great artist. He said His Venus rising from the Sea was His best performance. In that He had the Venus of Medicis in his eye, & made something of it, but He had spoilt the picture by rubbing a brick dust colour over the upper part of the figure.

He spoke of the Bacchus & Ariadne by Titian belonging to Lord Kinnaird. He said it was impossible that Titian could have left the Sky in the state it is, almost pure Ultramarine, like a Lapis Lazuli stone, while another part of the sky is quite Hot. He did not like the figure of Bacchus leaping from His Car, nor that of Ariadne. In some parts there is fine colour, but on the whole it is a picture more fit for an Artist to examine for the purpose of studying what is good in it, than desireable to hang up in a room for general admiration. He thought the picture had been in the hands of bungling picture menders.

He mentioned Wilkie with great approbation, saying that His merit was of the right sort, so true in all respects.

He complained of not having a good painting room at His House in the Country. He had no light good to paint by but what faced the South & He had been much embarassed by it.’

6 June 1807
‘[George] Dance I dined with. We dined a little before 5 and had Port, Madeira, & Red Champaigne. Drinking was spoken of. Dance told me I knew a person who never in his life was intoxicated; it was Sir Nathl. Holland, His Brother. He added that Sir Nathl. always objected to wine; and, when alone, He believed did not drink any; but in company passes the bottle so as to keep up an appearance of drinking some wine. Sir Nathl. has a strong prejudice against wine & thinks it a kind of poison. To Tea He has no objection.’

2 November 1807
‘Sir Nathl. is said to posess £24,000 a year, but does not expend more than £5,000 a year. He lives very handsomely however, both in His House & equipage; Has a man Cook, & when He gives dinners they are sumptuous. He is extremely fond of a young girl, the daughter of His Butler, and just emerging from Childhood. She sits at His table while Her father waits at it . . . and is taken by them [Sir Nathaniel & Lady Holland] when they pay visits, which causes some difficulty in others to know how to receive her. He makes sketches & occasionally paints, but complained of His eyes when speaking to Owen. Though He is considered a singular man in His manner, He is on the whole very well liked by the neighbouring gentry.’

The Broncho Buster

Frederic Remington, a leading figure in American art of the Wild West, was born a century and a half ago today. His paintings and sculptures - such as The Broncho Buster - remain much sought after today. Thanks to a bequest by his wife, Eva, the Frederic Remington Art Museum, located in Ogdensburg, New York, has a large collection of Remington art and artefacts, including his (somewhat scanty) diaries.

Remington was an only child, born on 4 October 1861 in Canton, New York. His father was a colonel in the Civil War, and a newspaper editor. The family moved to Ogdensburg when Ferederic was eleven. Even at an early age, he was noted for drawing soldiers and cowboys. He attended art school at Yale, but left to look after his ailing father who died when only 46.

Thereafter, Remington tried various jobs but devoted himself primarily to illustration. He married Eva Caten in 1884. By this time, demand for his Western illustrations from Harper’s Weekly and other New York magazines had begun to take off. He held his first one-man show in 1890 at the American Art Galleries, and, in the same year, moved to live in New Rochelle. Travelling widely, he spent a lot of time west of the Mississippi River, drawing aspects of the frontier, and loving the life.

Remington’s pictures, Wikipedia says, ‘brought visual information to the eastern public accompanying both factual accounts and fiction of the Old West’. He was praised and trusted for the accuracy of detail in his work. In 1888, two of his paintings were used for US stamps; his first book, Pony Tracks, was published in 1895, and others followed, not least an illustrated novel The Way of an Indian. Around this time, he also branched out into sculpture, producing some now-famous works, such as The Broncho Buster and Big Cowboy.

Remington briefly interrupted his work on Western subjects when, in 1898, he went to Cuba to act as a war correspondent and illustrator during the Spanish Civil War. He came back disillusioned by the realities of war. Near the end of his life, he moved to Ridgefield, Connecticut, but he was very obese by this time, and ill-health dogged him until his death in 1909. Further biographical information can be found at the Frederic Remington Art Museum website, and PBS American Masters.

The Frederic Remington Art Museum, located in Ogdensburg, says ‘the depth and breadth’ of its Remington holdings is ‘unmatched’. The museum is located in a property lived in by Eva Remington (though not Frederic) towards the end of her life; and its holding - including Frederic Remington’s diaries - originated through a bequest by Eva on her death in 1918. It does not appear that the diaries have been published, though authors have used them as source material for research, and a few extracts can be found on the Museum’s website.

2 April 1907
‘Left New York on Central with Henry Smith on Limited 3:30 - for south western trip.’

5 April 1907
‘Got out a Tucumcari N, Mexico. 6:00 AM country green as a leek drove out but country uninteresting slept at hotel all afternoon. Local train late. Went to bed woked up at midnight, no train, back to bed . . .’

6 April 1907
‘Out of here at 5o’c. Got to El Paso at 6. couldn’t get room at Sheldon and barely got room at St Regis. . . First bath in a week . . .’

7 April 1907
‘Tired and loafed - short walk wondering when we will go or what we will do.’

9 April 1907 ‘Came up 900 ft. to Cloudcroft all pines and not very paintable. Horrible dinner. Something must be done . . .’

10 April 1907
‘Sketched all day - Mountain and horses beautiful weather fine sunsets on pine tress. Picture ‘The dead cow boy and outlaw horse’ . . . Henry wants to go Grand Canyon.’

11 April 1907
‘We can no longer stand the altitudes. My heart nearly stopped when I took a bath this morning. We are overcome by altitude. Went down to Alamagordo - engineer pulled the air on us and nearly killed half dozen people in caboose by shock. I sketched bluffs at sunset and had terrible ride home across irrigating ditches.’

23 April 1907
‘Sketched Rio Grand river - wonderful red color. Lunched with Terry. . . Left El Paso at night met army officer Powell at station.’

15 April 1907
‘Got to Canyon. El Dover Hotel. Sketched at evening. Canyon bigger than I was led to expect by descriptions or pictures. Met Artist A Keer.’

In 1996, the museum also acquired Eva’s diaries. It says: ‘[These] raise quite a few questions about the composition of our holdings. For instance, on Friday, June 27th, 1913, she writes, “In the P.M. I washed Frederic’s paintings and varnished them and made a great improvement.” Museums and private collectors are now working to remove such old yellow varnish from Remington’s paintings. On Thursday, March 18th, 1915, she records, “Went over things in Frederic’s desk & burned a lot of photos, etc.” We may never know what she deleted from the historic record, or, just as compelling - why she did it. Clearly our holdings were not preserved in a time capsule before they came to us, and sometimes not after they were here.’

Violent, absurd and mad

Lady Mary Coke, a friend of the politician and historian, Horace Walpole, died two centuries ago today. She seems to have been a society woman of some character, but little achievement. She is remembered today partly because of her (rather dull) diary, and partly because of her stormy friendship with Walpole, who called her violent and mad.

Mary was born in 1727, the fifth and youngest daughter of John Campbell, Duke of Argyll, and his second wife, Jane who was a maid of honour to Queen Anne and Caroline. She married Edward, Viscount Coke, in 1747. However, the marriage was strained from the start, and before long was the matter of court proceedings. She moved to live with her mother at Sudbrook, Surrey; but, in any case, her husband died shortly after, when she was only 26.

With a legacy from her father, Lady Mary was able to play a full, if increasingly odd, part in society, travelling frequently in Europe. In the early 1770s, she became involved with the court of Empress Maria Theresa in Vienna; but, on a third visit, she fell out of favour with the Empress, and thereafter felt persecuted by her. Lady Mary had a long friendship with Horace Walpole, who dedicated The Castle of Otranto to her; but he called her ‘violent, absurd and mad’ (according to Ponsonby - see below). She died on 30 September 1811. Wikipedia has further biographical information.

Much of what we know of Lady Mary today comes from her voluminous diary, largely written in the form of letters to her sister Lady Strafford. This was first published privately (only 100 copies were printed) between 1889 and 1896 in four volumes by David Douglas in Edinburgh. These were reprinted in 1970 by Kingsmead Bookshops (see Amazon).

Arthur Ponsonby, the author of English Diaries (available at Internet Archive), says the journal is often silly and very dull. Jill Rubenstein, author of Lady Mary’s biography in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (login needed), says: ‘The journal ranges from banal descriptions of card games and weather to perceptive social observation and expressions of sincere affection, often closely and unselfconsciously juxtaposed. The personality which emerges from the whole combines elements of the mundane and the preposterous with the deeply sympathetic.’

The only extracts of Lady Mary’s diary that I can find online are thanks to Yale University Library (and concern Horace Walpole).

7 September 1767 ‘Mr Walpole called on me at five o’clock in very low spirits; he had received an account of his brother being dangerously ill, and Mr Conway had wrote him word of the dreadful accident the poor Duke of Grafton had had, of one of the horses of his chaise, as he was driving, treading upon a man, of which hurt he was since dead. He left me at six o’clock to go to some engagement.’

29 July 1770
‘We had two beaux besides Mr Walpole at Strawberry Hill, Lord Bristol and Mr Hervey. Lady Greenwich and Lady Sackville came from Sudbrook, Lady Jane Scott from town, and Lady Browne from Twickenham. ’Twas a terrible hot day. We had a great dinner very ill-dressed, yet Mr Walpole had sent for a cook on purpose, who certainly knew but little of his trade: he himself is, as you know, always agreeable and always makes his house so to his company. All went well till the evening, when Lady Blandford arrived, and very soon after the servants told Mr Walpole the Princess Amelia was coming: this put all in confusion. Lady Blandford desired to be shut up, but none of the company agreeing to be shut up with her, she was obliged to remain in the Gallery. I went down to meet the Princess: Lady Powis and Lady Harriot Varnon were with her. H.R.H. went over all the house: the Gallery last, as she did not care to disturb the company, and therefore did not stop to look at any of the pictures, desiring they would set down and not mind her. Those she passed by she spoke to, which were Lady Charlotte Edwine, Lady Greenwich, and Lord Bristol, but unluckily, not seeing Lady Jane Scott, she was not taken notice of, which displeased her very much, and though the Princess sent a message to her by me when she went away, all did not do: she would be offended. Lady Blandford was out of humour at being deprived of Mr Walpole’s company, so the party did not end so well as it promised. Things being in this situation Lady Greenwich called for her chaise, and as I was to lie at Sudbrook I followed her example.’

20 December 1768
‘The new opera, I am told, is extremely disliked. Mr Walpole says he will go to it no more. He made the Princess Amelia a present of his snuff-box with the picture of Harry the Fourth of France, who she was expressing her admiration of. As he had wore it in his pocket for above a year, I don’t think it was proper, at least I should have thrown out the snuff; however, it was very politely received and accepted.’

6 January 1769
‘Before he [Mr Walpole] came in, the Princess showed me the lines he had sent her engraved in the lid of the box; to which she had ordered to be added, that it was given her by the Honourable Horatio Walpole, son of that great Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, Earl of Orford. Nothing, I think, could be more polite to Mr Walpole, and he seemed to be of that opinion when she showed it him, only saying that he was quite ashamed of her goodness.’

25 April 1769
‘Mr Walpole called at my house, and approves of all I have done since he was here. He has given me a design for some frames to be placed over the doors in my book-room, and repeated to me the epilogue he made for Mrs Clive which she spoke last night on quitting the stage. ‘Tis like everything he has ever wrote, extremely pretty. Nobody has his genius. He gave me a play [The Mysterious Mother] of his own writing. I once heard him repeat some scenes that I thought very fine.’

27 April 1769
‘Lady Spencer has lost her little child. Mr Walpole laughed at me for saying I was concerned.’

14 May 1769 ‘I must not forget to mention that on Saturday evening Mr Walpole, who was one of the party, was both uncivil and ill-natured to me, and with no other provocation than saying what almost every other person agrees in that the French Ambassadress was very illbred. Mr Conway with his usual goodness took my part very warmly and seemed hurt at what Mr Walpole had said. As it was with an ill-natured intention, I own it surprised me, and I’m afraid I shall not soon forget it.’

10 January 1784
‘Sir Edward Walpole is dying; he has been declining some months but is now past all hopes of recovery. Mr Walpole will lose a place which Sir Edward held for him and though he has another which is very considerable, ’tis unpleasant to lose anything that one has had for any time. I called on him this morning but he could not see me.’

30 January 1785
‘I passed an hour with Mr Walpole this evening and was surprised to find him so much recovered though still weak; he told me he had a bad fall the day before by imprudently rising from his chair without his stick and hurt himself so much that he imagined it would bring the gout again but contrary to his expectations he had slept the whole night and was quite well in the morning.’

Kaempfer’s Japan

Today marks 360 years since the birth of the German doctor and naturalist, Engelbert Kaempfer. His fame rests on two books, both largely about Japan, where he stayed for two years during a period when the country was very much closed to foreigners. The British Library holds some of Kaempfer’s diaries, and one of his published books - History of Japan - contains several narratives for journeys which Kaempfer must have based on his diaries.

Kaempfer was born on 16 September 1651 at Lemgo, Germany, a small town in Westphalia, belonging to the Count of Lippe. His father was vicar of the Nicolai Cathedral at Lemgo. After studying medicine and natural sciences, he received his PhD in Poland, then travelled from there to Prussia, and to Sweden. In 1683, he became secretary to the Royal Swedish Ambassador Extraordinary on a special mission to Persia, where he stayed until 1685. He then spent three further years alone in the country, before sailing to Batavia (Jakarta, Indonesia).

In 1690 Kaempfer joined the Dutch East India Company as a physician, and he then journeyed to Japan, where the company had a trading post on the island of Deshima, near Nagasaki in southwest Japan. This was unique at the time, since the country was all but closed to foreigners (and had been for nearly a century) with only the Dutch allowed limited access: confined to the island, they were granted just one trading mission a year to Edo (present day Tokyo). Despite the restrictions, Kaempfer stayed for two years, learning much about Japan and the Japanese from a young man appointed as his assistant.

Kaempfer returned to Amsterdam in October 1693, and soon after was awarded a medical degree at the University of Leiden. Back in Lemgo, Count de Lippe appointed him his personal physician. In 1700, Kaempfer married and he had three children, all of whom died in their infancy. Kaempfer himself died in 1716. Further biographical information can be found at Wikipedia, the Soy Info Center, The Japan Times, and Encyclopædia Iranica.

Kaempfer is largely remembered today for two books he authored: Amoenitatum Exoticarum (Exotic Novelties) published in 1712, with descriptions of flora such as the soy bean, camelia and Ginkgo; and History of Japan, which was first published in an English translation (from the original manuscripts) in 1727. The latter work (which can be downloaded from Internet Archive) also contains biographical information about Kaempfer, and narrative accounts of his travels. The British Library acquired many of Kaempfer’s papers - including diaries - as part of the bequest of Sir Hans Sloane, a founder of the British Museum, who had purchased Kaempfer’s literary estate from his nephew in the 1720s.

As far as I know the diaries have not been published, but the travel narratives in History of Japan must have been based originally on diary material. David van Ooijen, a lute player, has some information about Klaempfer, another lute player, on his website, including a few diary-based extracts. These come from a new (1999) translation of History of Japan by Beatrice M Bodart-Bailey called Kaempfer’s Japan: Tokugawa Culture Observed.

‘An incredible number of people daily use the highways of Japan’s provinces, indeed, at certain times of the year they are as crowded as the streets of a populous European city. I have personally witnessed this on the Tōkaidō, described earlier, apparently the most important of the seven highways, having travelled this road four times. The reason for these crowds is partly the large population of the various provinces and partly that the Japanese travel more than other people. Here I will introduce the most memorable groups of travellers one meets daily on these roads.’

‘When on pilgrimage to Ise - which takes place throughout the year but especially in spring - people have to use a stretch of this great road, regardless of what province they come. So it is crowded with such travellers during the said seasons as people of both sexes, old and young, rich and poor, embark on this meritorious journey and act of devotion, attempting to the best of their ability to make their way on foot. […] There are also a number of slippery customers who pretend that they are on this pilgrimage, and as long as they are doing well spend most of the year on the road begging.’

‘Here and there one finds so-called junrei, that is, those who visit the thirty-three most important Kannon temples throughout the country. They drift around in twos or threes and at each house sing a pitiful Kannon tine; occasionally they also play a fiddle or zither not unlike the vagrants in Germany, but they do not approach travellers for alms.’

Henry Melchior Muhlenberg

Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, the patriarch of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, was born in Germany three centuries ago today. A fervently religious man, he kept meticulous diaries - documenting his pastoral acts, social interactions, and administrative duties - which are considered a ‘treasure trove for the genealogists’.

Muhlenberg was born on 6 September 1711 in Einbeck, Lower Saxony, Germany, and studied theology in Göttingen and Halle. He worked at various times with charity schools and orphanages. In 1739, he was ordained at Leipzig. In 1741, an application from congregations in Pennsylvania reached Halle requesting a pastor to take charge, and Hermann Francke, a Lutheran leader, chose Muhlenberg to go.

After a sojourn in London, Muhlenberg arrived in America in 1742, reaching Charleston on 23 September. In 1745 he married Anna Maria Weiser, the daughter of a colonial leader, Conrad Weiser, and the couple had eleven children, seven of whom reached adulthood.

Muhlenberg took charge of the congregation at Providence, in what is now Trappe, Pennsylvania, but also served congregations from Maryland to New York, working to manage less qualified pastors and launching new congregations among the settlers of the region. In 1748, he called together the first permanent Lutheran synod in America, and helped prepare a uniform liturgy. He was also instrumental in writing an ecclesiastical constitution, which most of the churches adopted in 1761.

Poor health forced him into limited activity and retirement, and he died at his home in Trappe, in 1787. More biographical information is available at Wikipedia, Christianity.com, Evangelical Lutheran Conference and Ministerium, and the American Philosophical Society.

An English version of Muhlenberg’s journals, translated by T G Tappert and J W Doberstein, was first published in three volumes by the Evangelical Lutheran Ministerium in the 1940s. However, more recently, in 1993, they were reprinted by Picton Press (and cost over $200). Picton says: ‘[The] journals are an incredible treasure trove for the genealogist, as [Muhlenberg] carefully recorded his pastoral acts, financial transactions, correspondence, etc, for his personal record (thus he includes subjective opinions, not recorded elsewhere, on people). Marriages, baptisms, funerals, and interactions with neighbors, friends and foes, Lutherans and non-Lutherans alike, are all described in great detail. There is a tremendous amount of data here. The diary is so fascinating you may find yourself reading it cover-to-cover before beginning your serious research!’

There has also been a one-volume version - The Notebook of a Colonial Clergyman: Condensed From the Journals of Henry Melchoir Muhlenberg - published initially by The Muhlenberg Press in 1959, and reprinted as recently as 2009.

There appear to be no substantial extracts of Muhlenberg’s journals freely available online, but a few quotes can be found in different books. Diary extracts are quoted, for example, in The Pennsylvania Weather Book, which can be read at Googlebooks. Slightly more interesting extracts can be found in Memoir of The Life and Times of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg Patriarch of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, written by M L Stoever and published in 1856 by Lindsay & Blakiston, Philadelphia, which is available at Internet Archive.

According to Stoever: ‘[Muhlenberg] commenced his journey in the spring of 1742, passing through Holland on his way to England. In London, he met with a cordial reception from Rev. Dr Ziegenhagen, Chaplain to King George II, who greatly encouraged him to his mission and materially aided him in his object. With this excellent and faithful man he remained nine weeks, diligently improving his time in seeking additional instruction and counsel with regard to his future duties. How much he enjoyed the season may be inferred from the following memorandum in his journal: ‘The time was entirely too short for me, and the questions too numerous, upon which I would gladly have conversed with him; so numerous were they indeed, that I was often in doubt which should be taken first. The consideration of these subjects caused me greater joy, and was far more pleasing to me than the possession of jewels or many pieces of gold.’ ’

On the ship from England to Georgia, Muhlenberg tried to convert his fellow passengers, and ‘the humblest of the sea-men he did not neglect’. The memoir says: ‘he labored to reclaim all, to instruct them in the plan of salvation, and to bring them to a saving acquaintance with Him who is ‘the way and the truth and the life.’ In one place in his journal, he remarks: ‘I conversed to-day with some of the crew, and tried to explain to them how sad their condition was, so long as they were estranged from God by wicked works;’ and in another place he says: ‘I urged upon the English passengers the necessity of a radical change in their life by the exercise of faith in the crucified Redeemer. They all listened,’ he tells us, ‘with attention, admitted the truth of my statements, and thanked me for my instructions. But how difficult it is to produce upon the minds of men a permanent impression of the doctrine of regeneration. The many prejudices which darken the understanding - the strong influence of sinful habits, together with riches, worldly prospects, and the cares of life, are powerful hinderances in the way.’ ’

During the American War of Independence, Muhlenberg’s home in Trappe was full of fugitives; he wrote in his journal: ‘The name of Muhlenberg is greatly disliked and abused by the British and Hessian officers in Philadelphia, and they threaten prison, tortures, and death, so soon as they can lay hands upon me.’

In 1989, the Historical Society of Trappe purchased the Henry Muhlenberg House, and restored it to the period of 1776 - using detail from the journals.

Sports of the people

It is thirty years to the day that Sir Alan, or Tommy, Lascelles died. He served as a royal courtier for most of his professional life, rising to become Private Secretary to King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II. His name is remembered today for it was given to a set of conditions he envisaged - The Lascelles Principles - which should allow a Sovereign to refuse a Prime Minister’s request to dissolve Parliament. But he also left behind some diaries, all the more interesting for their glimpses into privileged drawing rooms.

Lascelles was born at Sutton Waldron House, Dorset, in 1887 the son of Commander Frederick Canning Lascelles and Frederica Maria Liddell. He studied at Marlborough College and Oxford, before serving as a cavalry officer in the Bedford Yeomanry during the First World War, and subsequently becoming Aide-de-Camp to Lord Lloyd, the Governor of Bombay. On returning to England in 1920, he married Joan Frances Vere Thesiger with whom he had three children, and he was appointed Assistant Private Secretary to the Prince of Wales.

In the first half of the 1930s, Lascelles was secretary to the Governor General of Canada. Between 1935 and 1942, he served King George V and King George VI as Assistant Private Secretary; and from 1943 to 1953 he served King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II as Private Secretary. He was also Keeper of the Royal Archives. Towards the end of his professional life, in 1950, he wrote a now-famous letter to The Times setting out the conditions under which the Sovereign could wisely refuse a request of the Prime Minister to dissolve Parliament - later these became known as The Lascelles Principles.

After retiring in 1953, Lascelles became chairman of the Historic Buildings Council for England, chairman of the Pilgrim Trust, and a director of the Midland Bank. He also held the office of Extra Equerry to Elizabeth II until his death, on 10 August 1981. For further information see Wikipedia or thePeerage.com.

Lascelles kept a diary all his life, and extracts from these were published, along with a selection of letters, in several volumes between 1986 and 2006. The first two - End of an Era: Letters and Journals of Sir Alan Lascelles 1887-1920 and In Royal Service: the Letters and Journals of Sir Alan Lascelles 1920-1936 - were published by Hamilton in the 1980s. Another volume - King’s Counsellor - Abdication and War: the Diaries of ‘Tommy’ Lascelles - was published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 2006. All three volumes were edited by Duff Hart-Davis.

John Adamson in the Sunday Telegraph said, of the most recent volume, Lascelles’ diary ‘offers fascinating and hitherto unseen glimpses of some of the most significant figures of our age . . . however, none emerges more engagingly than the diarist himself’. And Dominic Sandbrook in the Evening Standard called the book ‘an elegant and precise diary’ which provides ‘a revealing glimpse into the drawing rooms of the great during the years of crisis and victory’.

Here are a few extracts from End of an Era, in which a youthful Lascelles shows a lively sense of interest in women, other diarist, and poking fun at authority!

16 May 1908
‘Lunched in Cadogan Square, and Cynthia Charteris and Mary Vesey came on to the theatre with us. Really, I believe those two are the most perfectly beautiful pair of creatures on this earth. Cynthia is at present the lovelier of the two, but won’t be in five years’ time. Now her beauty simply strikes one like a blow the moment she enters the room - and the more one looks, the more perfect it grows. But Mary V. is far the nicer of the two; she is a person of decided opinions, and with the most delightfully impulsive manner.’

For more on the diarist Cynthia Charteris see Heartbreaking day and The Diary Junction.

27 June 1911
‘The Coronation; up at cock-crow and escorted Maud to our seats in Montagu House. I marvelled that people should have given themselves so much trouble for so singularly unimpressive a ceremony. Dined v. happily at Brooks’s with Edward; and then on through crowded streets to Downing Street, where we picked up the Prime Minister, his entire family, D. [Lister], Kath, Venetia Stanely etc. Escorted by a policeman and a detective who spoke seven languages and never opened his mouth in one of them, we plunged into Pall Mall and wondered for hours looking at the illuminations and trying to extract humour from an annoyingly sober and ordered crowd. At Trafalgar Square the PM when home to bed, and we could join more freely in the sports of the people. I had hoped someone would have recognised him and started a demonstration but except for one man who exclaimed, ‘There’s Asquith - I should like to go and break his head,’ he excited no feeling. It was fun singing Gourdouli all down the Strand, and I nearly got run in for putting a paper cap on a policeman’s helmet, and was only saved by the intervention of our escort. Poor man, he was heartily ashamed of us.’

For another diary view of that Coronation Day see - A terrible ordeal

23 October 1911
‘Up to London . . . to Callow’s shop, where I told them to send rather a jolly hunting-whip to Diana [Lister], and, as Samuel Pepys observed piously on similar occasions, I pray God do make me able to pay for it.’

21 November 1919
‘ ‘W N P Barbellion’ is dead. This must be a shock to many reviewers, who, when The Journal of a Disappointed Man appeared, with a preface by H G Wells, said, ‘You can’t deceive us. Wells wrote this book himself’. But it seems you can, for a man called Bruce Cummings wrote it, and, as I say, he’s dead, at the age of 30.’

For more on the diarist Barbellion see The lure of birds’ eggs and The Diary Junction.

Love the sinner

Lord Longford, the politician and would-be social reformer, died a decade ago today. For much of his later life, he seemed out of sync with public opinion, whether because of his stance against the gay rights movement or his early campaign for the release of Myra Hyndley, who, with Ian Brady, murdered five young persons in the mid-1960s. A collection of diary entries from the last years of his life, in the 1990s, show how committed Longford remained to Hyndley’s release, and to the idea of hating the sin but loving the sinner.

Francis, or Frank, Pakenham was born at Pakenham Castle, Northern Ireland, educated at Eton and at New College, Oxford, where he shared digs with Hugh Gaitskell. Aged 25, he went to research education policy for the Conservative Party, but this experience only served to lead him towards socialism. For a while, he also worked as a teacher, a don at Oxford, and wrote leaders for the Daily Mail.

In 1931, Pakenham married Elizabeth Harman with whom he had eight children - several of whom today are well-known writers (Antonia Fraser, for example, and Rachel Billington). In 1936, he was beaten while protesting at a Mosleyite meeting. In 1939, he joined the Territorial Army but was invalided out. Also in the 1930s, he joined the Labour Party and converted, with his wife, to Roman Catholicism.

After the war, Pakenham failed to win the Oxford parliamentary seat for Labour, but was made Baron Pakenham of Cowley and appointed a junior minister in the Labour government of 1946-1951. Subsequently, in the 1960s, Pakenham was Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Lords, and Secretary of State for the Colonies. In 1961, he inherited from his brother the Irish titles of Earl of Longford and Baron Longford and the UK title of Baron Silchester. He was created a Knight of the Garter in 1971.

Pakenham was a prolific author, writing on religious and biographical topics, and he was a noted prison visitor. This latter activity led him, in particular, to a long-term and highly controversial campaign to have the Moors murderer Myra Hindley released from prison. He also courted further public controversy with his negative positions on homosexuality. He died on 3 August 2001. Further biographical information can be gathered from The Guardian or BBC obituaries or from Wikipedia.

At the behest of his publisher, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, Lord Longford kept a diary for the calendar year 1981, and this was published the following year as Diary of a Year. In 2000, Lion Publishing brought out a volume called Lord Longford’s Prison Diary based on diaries he wrote between 1995 and 1999. The book is, the publisher says, not only ‘a witness to his extraordinary commitment to and compassion for prisoners, but also a disturbing insight into what goes on in British jails in the name of justice’. Visits to well-known prisoners - Hindley and Brady, mass murderer Denis Nilsen, and spy Michael Bettany - are recorded, as are visits to sex offenders, rapists and conmen, whose names are only known to their victims.

More from the publisher’s burb: ‘Longford, more than any other outsider understands the criminal psyche. He remains one of the few public figures with a belief in the power of prison reform, but also believes that too many people are sent to prison who could be more effectively helped outside. This diary constitutes powerful evidence for his view.’ Here are two extracts.

3 December 1995
‘Yesterday one newspaper carried a prominent piece which was headed, ‘Hindley Will Make West Feel Life is Worth Living, Says Longford’. I am being asked continually if I am going to visit Rosemary West and give the same answer: I have never yet refused to visit a prisoner who requested a visit and I never will. If Rose West wishes to see me I will certainly go.

At the moment of writing, Rose West is in the hospital wing of Durham Prison, as is Myra. Myra broke her leg some time ago, and according to the paper she is being treated for a brittle-bone disorder. I met her new solicitor recently who told me she was in good form. I hope to receive a birthday card from her this week.

Rose West is being treated, not surprisingly, as a suicide risk and is widely reported as being very depressed. Her solicitor, however, insists that she is not depressed at all and hopes to move shortly to a normal wing.

The coming week I shall be making five speeches to mark my ninetieth birthday . . . There is an obvious danger of my turning these occasions into a series of ego trips. I am determined, however, to put some kind of message across. The best opportunity will occur at the press launch [of the paperback, Avowed Intent, a volume of Longford’s autobiography]. I have not had such an opportunity for years and I am not likely to have one again. Curiously enough the Rose West drama has given me an unrivalled opportunity to assert my ideal of ‘hating the sin and loving the sinner’, which has previously been lacking outside the House of Lords. For whatever reason Rose West does not seem to arouse the intense hatred which the tabloid press has taught the public to feel for Myra.’

17 December 1995
‘Another hectic week. One major television appearance, four radio programmes and a speech on penal matters in the House of Lords. One radio interviewer introduced me thus: ‘My next guest is Lord Longford, to talk about Myra Hindley, pornography and Rose West.’

I have not yet found anybody on these programmes to say to my face that Myra ought to stay in prison. I was accused by one friend afterwards of being arrogant and dismissing so-called public opinion. Maybe so. But when you have known somebody for twenty-seven years it is difficult to be patient with a ‘man in the street’ who only knows what the tabloid press tells him about.

Once again I am profoundly conscious of the gap between informed opinion and uninformed public emotions. I keep coming back to the taxi driver who told me that he felt cheated out of revenge when he heard that Fred West had committed suicide. But he knew that it was wrong to feel that way. I have to accept the fact that feelings similar to those of the taxi driver will always be widely held by the so-called general public.

Those who deal with prisoners at first-hand, the Prison Service and the Probation Service, for example, cannot fail to recognise them as fellow human beings. But to the so-called general public they will always be an alien and even menacing force. It is the business of those who care for humanity and justice to make far more effort than they have made previously to guide the public in the direction of the enlightened taxi driver. It is easy for someone like myself to say we must hate the sin and love the sinner, but it is hard enough to achieve that balance after a lifetime’s experience, still more after a moment’s reflection.’

Son eaten by sow

Today marks the 330th anniversary of the death of young Sir Thomas Isham, the third to hold the Isham Baronetcy title. As a teenager, his father, the second Isham Baronet, ordered Thomas to keep a diary in Latin, as an educational exercise. And it is thanks to this lively and colourful diary - said to be the only diary by a 15 year old boy in 17th century England - that the Third Baronet is remembered today.

Thomas was born at Lamport, Northamptonshire, in 1656, the eldest son of Sir Justinian Isham, himself the son of John Isham, High Sheriff of Northamptonshire, for whom the Isham Baronetcy was created in 1627. Thomas studied at Christ Church, Oxford, and soon after succeeded to the title on the death of his father, but he died, still a young man, on 27 July 1681 (see Wikipedia). Today the title is held by Sir Norman Isham, the 14th Baronet, who was born in 1930.

Sir Thomas is largely remembered today thanks to a diary he kept in Latin at his father’s behest from 1671 to 1673. It is made up of brief entries, sometimes only one sentence, and when the entries are longer this is usually because Isham is recording an anecdote - a local murder or other crime, for example - told by a visitor. Nevertheless, the diary does give a lively picture of the everyday country life of a gentry class boy in his teens.

The diary was first published in 1875 by Miller and Leavins of Norwich, but a more recent edition dates from 1971 when Gregg International published The Diary of Thomas Isham of Lamport (1658-81) kept by him in Latin from 1671 to 1673 at his Father’s command. This was based on a translation by Norman Marlow, and was annotated by Sir Gyles Isham. Here are a few extracts.

10 November 1671
‘. . . The carpenter made new shelves to put our public books on. A white cock of brother Justinian’s, named Taffy, which was at Thomas Pole’s, had one of his spurs violently wrenched off and died, from which it is clear that the people of Houghton are indeed rustic and altogether ignorant of learning, not to remember the trite saying, ‘Never lay hands on a white cock’.’

2 December 1671
‘A stranger died here while on a journey, and was buried in the churchyard.’

16 December 1671
‘Tom a’ Bedlam [local lunatic] paid us a visit, and said that his only son had been eaten by a sow, that his wife was home consumed with grief and that he had become melancholy.’

20 December 1671
‘Today we challenged the Maidwell men to a cock fight. Two oxen were killed for Christmas . . .’

8 January 1672
‘Mr Wikes came and promised to bring four cocks to help us . . .’

11 January 1672
Maidwell was beaten in the cock fight. . .’

27 January 1672
‘John Chapman told us that a woman convicted of clipping coin of the realm has been condemned and burned alive in the cattle market at Smithfield, London.’

29 January 1672
‘John Chapman came to dinner and said that a new telescope, far more perfect than previous ones, had been invented [probably Isaac Newton’s reflecting telescope].’

8 April 1672
‘Father forbade us to keep cocks . . .’

30 April 1672
‘Michael Wright . . . while pulling and handling the largest church bell unskilfully, threw it over, which pulled him up to the ceiling and nearly knocked his brains out; I know for certain that his leg is broken . . .’

24 May 1672
‘Today my sister Vere’s bees swarmed.’

25 May 1672
‘They say we have taken a Dutch vessel which was full of riches, and that her captain died of grief. A French galley took a Dutch ship laden with salt, and other merchandise.’

4 June 1672
‘The bull was castrated today and grew so savage that he broke his rope that bound him and after the operation charged at everyone he met.’

Breathless Machu Picchu

Today marks the centenary of Hiram Bingham’s discovery of Machu Picchu, an Inca citadel in Peru, now one of the world’s most famous tourist sites. The anniversary gives me another chance to revisit my own diaries since, almost exactly 35 years ago, I was there, a youthful round-the-world traveller, ‘breathless’ but, nevertheless, trying to convince myself that I wasn’t really impressed.

Machu Picchu is a pre-Columbian 15th-century Inca site located, somewhat precariously, over 2,000 metres above sea level on a mountain ridge above the Urubamba Valley in Peru. Most archaeologists believe it dates from the 15th century, but was abandoned at the time of the Spanish conquest. Although known locally, it was unknown in the West until ‘discovered’ on 24 July 1911 by Hiram Bingham, an American academic, leading a Yale University expedition.

Bingham soon started archaeological studies and completed a survey of the area, calling the complex ‘The Lost City of the Incas’, which was also the title of his first book. He continued studying the site until 1915, collecting various artifacts - ceramic vessels, silver statues, jewellery, and human bones - which he took back to Yale. Recently, Yale and Peru have reached agreement for the artefacts to be returned to their original home. See Wikipedia for more.

Today Machu Picchu is one of the most famous tourist sites in the world. It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983, and, in 2007, it was voted one of the New Seven Wonders of the World in a worldwide internet poll. It was certainly a key destination for me on my travels around the world in the mid-1970s.

I had been held up in Lima for a month by a bout of hepatitis, but, by mid-July 1976, I was on my way again, with Cuzco and Machu Picchu waiting for me further south. I found three companions on the road: Didier, a delightfully gentle Frenchman; Jim, a bearded Canadian with spiritual tendencies and an empathy for nature; and Annabelle, a beautiful Englishwoman with long dark curls.

Here is an entry from my diary, almost exactly 35 years ago to the day - (taken from my journal entries on the Pikle website).

21 July 1976
‘BREATHLESS MACHU PICCHU
The river fjords, peaks and pikes, moss-covered cliffs. A hawk glides a spiral upwards, upwards, 1,000ft above the meandering Urubamba. Once people lived here in the sky, carving building bricks, hiding from the ground, from the river. Once people toiled here in the sky and worshiped the sun. A sun that came sometimes to warm, to grow, to live. A sun that came through the mists. And a myth that grew with gold. A myth grew and crumbled. And now is grass. A pasture for hungry tourists, for ego-hunting travellers. A pasture for writers and artists to see the mountains, the river, the sky. Few walls of interlocking stone are left, few Inca building bricks, but more a crumbling cottage stone of a poor man built, the Inca slave, the Inca beggar. Some flowers grow, and Peruvian government llamas or alpacas graze. A yellow pipeline sprints upon another mountain. Specks of colour dawdle from wall to stone from hut to rock from step to step.

And I am unimpressed. I am here but I am unimpressed. Sitting on a rock, watching the play of every day: red-helmetted grass cutters, drifting wind-carried chatter, people strolling, like in a park. I was talking a while with Didier just now - as we watched the tourist train pull in - about the Buddhist ruins I investigated near Peshawar. It was a very hazy memory. Didier is not interested in the old stone but likes the green mountains and green river. Jim sits on the other side of the saddle meditating. Annabelle takes photographs for a granny. The wind is smiling. Machu Picchu.

Have you seen this old old city
Have you seen, have you seen
This old old city, have you seen

CUZCO - AN OLD LADY

What is Cuzco? It is situated in a mild valley, a patchwork of red tiles, cobbled streets, hybrid Inca walls, churches, squares, parades of modern arches. It’s a cool city with beggars, ice-cream sellers and blind harp players. The Spanish added some churches to the place after removing the Inca civilisation. But giving the people Catholicism was sinful.

We arrived on the Saturday (in time to dress up for dinner and mingle with the swarms of French and German bees). Initial impressions were of bustling markets, lots of gringos and old churches. For two days we did a lot of sitting in cafes drinking teas and milk and leches, or eating doughnut and honey in the main market in San Francisco square. The cathedral (a hideous place with galleries of ancient Spanish bishop portraits and alcoves of broken christs in ghastly glitter) and museums were empty. Our hotel, Roma, had falling down shacks for toilets. Our room was large with four beds brightly coloured and patterned walls and a roof that sagged several feet in the middle.

One very amusing evening started with Jim painting and me being very speedy - lying on the floor breathing heavy to cool down. I noticed little beads in the cracks of the floorboards and started picking them out. Derek and Eric, the comic due, joined in the bead searching party. Didier was rolling joints, Annabelle wrote endless letters. Jim’s painting got progressively darker, and my bead chain got progressively longer, and more colourful. Finally, I’d made a whole bracelet from the beads in the floorboards of Hotel Roma.

Another evening we went to see Zardoz and then played blow football in a late night cafe (the Canadian Rollocks beat the English Whizzers by three goals to one).

There was a strange moment watching a very old lady standing in the doorway of a trinket shop, looking at a display case of cheap ear-rings. She pointed with her finger from one ring to another putting a whole lot of feeling into the pointing process. I stood watching her and felt almost impelled to buy her one pair. After an extra emphatic point at one particular pair, she walked away. I thought that she hadn’t noticed me watching her, but when she’d walked 100 metres or so up the road, she turned and looked straight at me. There was anger in her eyes which spoke saying: ‘Why haven’t you bought me those ear-rings?’ A very odd feeling.’

Dried bear’s meat

Today marks the 350th anniversary of the birth of Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville, one of Canada’s great soldiers and explorers, though at the time his homeland was still called New France - indeed he is dubbed Canada’s first hero. A few of his journals have been published, notably those recording voyages to the Mississippi to establish a colony in Louisiana. Other accounts of the same exploration also exist.

D’Iberville was born on 16 July 1661 one of many children fathered by Charles LeMoyne who had arrived in New France 20 years earlier as an indentured servant. When he died in 1685, he was considered one of the wealthiest and most powerful citizens in Montreal. Young Pierre, who had grown up in Montreal, sailed on his father’s boat and was sent to France on several occasions. In the 1680s and 1690s, he led expeditions against the British fur-trading posts on Hudson Bay. In 1690, he took part in a raid on Schenectady, and in 1692 he unsuccessfully attacked Fort Pemaquid, Maine. Later, he successfully attacked St John’s, Newfoundland, and temporarily ousted the British from the area.

In 1698, he set out from France with his younger brother Bienville and four ships full of colonists. They landed on the Gulf of Mexico and founded Old Biloxi. D’Ibberville is considered to be the first man to ascertain the mouth of the Mississippi from the Gulf approach and to explore its delta. Between 1700 and 1702, he kept the new colony supplied; and built additional forts. But then illness prevented him making further voyages.

After recovering his health, d’Iberville led a force which captured the British islands of Nevis and St Kitts in the West Indies. He was ready for further forays when he died at Havana, probably in 1706, having gone there to trade and collect supplies. Further information on d’Iberville is readily available at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online (which names him as Canada’s first hero) or Wikipedia.

D’Iberville’s own French journals of three ‘voyages to the Mississippi’ were edited and translated by Richebourg Gaillard McWilliams and published by the University of Alabama Press in 1981 as Iberville’s Gulf Journals. Part of this book is viewable online at Googlebooks. However, a fuller (and richer) account of the same explorations is freely available (at Internet Archive) within the Historical Collections Louisiana and Florida published by Albert Mason (New York) 1875. The relevant section is entitled Historical Journal: or Narrative of the Expedition made by order of Louis XIV, King of France, under command of M. D’Iberville, to explore Colbert (Mississippi) river and establish a colony in Louisiana.

Here are two extracts, both about the same day: one from D’Ibberville’s own diary, and the other from the anonymous record of the expedition as contained in Historical Journey.

14 February 1699
‘I continue to follow the tracks of the Indians, having left at the place where I spent the night two axes, four knives, two packages of glass beads, a little vermillion; for I was sure that two Indians who came at sunrise to watch me from a distance of 300 yards would come there after we left. [. . .] I noticed a canoe crossing over to an island and several Indians waiting for it there. They joined five other canoes, which crossed over to the land to the north. As the land where I was was separated from them by a bay 1 league wide and 4 leagues long, I got into my canoe and pursued the canoes and overtook them as they were landing on the shore. All the Indians fled into the woods, leaving their canoes and baggage [. . .] I found an old man who was too sick to stand. We talked by means of signs. I gave him food and tobacco; he made me understand that I should build a fire for him. This I did and, besides, made a shelter, near which I placed him along with his baggage and a number of bags of Indian corn and beans that the Indians had in their canoes. I made him understand that I was going half a league from there to spend the night. My longboat joined me there. I sent my brother and two Canadians after the Indians who had fled, to try to make them come back or to capture one. Toward evening he brought a woman to me whom he had caught in the woods 3 leagues from there. I led her to the old man and left her, after giving her several presents and some tobacco to take to her men and have them smoke.’

14 February 1699
‘On Saturday, the 14th, having breakfasted, we marched along the shore. M D’Iberville and his Indian guide at the same time perceived the tracks of two savages who had come from their hiding-place. He returned to our fire, took two hatchets, four knives, some beads, vermilion, and two pipes filled with tobacco, as presents, and to show them that our intentions were peaceable. The shallops and bark kept along the shore, while M D’Iberville, his Indian guide, and Father Anastasius walked on foot. At some distance they saw three Indians who took flight in their canoes; seeing which M D’Iberville also took to his canoe and forced them on shore. Two made good their escape, but the third, who was old and sickly, fell into his hands. Presents were given to him, and he was made to understand that our mission was friendly and not warlike. The Indian appeared to comprehend and be well satisfied. M D’Iberville added that he was going to tent a short distance from this spot; he made a sign for us to go on shore and kindle a fire for him, which we did with pleasure. His thigh was badly diseased. Some of our men who had gone out to hunt, surprised an old woman who had concealed herself. They conducted her to the old man where we were. She was nearly frightened to death. We gave her some presents, and she saw how well we treated the old man, who promised that so soon as his people returned he would make them pull some Indian corn for us. We left them together and returned to our cabin. The old woman visited the Indians that same evening and told them all that had happened.’

And here are two more extracts from Historical Journey (i.e. about d’Iberville, not written by him).

7 March 1699
On Saturday, the 7th, we embarked, after having erected a cross, and marked some trees. Weather calm. At nine o’clock, in ranging along the river we saw three buffaloes lying down on the bank. We landed five men to go in pursuit of them, which they could not do, as they soon got lost in the thick forest and cane-brakes. A short time after, in turning a point, we saw a canoe manned by two Indians, who took to land the moment they saw us and concealed themselves in the woods. A little farther on we saw five more who executed the same manoeuvre, with the exception of one, who waited for us at the brink of the river. We made signs to him. M D’Iberville gave him a knife, some beads and other trinkets. In exchange he gave us some dried bear’s meat. M D’Iberville commanded all of our men to go on board the long-boats for fear of intimidating him, and made signs to him to recall his comrades. They came singing their song of peace, extending their hands towards the sun and rubbing their stomachs, as a sign of admiration and joy. After joining us they placed their hands upon their breasts, and extended their arms over our heads as a mark of friendship. M D’Iberville asked them by signs, if the Indians we had seen on the sea-shore, where the vessels were at anchor, had arrived. They gave us to understand the affirmative, and that they had gone up by a branch of the river, which empties into the sea, near the same place where he had crossed it. He then asked them if their village was far off. They told him it was five days journey hence.

What troubled us most, was, that we began to be wearied, and our provisions were falling short. M D’Iberville gave them some beads, knives and looking-glasses; in return they gave us dried bear’s meat, which they had in their canoes. Our men also trafficked with them for some trifling objects. One good old man extended his meat upon the ground, after the same manner our butchers do in our markets of Europe, and sat down beside it. Two of our men went to him, and each one gave him a knife and took the whole of the meat, consisting of at least one hundred pounds. All seemed satisfied with their bargain. M D’Iberville asked them if they would show him their village. They gave him to understand they were going on a hunt, and could not accompany him. But having offered a hatchet to one of them, who seemed very desirous to possess it, he agreed to go. We asked them if they had heard the sound of the swivel; they said they had heard it twice. We fired it again before them, at which they were greatly astonished, for it was the first time they had ever heard it so near them. We passed two hours among them. One of them came on board of our shallop. We made him a present of a shirt, the others did not appear jealous of the gift, so indifferent are they. The river at this place was NW by SW.

At one o’clock we dined. Our course was now SSW by S. With a half a league again tended NW by W. At six o’clock landed and encamped, our men standing guard as usual. This day we made five leagues, and were thirty-five leagues from the mouth.

8 March 1699
On Sunday, the 8th, after mass, we embarked at seven o’clock; river tending SW by NW and W. The current was stronger than ordinarily, which made it necessary for us to keep in the bends and cross the river from one point to the other, three or four times. The weather was very warm all day. Towards five o’clock a storm arose, which compelled us to land and encamp. Some of our men killed a crocodile (alligator), which they skinned and afterwards cooked the flesh to eat. They also killed a rattle-snake upwards of six feet in length, the bite of which is said to be mortal. The wind was from the north all night and very cold. We this day made four leagues.

Diary briefs

Armed robber nabbed by his own diary entry - The Mirror

More diaries from Alastair Campbell - The Guardian, Amazon

More of Mengele’s diaries to be auctioned (see Mengele’s vile ‘diary’) - US News. 

What Murdoch learned from the Hitler Diaries - The New Yorker

A bath in Albert

Today marks the 30th anniversary of the death of Robert Lindsay Mackay, an infantry soldier in the First World War, present at the famous battles of the Somme and Ypres. While in action, he managed to keep a near daily diary of his activities, and this, though not published in print, has been made available online by one of his grandchildren. Of particular note are entries about ‘MUD’ and visiting the town called Albert (in the Somme region) for a bath.

Mackay was born in 1896 in Glasgow and studied at the university there. During the war, he served with an infantry regiment, the 11th Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders, holding the posts of Signalling Officer, Assistant Adjutant, and Platoon Officer, eventually achieving the rank of Lieutenant. He fought in the Battles of the Somme, Ypres and Arras, and was awarded a Military Cross and Bar.

After the war, Mackay trained as a doctor. He married Margaret McLellan, and they had four children. In 1941, he rejoined the army and, with a neurosurgical unit, was posted to the Middle East. Before the end of the war, he was also posted to Normandy and Northern Norway, to treat Russians who had fallen sick while prisoners of the Germans. He retired in 1961, and died on 2 July 1981. Further biographical information is available on the University of Glasgow website and some Mackay family tree web pages.

Mackay only kept a diary during the First World War, and later on wasn’t even sure why he had done that. In 1972 he wrote the following note to his children: ‘I am not quite clear why I wrote this diary, day by day, a scrappy record of a scrappy period. I had no literary or military ambitions. My parents did not read it. Perhaps it was to provide a kind of continuous alibi, to remind me where I had been, perhaps an interesting memorial if I failed to return. Like cakes off a hot griddle, it was written as events occurred, or immediately thereafter, in four little brown leather-covered notebooks, and when the war ended these were in no state to last long for they were soiled and grubby, and, where written in pencil, the writing was fading. So, in 1919, I copied their contents, straight off, without editing, into two larger note-books, and destroyed the four little ones.’

The text has been made available online by one of Mackay’s grandchildren, Bob Mackay, at Firstworldwar.com, and on his own web pages. Here are a few entries.

12 September 1916
‘Ordered up to the 11th. Service Battalion Argylls - the one to which I most of all wanted to go. Train due to leave at 2 p.m. Left punctually at 4.30 p.m., which is not bad for a French train. Reached Albert on the Somme Front about 6.30 p.m. on the 13th. - a distance of some 70 - 80 miles in 28 hours - not bad going for a French train either! Albert is where the battle now going on began, so I hope to see something decent. Reported to the Details Orderly Room of the 11th. Bn. who heard next day that we were coming. Went along to a park after tea to see our latest form of frightfulness about which mystery hangs, namely, the tanks. They have not been used against the enemy yet. Heyworth (who joined with me) and I then went along to the Divisional Reinforcement Camp at Mericourt.’

14 September 1916
‘Loafed around.’

15 October 1916
‘Had a bath.’

16-17 October 1916
‘16th, 17th, and so on till the end - MUD, MUD, MUD!’

18 October 1916
‘Our ‘rest’ is now finished - when did it begin? Left Lozenge Wood, for Martinpuich.’

18 October 1916
‘Rotten ration party to take up to the Royal Scots. Bed 3 a.m. Half a bed is better than no bed at all!’

20 October 1916
‘Round the companies. The C.O. (MacNeil of Oban) got a mouldy haggis, which he ate all by himself. It came in a parcel labelled ‘CAKE’. He had kept it for three weeks!’

21 October 1916
‘Canadians on our left attack the ‘Quadrilateral’ and village of Pys. Partial success. Bombardment all night.’ Back to Martinpuich from the line. Frost came on us suddenly and played the mischief with the mens’ feet. Had to send a number to hospital.’

24 October 1916
‘Relieved by 7/8th. K.O.S.B. Back to Lozenge Wood. Roads heavy on way back. Got stuck in the mud.’

30 October 1916
‘Still at Bécourt, ‘X 27’ district, as bleak and as barren a place as the Western Hebrides. It is said that grass once grew here!’

31 October 1916
‘Front line again.’

2 November 1916
‘Chased by snipers. Relieved by 5th. Bn. Gloucesters, of 48th. Division.’

3 November 1916
‘Left Bécourt Dell for Albert and a bath.’

4 November 1916
‘Albert is knocked about in the most up-to-date fashion, in accordance with the most advanced ideas. There is not a pane of unbroken glass in the place. Every house, if not entirely demolished or with a gable or two missing, has a few holes in the roof, which help the ventilation and also assist materially in the disposal of surplus rain. Ye Gods! It is a funny life!

Albert Cathedral has been very badly smashed but the tower still remains with the figure of the Virgin and Child held out at right angles to it at the top and threatening to fall at any moment on the heads of countless people who pass below. It is commonly said that the War will not end until the Virgin falls. As the French don’t want it to fall (preferring to keep it as a monument of the Huns’ occupation of the place), what can we do?’

Elizabeth at Hope End

Today marks 150 years since the death of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, a popular poet in her time, who was married to Robert Browning, another significant poet of the era. The only diary material of Barrett’s that has been published relates to a period in her 20s when she was still living with her father on the Hope End estate in Herefordshire. Her diary at the time is full of concerns about having to move from Hope End, which was being sold to pay family debts, and about her friendship with the blind classical scholar Hugh Stuart Boyd.

Elizabeth Barrett was born in 1806 at Coxhoe Hall, Durham, but moved to Hope End, a 500-acre estate near Ledbury in Herefordshire, when only three. The eldest in a large family she was educated at home, learning classics and several modern languages. When 13, her father arranged to have one of her epic poems (The Battle of Marathon) printed. When 15, she suffered a bad fall and injured her spine. Subsequently, poor health meant she devoted most of her time to reading and writing.

In her early 20s, Barrett became friends with a classicist, Hugh Stuart Boyd, who had moved into a house nearby. In 1828, her mother died, and, during the following years, her father’s income (based on Jamaican sugar plantations) declined badly. The family sold Hope End, and moved first to Sidmouth in 1832, then, three years later, to London. In 1838 Barrett published her first major book, The Seraphim and Other Poems, which received critical acclaim. The same year she went to stay in Torquay, Devon, for health reasons, and it was there that her favourite brother, Edward, drowned. The accident caused her much distress. Eventually, she returned to London where her reputation as a poet continued to grow.

In 1844, the poet Robert Browning began a correspondence with her, which led to an engagement in 1845, and, because her father disapproved, a secret marriage in 1846. The couple went to Italy where Elizabeth’s health improved, where she had a son, and where she stayed for the rest of her life. She died in Florence on 29 June 1861. Further biographical information can be found at Wikipedia, The Victorian Web, or The Browning Society.

A first edition of Barrett’s diary did not appear before 1969, when Ohio University Press published Diary by E. B. B.: The Unpublished Diary of Elizabeth Barrett Barrett 1831-1832 edited by Philip Kelley and Ronald Hudson. Five years later, in 1974, John Murray published The Barretts at Hope End - The Early Diary of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, edited by Elizabeth Berridge.

Here are two extracts from The Barretts at Hope End.

11 June 1831
‘Sam told me that Hope End is advertised in the Sun newspaper, to be sold in August - no name, but a full description. He & Bro heard it yesterday from Henry Trant!. I begged him to tell nobody, & to let me tell Bummy [Arabella Graham-Clarke, Elizabeth’s aunt]. Ran down stairs & found Bummy in the drawing room by herself. Told her. She shed tears - we both shed tears! When will tears cease to be shed? She seems to fear the worst: but mentioned that Papa had written to Sam, who, he says, is able to assist him. If he is able, he is willing - if he is still Sam! So there may still be hope in that quarter. There is fear in every other. In every other? Can I not still look unto the hill from whence cometh my hope? That hope is a hope of spiritual blessing; but I have found & known it to be one of temporal comfort also! Walked out with Bummy & Arabel, on the bank on the other side of the water. Strangers may soon walk there, with other feelings than mine. Read as I have often done lately, not for the pleasure of thinking: but for the comfort of not thinking. Papa in better spirits. How often I thought of Mr Boyd today! He is the only person in this neighbourhood, whom it will affect my happiness to leave. . .’

26 August 1831
‘Read some passages from Shelley’s Revolt of Islam before I was up. He is a great poet; but we acknowledge him to be a great poet as we acknowledge Spenser to be so, & do not love him for it. He resembles Spenser in one thing, & one thing only, that his poetry is too immaterial for our sympathies to enclasp it firmly. It reverses the lot of human plants: its roots are in the air, not earth! But as I read him, I may reverse my opinion. . .

Let me consider circumstances, while I am calm, in a degree. I may have to leave this place where I have walked & talked & dreamt in much joy; & where I have heard most beloved voices which I can no more hear, & clasped beloved hands which I can no more clasp: where I have smiled with the living & wept above the dead & where I have immortal books, & written pleasant thoughts, & known at least one very dear friend . . . I will wait for letters, & in the meantime, get on with Isocrates.

Thank God!. Hope End, dear Hope End, is not sold. It was bought in by our antagonists themselves; & may yet go by private contract: but still, thank God for this reprieve. A letter from Papa!

I was in the dining room. Bummy came in to me with overflowing eyes, & an exclamation of “Good news!” The good news were too much for me, prepared as I was for the worst news: and I should have sunk to the floor, if she had not caught me. Thank God for this blessed good news! Many tears were shed, & all for joy, at Hope End today.’

Diary briefs

New Che Guevara diary published in Cuba (see also Che’s last days) - BBC, The Guardian

Arrested Maoist’s diary reveals top secrets - The Times of India

Obscene Diary: The Secret Archive of Samuel Steward - PRWeb

Diaries expose missionaries’ ‘spiritual war’ on uncontacted Indians - Survival International

University of Iowa puts civil war diaries online - University of Iowa

A terrible ordeal

One hundred years ago today, the British people were celebrating the coronation of King George V and his wife Queen Mary. Both George and Mary kept diaries, and although these have not been published, a few extracts are in the public domain, including some about their Coronation Day. In one, George calls the day ‘a terrible ordeal’ - though without further explanation.

George V, born in 1865, was the second son of Edward VII. He served in the Royal Navy from the age of 12 until 1892 when he became heir to the throne on the early death of his elder brother Albert (from pneumonia). The following year, he married Princess Victoria Mary of Teck, known as May, who had previously been engaged to Albert. They became Duke and Duchess of York and lived on the Sandringham Estate, in Norfolk. They had six children - Edward, George, Mary, Henry, George and John. The eldest two went on to become King, although Edward held the crown for less than a year before abdicating in favour of George (VI).

George V succeeded to the throne when King Edward VII died in May 1910, though his coronation did not follow until the following summer, on 22 June 1911. A film of the event can be seen at the British Pathé website. According to The Royal Collection website, the crowning of the Sovereign at the start of a new reign is ‘an ancient ceremony, rich in religious significance, pageantry and historic associations’, and has changed little in form since medieval times. To mark the 50th anniversary of the Coronation of Her Majesty The Queen, in 2003, a special exhibition was held at Windsor Castle. Among the items on display were the personal records of several monarchs: Queen Victoria’s sketchbook filled with her drawings of the day’s events, a press release at the time said, and ‘a poignant extract from the diary of King George V’ describing how his coronation ‘brought back many sad memories of 9 years ago when the Beloved Parents were crowned’.

There do not appear to be any published versions of George V’s diary. Robert Lacey, in his biography, Royal: Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, which contains a generous section of historical background, might provide an explanation: ‘Every day of his adult life, King George V dutifully wrote up his diary - unlike his father, who never kept one. Edward VII had better things to do at bedtime. Bound in successive volumes of green leather, the diary of King George V is the journal of a very ordinary man, containing a great deal more about his hobby of stamp collecting than it does about his personal feelings, with a heavy emphasis on the weather. The simple, round schoolboy hand scarcely changes from the age of fifteen, when he started it, until the last entry, completed three days before his death . . .’

Nevertheless, some excerpts dating from the early days of the Great War were broadcast in 2004 for the first time by BBC Radio Four in its Book of the Week slot. This was by special permission from the Queen to mark the 90th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War.

Nor is there a published version of Queen Mary’s diary - see an earlier Diary Review article about one extract (Princess Mary’s marathon). However, in his widely-respected biography, Queen Mary, James Pope-Hennessy draws extensively on diary material, particular Mary’s own diaries, but also occasionally her husband’s. Here is Pope-Hennessy, in the biography, looking back at that Coronation Day.

‘Although it improved later in the summer, the weather of June 1911 was windy and cool. Frequent rainstorms had been causing the London public, and the vendors of seats on the stands set up along the coronation processional route, some disquiet. In the whole month of June there were only five good days. Coronation Day, the twenty-second, was not amongst them. “Dull but fine - Our Coronation Day”, Queen Mary recorded in her Diary. King George’s comment in his Diary was longer, but it was equally characteristic: “It was overcast and cloudy with slight showers, & a strongish cool breeze, but better for the people than great heat.” The weather of Coronation Day, 1911, thus formed a sharp, symbolic contrast to that of the July morning, eighteen years before, when Princess May had, for the first time in her life, driven in state from Buckingham Palace as the central figure of a carriage procession. She was then driving to be married at the Chapel Royal; we may recall the sparkling sunshine of that July morning, and the cheers of the surging crowds. Her prospects then had seemed gay and exciting; her prospects now were a lifetime of dedication and responsibility. The overcast sky suited her serious mood.’

Pope-Hennessy goes on to describe other differences between the two occasions, before then returning to the diaries, and the entries for 22 June 1911.

Queen Mary: ‘Magnificent reception both going & coming back.’

King George V: ‘There were hundreds of thousands of people who gave us a magnificent reception. . . The service in the Abbey was most beautiful & impressive but it was a terrible ordeal. . . Darling May looked so lovely & it was indeed a comfort to me to have her by my side as she has been ever to me during these last 18 years.’