Robertson Davies as diarist

A selection of diaries kept by Robertson Davies, one of Canada’s most important literary figures and its leading man of letters in the mid-20th century, has been published for the first time. The diaries, which had been embargoed for 20 years after his death, provide a wealth of detail about his daily life, and for this they are important, and often interesting, but they do not provide evidence for the publisher’s claim that Davies must now be considered ‘one of the great diarists’.

Robertson was born in Thamesville, Ontario, in 1913, third son to William Davies, a Welsh-born Canadian publisher and politician. He was schooled at Upper Canada College and then went to Queen’s University, and Balliol College, Oxford, where he received a BLit in 1938. He wished to make a career in the British theatre world, and joined the staff of the Old Vic, led at that time by Tyrone Guthrie, and worked alongside the likes of Ralph Richardson and Vivien Leigh. In 1940, he married the Australian-born Brenda Mathews, whom he had met at Oxford, but who had also worked at the Old Vic. Shortly after war broke out, Davies was advised to return to Canada. Because of poor eyesight, though, he was unfit for military service. He worked as a literary journalist in Toronto until, in 1942, his father pressed him to take over one of his company’s newspapers, the daily Peterborough Examiner.

Davies, despite his full-time job, and Brenda continued to be involved in the theatre world, with Davies writing (and directing) several plays during the 1940s. He also collected his humorous essays for publication under the pseudonym, Samuel Marchbanks. Frustrated by an inability to get his plays noticed outside of Canada, Davies began writing novels in the 1950s, alongside more plays, publishing what came to be known as the Salterton Trilogy (Tempest-Tost in 1951, Leaven of Malice in 1954, and A Mixture of Frailties in 1958). A major turning point for Davies came in the early 1960s, when he began teaching at Trinity College, University of Toronto, and two years later was appointed Master of the new university graduate Massey College, conceived by one of Canada’s most notable figures, Vincent Massey, and funded by his foundation.

In all Davies’ endeavours, Brenda was a constant companion - stage managing her husband for six decades, according to an obituary in The Globe and Mail. Together, they had three daughters, one of whom, Jennifer (Surridge), would become her father’s literary executor. And Brenda helped organise many of the Master’s functions at Massey College during Davies’ near-20 years tenure - despite being excluded, as were all women, for the early years. In the 1970s, Davies again found form with the novel, publishing Fifth Business in 1970, The Manticore in 1972 and World of Wonders in 1975 - collectively known as The Deptford Trilogy.

Davies retired from academic life in the early 1980s, but continued to write novels, some of his best. What’s Bred in the Bone (1985), which became the middle book of The Cornish Trilogy, was short-listed for the Booker Prize for fiction. He published two books in the 1990s, but failed to finish the third of what would have been The Toronto Trilogy. He died in 1995. There are no dedicated Robertson Davies websites that I can find, and thus surprisingly little detailed information about him on the web, other than at The Canadian Encyclopaedia or Wikipedia (and in a few obituaries - The New York Times or The Independent, for example). The Paris Review has the text of an audience interview with Davies from 1986.

Although a great fan of Robertson Davies, having read most of his novels over the years, I never knew he was a diarist. Indeed, it seems, he dictated that, after his death, the plethora of his diary material - many different volumes and around three million words - should not be published for at least two decades. Now those 20 years have passed, McClelland & Stewart has just published A Celtic Temperament: Robertson Davies as Diarist, as prepared and edited by Jennifer Surridge and Ramsay Derry. From his teens and throughout his life, Davies kept a variety of diaries: a personal daily diary, a ‘big’ diary for more considered entries, a theatre-going diary, travel diaries on trips, and, occasionally, other diaries for a specific topic, such as one kept during production of his play Love and Libel, and another about Massey College. Surridge and Derry say of their book that it covers ‘a particularly busy time in his immensely productive career’ when he was already known as Canada’s leading man of letters.

The editors have eschewed the idea of identifying the exact provenance of the diary entries, interleaving them seemlessly, ‘in order to maintain an easily readable ongoing narrative’ - though I, personally, would have liked to know which entries came from which diary. However, and very interestingly, there is a project, well under way, to create digital editions of all the diaries. The Davies Diaries project, as it is known, is under the guidance of James Neufeld, Professor Emeritus in the Department of English at Trent University, and is being funded by Editing Modernism in Canada and Library and Archives Canada. Ambitiously, the project expects to allow readers to browse and search not only digitised images of all diary pages, but verbatim transcripts, corrected transcripts, and annotated texts. Moreover, the presentation will be enhanced with links to visual, audio and texts from other archives and collections ‘to provide background and colour for the events Davies describes’. Online publication of the theatre diaries in 2017 has been set as a first target.

Surridge and Derry conclude their introduction to A Celtic Temperament by claiming: ‘[T]he diaries are more than social history, as we hope this introductory selection shows. In their variety, intimacy, and honesty, they present an extraordinary rich portrait of the man and his times and an entertaining account of a life as it is being lived.’ All of which I can agree with. However, I don’t buy the publisher’s claim that this first book of Davies’ diaries establishes him ‘as one of the great diarists’. Far from it. Much, if not most, of the diaries are filled with, if not banal then, straightforward records of his daily activities. These records are, as a whole, hugely important, because Davies is one of the greatest of Canadian authors, but in the detail they are fairly dull. Davies was a decent, hard-working, family man - privileged and successful - and the detail of his daily life reflects these realities. Although not yet reviewed in the British press, a review in Canada’s The Globe and Mail calls the diaries ‘delightful’ but complains that there is ‘no dirt, little gossip’ and that, though fun and whimsical, they reveal little more than ‘the banalities of a privileged life in letters’.

Here are a few short extracts from A Celtic Temperament - and many thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy.

9 February 1961
‘Bill Broughall lunched with me at the University Club. He tells me Vincent Massey says “a gentleman never takes soup with luncheon at his club” because Lord Curzon said it. I fear I shall run into many things a gentleman does not do, and which are unknown to me; but I am writer, and therefore a bit of a bounder.’

25 February 1961
‘Nothing in the Globe and Mail about my appointment because I write for the Star: what small behaviour! Write a Star column in the morning and a critique of Saint Joan. In the afternoon, loaf and read Jung; Rosamund comes for the weekend, very lively; in the evening go through Browning’s “Andrea del Sarto” with her and read Rabelais.’

27 February 1961
‘Now that the news is out, and the world has received it with exemplary calm, and my Proposals are out of my hands, I feel a deep depression, a regression of the libido, what might be called the Hump. What have I let myself in for? What am I, a mere magpie of leaning and certainly no scholar, doing with a learned appointment in that collection of medieval schoolmen and learned but vulgar thrusters, the University of Toronto? My one desire is to crawl into a hole and work on the novel which has been in my mind since before A Mixture of Frailties.’

20 August 1961
‘Lay late reading Final Curtain by Ngaio Marsh. Dye my beard too dark - must look into this. Loafed all day never stirring from the place and found this very refreshing: my condition of mind asks for inactivity; worked on my speech. I am indeed changing: trying to purge my writing of ornament and mere eccentricity and my thinking of bile, emotionalism, and vulgarity. Oh! that I may make some progress in these things!

13 November 1961
‘Worked on Saturday Night piece “Pleasures of Love.” In the evening looked over old MSS of novels and plays and reread diary of Love and Libel a year since: still painful, and it might have succeeded; useless to repine.’

25 February 1962
‘Bouts of sinus, headache, nausea, and cold sweats have left me unwell for the day. Brenda and I lay on sofas and read. Went for short walk. What a hateful winter! Every winter has its low point and I hope this it: is it age or bodily rot that brings this appalling tedium vitae?’

19 December 1962
‘Minor bothers: car goes crook; parcels get mislaid, etc. Rosamund is out of school at 12. Give a good lecture at 2. We call on the Edinboroughs and have mince pies and rum punch. In the evening to Kind Hearts and Coronets, my favourite film.’

Are you a genius?

‘Oh! Ezra! how beautiful you are! With your pale face and fair hair! I wonder - are you a genius? or are you only an artist in Life?’ This is a gushing, young Dorothy Shakespear writing in a notebook about her passion for the American poet, Ezra Pound, born 130 years ago today. Pound would go on to become a most controversial literary figure. On the one hand, he propelled poetry into Modernism, and encouraged/influenced a generation of writers whose works would become far more popular than his own; yet, on the other, he would also embrace Fascism during the Second World War, and become alienatingly anti-semitic.

Pound was born on 30 October 1885 in Hailey, Idaho, but grew up mainly in Pennsylvania. He was educated at a series of primary schools, some of them Quaker, before entering the Cheltenham Military Academy, where he specialised in Latin. Thereafter, he went to the University of Pennsylvania’s College of Liberal Arts and Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. In between his academic studies - studying past languages, such as the Provençal dialect - he took trips with his family to Europe. He also pursued various women, being turned down in marriage at least twice. He embarked on a PhD, but fell out without the department head, and took up teaching, until, that is, early in 1908, when he sat sail for Europe. He spent several months in Gibraltar and Venice, where he self-published his first book of poetry A Lume Spento (With Tapers Spent).

In August of 1908, Pound moved to London where, the following year, he met the novelist Olivia Shakespear. She introduced him to her daughter, Dorothy, who he married in 1914, and to the poet W. B. Yeats (see The poet’s labour). Although Pound returned to the US in 1910, he was soon back in London, and it would be 30 years before he visited the US again. Between 1908 and 1911, Pound published six collections of verse, most of it dominated by his passion for Provençal and early Italian poetry. By this time, he was contributing reviews and critical articles to various periodicals such as the New Age, The Egoist, and Poetry, where - according to The Poetry Foundation - ‘he articulated his aesthetic principles and indicated his literary, artistic, and musical preferences, thus offering information helpful for interpreting his poetry’.

Around 1912, Pound, along with Hilda Doolittle, Richard Aldington and others developed the idea of a movement in poetry called Imagisme, with the aim of bringing clarity to the poetic form, a precision of imagery and clear, sharp language. Historically, the Imagists are considered an early influence in the much broader movement known as Modernism. Within a couple of years, though, Pound was moving away from Imagisme towards the wider movement that became known as Vorticism, as reflected in his volume of poems translated from the Chinese - Cathay. Apart from publishing his own poetry, Pound was keen to promote other writers. Between 1914 and 1916, he helped with the publication of James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (initially in The Egoist), and he also persuaded Poetry to publish T. S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Later, he would edit Eliot’s Wasteland. He was also an early advocate of D. H. Lawrence and Ernest Hemingway.

After the war, Pound produced two of his most admired works, Homage to Sextus Propertius and Hugh Selwyn Mauberley. But, in late 1920, he and his wife left London for a new start in Paris. There, Pound fell in love with Olga Rudge, an American violinist. When, in 1924, tired of France already and seeking a quieter life, the Pounds moved to the Italian city of Rapallo, Rudge followed them. In 1925, she had Pound’s daughter, Mary; and the following year Dorothy bore him a son, Omar. Both children were raised apart from their parents, and separately, Mary with a peasant woman, and Omar with Dorothy’s mother in London and then at boarding schools.

Professionally, Pound was working on a long poem - The Cantos - published between 1925 and 1940, but also turning more towards politics and economics. He took on the idea that injustice in the world was shaped by international bankers, whose manipulation of money led to wars and conflict. In 1933, he met Benito Mussolini, and became an ardent supporter; later, during the Second World War, recording hundreds of anti-semitic broadcasts for Rome Radio, but also writing many articles and sending thousands letters in support of Mussolini’s regime. In 1945, with Mussolini dead, Pound was arrested by Italian partisans, handed over to American forces, who detained him for six months before flying him back to the US to stand trial for treason.

Although Pound was not tried, he was considered insane and admitted to St. Elizabeths Hospital, Washington D.C, where, after a while, he became more than comfortable, writing (on The Pisan Cantos, for example), and receiving visitors on a regular basis. Although he repudiated his antisemitism in public, he continued to be stridently anti-semitic in his behaviour, and to maintain unsavoury friendships. It was not until 1958, that friends and allies (including Robert Frost and Ernest Hemingway) managed, finally, to get him released, though this was done under the argument that he was permanently and incurably insane. He returned to Italy, where he carried on writing, publishing, in 1969, Drafts and Fragments of Cantos CX-CXVII.

Physical and mental ill-health never seemed far away in Pound's last years, with Dorothy, Olga, and his daughter Mary all caring for him at times. He managed to get to London in 1965 to attend Eliot’s funeral, and to Dublin to visit Yeats’s widow, and to the US in 1967 where he was received warmly at Hamiton College. He died in Venice in 1972, Olga by his side.

The Poetry Foundation has this assessment of the poet: ‘Of all the major literary figures in the twentieth century, Ezra Pound has been one of the most controversial; he has also been one of modern poetry’s most important contributors. In an introduction to the Literary Essays of Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot declared that Pound “is more responsible for the twentieth-century revolution in poetry than is any other individual.” Four decades later, Donald Hall reaffirmed in remarks collected in Remembering Poets that “Ezra Pound is the poet who, a thousand times more than any other man, has made modern poetry possible in English.” ’ Further information is available from Wikipedia, Biography.com, the Poetry Foundation.

Pound was not a diarist, as far as I can tell, but Dorothy Shakespear kept a kind of diary for a few years when she first met Ezra, and extracts from this were included by Omar Pound and Arthur Walton Litz in Ezra Pound and Dorothy Shakespear: Their Letters 1909-1914, published by Faber and Faber in 1985. The authors say: ‘Since no letters survive from 1909 we have used extensive entries from a black school notebook Dorothy kept after their first meeting [. . . and] we have also used entires from the notebook to augment the letters of 1910 and 1911.’ Here are several extracts from that notebook.

16 February 1909
‘ “Ezra”. Listen to it - Ezra! Ezra! - And a third time - Ezra!. He has a wonderful, beautiful face, a high forehead, prominent over the eyes; a long, delicate nose, with little, red, nostrils; a strange mouth, never still, & quite elusive; a square chin, slighly cleft in the middle - the whole face pale; the eyes gray-blue; the hair golden-brown, and curling in soft wavy crinkles. Large hands, with long, well-shaped, fingers, and beautiful nails.

Some people have complained of untidy boots - how could they look at his boots, when there is his moving, beautiful face to watch? Oh! fools, fools! They are the fools one cannot “suffer gladly”. I do not think he knows he is beautiful.

At first he was shy - he spoke quickly, (with a strong, odd, accent, half American, half Irish) he sat back in his chair; but afterwards, he suddenly dropped down, cross-legged, with his back to the fire: then he began to talk - He talked of Yeats, as one of the Twenty of the world who have added to the World’s poetical matter - He read a short piece of Yeats, in a voice dropping with emotion, in a voice like Yeats’s own - He spoke of his interest in all the Arts, in that he might find things of use in them for his own - which is the Highest of them all.

“Have you ever seen things in a crystal?” I asked - And he looked at me, smiling, & answered “I see things without a crystal”. He suggested the Great Inspiration he was waiting for. That he wished above all things to be in readiness, open-minded and waiting, on the Great Day when it should come. For he evidently believes it will come. “You should never get up from a book tired” - he said. [. . .]

Oh! Ezra! how beautiful you are! With your pale face and fair hair! I wonder - are you a genius? or are you only an artist in Life?

How can people look at his boots, instead of his face - It is they who impossible, not he - not the beautiful Ezra. He said of one college, that it was only another tract of the barren waste - and suffered that which is untellable.’

26 February 1909
‘He (Ezra) has passed by the way where most men have only dreamed of passing. He has done with a Soul, that might be saved or damned - He has learned to live beside his body. I see him as a double person - just held together by the flesh.

His spirit walks beside him, outside him, on the left-hand side - He has conquered the needs of the flesh - He can starve; nay, is willing, to starve that his spirit may bring forth the ‘highest of arts’ - poetry. He has no care for hunger & thirst, for cold; of an ordinary man’s evils he takes no notice - “It is worth starving for” he said one day. He has attained to peace in this world, it seems to me. To be working for the great art, to be living in, and for, Truth in her Greatness - He has fond the Centre - Truth.’

4-5 November 1909
‘Oh! Ezra! you leave me so far behind! You have passed through the wood - and the fear you felt in the darkness is even now vibrating in between the pine stems.

It is the only trace of your passing for yr. thoughts are so white, that the cobwebs cling along the path, as though none had gone trough them. Yet I know that you went by once, long ago -

Sometimes in the loneliness I cry your name, hoping to dispel the fears which crowd behind me. Well I know that you do not hear my voice, that you cannot come back to speak with me - Yet I greatly desire some sign, when my faith fails me.’

19 March 1910
‘Ezra! Ezra! beautiful face! I love beautiful things - and I know it more than ever, because when you made yourself ugly by shaving off your joyous hair, I was miserable - I was angry also for I thought I understood the charm of your appearance altogether - Now that you know you have been a fool, I am sure of it again - but the time between us (passed in) touched with despair.’

28 August 1910
‘Surely you & I, Ezra, are both dreams; we are (the) subjective existences of some man or other, who little knows that we have met & loved - we - (his) forms of his imagination! He (dreamt) formed you before he thought of me. You have had time to go (further) deeper into the Truth than I have been given.

But one day you & I met - all unbeknown to our Objective. We met in a blue, open, place - We saw each other’s hair & knew that we both loved the Sun. Later we loved each other as well. But now, the Objective has taken you to the other side of the world & he has forgotten me - left me behind.’

7 May 1911
‘To-night (and all yesterday) I have had a feeling you were “about” - Is it possible you are coming back to me? And yet the news is bad - For Mercy’s sake come back to me - I shall never rest until I have seen you again, & settled that one thing in my own mind. How can I rest?’

A spirit to our honour

‘The Year 1765 has been the most remarkable Year of my Life. That enormous Engine, fabricated by the British Parliament, for battering down all the Rights and Liberties of America, I mean the Stamp Act, has raised and spread, thro the whole Continent, a Spirit that will be recorded to our Honour, with all future Generations.’ This is a diary entry by John Adams, born 280 years ago today, who was a key figure in the American colonies advocating independence from Great Britain. He would go on to become George Washington’s vice-president, and then president in his own right.

Adams was born at Massachusetts Bay Colony on 30 October 1735, and studied at Harvard. After several years teaching in Worcester, he decided on a career in the law, becoming an apprentice at a local law firm, and being admitted to the bar two years later in 1758. He married a distant cousin, Abigail Smith, in 1764; they had five children who survived infancy. In 1768, Adams moved his family to Boston, where he was elected to the Massachusetts Assembly in 1770, and, thereafter, to the first and second Continental Congresses.

Even before moving to Boston, Adams had made a name for himself by orchestrating opposition to the Stamp Act of 1765 - this had been imposed on the American colonies by the British without consultation. After the so-called Boston Massacre, Adams, reluctantly, defended the soldiers accused of killing civilians. He succeeded in winning acquittals or lesser convictions for each of them, thereby considerably enhancing his legal reputation. Once at Congress, he nominated Washington to be commander-in-chief of the colonial armies; and, in 1776, he offered a resolution that amounted to a declaration of independence from Britain. He promoted the importance of international trade, and, specifically, argued for a treaty with France, so Congress appointed him to join others as a commissioner in Paris. On his return in 1779, he participated in the framing of a state constitution for Massachusetts.

In 1781, Adams participated in the development of the Treaty of Peace and was one of its signatories. He also served as ambassador in the Dutch Republic, securing its recognition of an independent United States, and as the United States’ first ambassador to Great Britain. While in London, he published his work, A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States. On his return, he moved to Peacefield, a large house in Quincy, Massachusetts, which remained the family home for the rest of his life.

In 1789, and again in 1792, Adam was elected vice-president under George Washington; and then, he himself, was elected president in 1796 (serving from 1797 to 1801). His presidency was dominated by the threat of war with France, and argument over the US’s role in the European war between France and Britain. Moreover, in this early period of independence, Adams, a federalist, seemed to be in constant dispute with Thomas Jefferson, a Republican about the limits of federal power over the state governments and individual citizens. In the election of 1800, Adams lost narrowly to Jefferson, and retired to Peacefield. He lived to see his eldest son, John Quincy Adams, become the sixth president of the US, but died in 1826 (within hours of Jefferson). Further biographical information is readily available at Wikipedia, the White House, the Miller Center, or World Biography.

Adams kept a diary for much of his life, at least prior to being vice-president and then president, and left behind 51 small manuscript volumes describing both his daily activities and major events in which he was a participant. The diaries were first published within The Works of John Adams, as edited by his grandson, Charles Francis Adams, (10 volumes in all, published by Little, Brown in Boston between 1850 and 1856). The diary texts can be found in volumes two and three, both of them available online, either through the Online Library of Liberty or through Internet Archive.

The Massachusetts Historical Society, which holds all but the first of the manuscript diaries (which is held by Vermont Historical Society), provides a brief description: ‘The earliest diaries include John Adams’s descriptions of student life at Harvard College, his experiences as a teacher in Worcester, Massachusetts, and accounts as a lawyer and a member of the circuit court system. Beginning in 1774, most of the manuscript volumes describe the events Adams witnessed as a Congressional delegate and diplomat in Europe through the summer of 1786.’ The Society also provides a full list of Adams’s diaries, with links to images of the original manuscripts and transcribed texts for each one. Here are several extracts.

18 November 1755
‘We had a severe Shock of an Earthquake. It continued near four minutes. I was then at my Fathers in Braintree, and awoke out of my sleep in the midst of it. The house seemed to rock and reel and crack as if it would fall in ruins about us. 7 Chimnies were shatter’d by it within one mile of my Fathers house.’

21 July 1756.
‘Kept School. I am now entering on another Year, and I am resolved not to neglect my Time as I did last Year. I am resolved to rise with the Sun and to study the Scriptures, on Thurdsday, Fryday, Saturday, and Sunday mornings, and to study some Latin author the other 3 mornings. Noons and Nights I intend to read English Authors. This is my fixt Determination, and I will set down every neglect and every compliance with this Resolution. May I blush whenever I suffer one hour to pass unimproved. I will rouse up my mind, and fix my Attention. I will stand collected within my self and think upon what I read and what I see. I will strive with all my soul to be something more than Persons who have had less Advantages than myself.’

22 August 1756
‘Yesterday I compleated a Contract with Mr. Putnam, to study Law under his Inspection for two years. I ought to begin with a Resolution to oblige and please him and his Lady in a particular Manner. I ought to endeavour to oblige and please every Body, but them in particular. Necessity drove me to this Determination, but my Inclination I think was to preach. However that would not do. But I set out with firm Resolutions I think never to commit any meanness or injustice in the Practice of Law. The Study and Practice of Law, I am sure does not dissolve the obligations of morality or of Religion. And altho the Reason of my quitting Divinity was my Opinion concerning some disputed points, I hope I shall not give Reason of offence to any in that Profession by imprudent Warmth.’

18 December 1865
‘How great is my Loss, in neglecting to keep a regular journal, through the last Spring, Summer, and Fall. In the Course of my Business, as a Surveyor of High-Ways, as one of the Committee, for dividing, planning, and selling the North-Commons, in the Course of my two great journeys to Pounalborough and Marthas Vineyard, and in several smaller journeys to Plymouth, Taunton and Boston, I had many fine Opportunities and Materials for Speculation. The Year 1765 has been the most remarkable Year of my Life. That enormous Engine, fabricated by the british Parliament, for battering down all the Rights and Liberties of America, I mean the Stamp Act, has raised and spread, thro the whole Continent, a Spirit that will be recorded to our Honour, with all future Generations. In every Colony, from Georgia to New Hampshire inclusively, the Stamp Distributors and Inspectors have been compelled, by the unconquerable Rage of the People, to renounce their offices. Such and so universal has been the Resentment of the People, that every Man who has dared to speak in favour of the Stamps, or to soften the detestation in which they are held, how great soever his Abilities and Virtues had been esteemed before, or whatever his fortune, Connections and Influence had been, has been seen to sink into universal Contempt and Ignominy.’

21 January 1783
‘Went to Versailles to pay my Respects to the King and Royal Family, upon the Event of Yesterday. Dined with the foreign Ambassadors at the C. de Vergennes’s. The King appeared in high Health and in gay Spirits: so did the Queen.M. [Madame] Elizabeth is grown very fat. The C. D’Artois seems very well. Mr. Fitsherbert had his first Audience of the King and Royal Family and dined for the first time with the Corps Diplomatique.’

30 March 1786
‘Presented Mr. Hamilton to the Queen at the Drawing Room. Dined at Mr. Paradices. Count Warranzow [Woronzow] and his Gentleman and Chaplain, M. Sodorini the Venetian Minister, Mr. Jefferson, Dr. Bancroft, Coll. Smith [William Stephens Smith] and my Family. Went at Nine O Clock to the French Ambassadors Ball, where were two or three hundred People, chiefly Ladies. Here I met the Marquis of Landsdown and the Earl of Harcourt. These two Noblemen ventured to enter into Conversation with me. So did Sir George Young [Yonge]. But there is an Aukward Timidity, in General. This People cannot look me in the Face: there is conscious Guilt and Shame in their Countenances, when they look at me. They feel that they have behaved ill, and that I am sensible of it.’

8 July 1786
‘In one of my common Walks, along the Edgeware Road, there are fine Meadows, or Squares of grass Land belonging to a noted Cow keeper. These Plotts are plentifully manured. There are on the Side of the Way, several heaps of Manure, an hundred Loads perhaps in each heap. I have carefully examined them and find them composed of Straw, and dung from the Stables and Streets of London, mud, Clay, or Marl, dug out of the Ditch, along the Hedge, and Turf, Sward cutt up, with Spades, hoes, and shovels in the Road. This is laid in vast heaps to mix. With narrow hoes they cutt it down at each End, and with shovels throw it into a new heap, in order to divide it and mix it more effectually. I have attended to the Operation, as I walked, for some time. This may be good manure, but is not equal to mine, which I composed in similar heaps upon my own Farm, of Horse Dung from Bracketts stable in Boston, Marsh Mud from the sea shore and Street Dust, from the Plain at the Foot of Pens hill, in which is a Mixture of Marl.’

The Diary Junction

Manliness of the soldier

Today marks the bicentenary of the birth of William J. Hardee, one of the best of the Confederate soldiers in the American Civil War. He is also remembered for writing an important manual on military tactics. Although he didn’t keep a diary himself, he was a celebrity of a kind, and so others often mentioned him in their diaries - David Coleman, for example, who described him as a ‘polished gentleman - possessing the gentlest feelings, with the stern manliness of the soldier’.

Hardee was born in Camden County, Georgia, on 12 October 1815, the youngest of seven children. He entered the US Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1834, and graduated in 1838. He accepted a commission in the army, but during the second war against the Seminoles (a group of native Americans and African Americans who had settled in Florida a century earlier) he fell ill and was hospitalised. He met and married Elizabeth Dummett; and, on recovering his health, he was sent to France for a year to study military tactics.

Hardee was promoted to captain in 1844, and served under Generals Taylor and Scott in the Mexican War, during which he was captured and returned as part of a prisoner exchange. He was promoted to major for gallantry in action in 1847, and subsequently to lieutenant colonel. After the war, he led units of Texas Rangers and soldiers before being recalled to Washington DC. There he wrote an official military manual, Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics (familiarly known as Hardee’s Tactics), which become the most widely consulted book of its kind during the Civil War.

Hardee’s wife died in 1853; thereafter he served as the commandant of cadets at West Point, but resigning his commission on the secession of Georgia from the Union in 1961. Instead, he took the rank of colonel in the new Confederate army, and set about attracting the best troops he could find. His successes led to him being nicknamed Old Reliable. He rose to brigadier general and then lieutenant general, showing his considerable military skills at the battles of Shiloh, Perryville, Murfreesboro and Missionary Ridge. He served under General Braxton Bragg with his Army of Tennessee for a while. After taking part in the battles before Atlanta in mid-1864, he assumed command of the military department of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. In the final months of the war, Hardee’s troops continued to fight battles in Georgia but the land was steadily taken by the Union, and he surrendered his army in April 1865.

During the war, Hardee had met and married Mary Foreman Lewis, an Alabama plantation owner. With the war over, they set about bringing her plantation back into operation. The family then moved to Selma, where he became president of the Selma and Meridian Railroad. He died in 1873. Further information is available from Wikipedia, The New Georgia Encyclopedia, The Encyclopedia of Arkansas, or The Civil War Trust.

Although not a diary keeper, Hardee’s high-level position, especially during the Civil War, meant that he often appeared in journals written by others. The Civil War Day by Day blog, hosted by the Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library, includes several such diary entries.

David Coleman, was a young man, of 24 at the time, who had trained as a lawyer. He fought in the Civil War, and after it was over he became a teacher to support himself and his younger brothers, later returning to the practice of law. His diary was kept for a year or so from January 1863, and contains vivid descriptions of military activity and details of daily camp life. Hardee is mentioned half a dozen times. Here is one entry taken from the Civil War Day by Day blog

24 May 1863
‘By invitation I go out and breakfast with Mrs Moore - taking Richard with me - Our walk gave us a good apetite and we enjoyed our breakfast hugely - I was almost afraid we would alarm them these hard times, but they are old and dear friends - who cannot be so easily disturbed –

We go with them all to church - myself walking with Miss Roe & Miss Hardee - And soon after a shady walk we reach the pretty country church –

I enjoyed the service - to hear once more and it might be for the last time the blending of sweet female voices accompanied by a sweet tuned melodeon, brought up pleasant but sad reflections - After we returned Mrs I gave us a delightful lunch - Genl Hardee came in to be with his daughters - It was the first time I had ever met him socially - He is very agreeable and pleasant - a finished polished gentleman - possessing the gentlest feelings, with the stern manliness of the soldier - My short intercourse with him increased my already high opinion of him - He seems to be a tender and affectionate father - May his life be long spared to his country and family.’

Coleman’s diary can be read in full online thanks to a 1999 edition of The Huntsville Historical Review. Here is a second extract from Coleman’s diary, taken from the Review.

19 March 1863
‘Great review today of Genl Hardee’s whole Corps - Genl Joe Johnston, the Commander in Chief, was present - We were drawn up in two lines - Genl Breckinridge in front - Great many spectators present - among many ladies looking bright and hopeful - The Scene was imposing - It made us feel a pride in our Army and our Generals.’

And here is another war diarist - Taylor Beatty, a lawyer from Louisiana, serving under General Bragg - writing about Hardee (found on the Civil War Day by Day website).

10 April 1863
‘Rode out to a review of Hardee’s troops to-day - the troops did very well - weather was good but ground dusty - A great many spectators especially ladies - for whom Genl Hardee has given the entertainment - he has several at his house - and this is the second or third time they have come up from Huntersville. The report is that the fight at Charleston is still going on.’

The brave Edith Cavell

Edith Cavell, a British war and nursing heroine, second only perhaps to Florence Nightingale, was executed 100 years ago today. She revolutionised the training of nurses in Belgium, but, when the Germans over-ran the country, she also played a very significant part in helping nearly 200 British, French and Belgian soldiers escape to Holland. She kept a detailed diary from the start of the war but then destroyed it for fear of incriminating herself and others. Nevertheless, a fragment - a page or two - survived by being sewn into a cushion!

Cavell was born near Norfolk in 1865, the eldest of four children in a religious family - her father was the local vicar. She was taught at home until her early teens, after which she went to a series schools, and then worked as a governess. She receive a small legacy, and was able to travel abroad. In 1889, she took a position in Brussels, and stayed until 1895. That year she returned home to look after her ill father, and decided to train as a nurse, first at Fountains Fever Hospital and then at London Hospital in 1896. She worked at other hospitals, including Shoreditch Infirmary (where she was matron) until 1906, when she took a trip to the Continent.

The following year Cavell moved back to Brussels to become director of a new kind of clinic and nurses’ training school - L’École Belge d’Infirmières Diplômées. This was set up, and largely led, by Dr Antoine De Page at his Berkendael Institute. Having been impressed by the training of British nurses and the care of Florence Nightingale in the Crimean and Balkan wars, he was keen on similar methods in Belgium, and, in particular, diminishing the influence of religious orders on the care of the sick. Although Cavell struggled to recruit laywomen, and convince them that nursing was a respectable profession that needed professional training, her reputation, and that of the school, soon spread. By 1912, plans were being drawn up for a new building, but construction was halted in 1914 by the German occupation.

Though her clinic remained open, Clavell also used it to shelter British, French and Belgian soldiers, and thus help them escape to the neutral Netherlands. The escape network involved Prince Reginald de Croy’s château of Bellignies near Mons, and used guides organised by Philippe Baucq. She, and others, were arrested by the Germans in August 1915, and held in Saint-Gilles prison. She confessed her part in helping nearly 200 soldiers escape, was sentenced to death for treasonous acts, and executed, alongside Baucq, by firing squad on 12 October. Internationally, her execution caused widespread outrage.

Subsequently, Cavell’s life and death received huge amounts of publicity: she became an icon for military recruitment in Britain, and her death was considered an example of German barbarism and moral depravity. Many memorials were constructed, around the world in fact, to commemorate her life, the most famous of which is the sculpture by George Frampton near Trafalgar Square (see also London Cross, my online book of a walk across London). Further information about Cavell can be found at Wikipedia, Belgian Edith Cavell Commemoration Group’s website, or the website based on a booklet written by Rev Phillip McFadyen. In addition, there are several early biographies, now out of copyright, which can be found at Internet Archive.

There seems to be no evidence that Cavell kept a diary through her life, however, she did start one during the war. Diana Souhami, in her biography - Edith Cavell (Quercus, 2010) - states that as early as August 1914, Cavell wrote to her mother to say she was keeping a war diary. However, as the net closed around her and her fellow workers, she burned all evidence that might incriminate or endanger. ‘All that survived of her diary,’ Souhami goes on to say, ‘was a fragment for a few days in April 1915. It was sewn into a cushion. Perhaps she hid it there and had left more of it, never recovered, in other secret places. Perhaps it was all that escaped the burning, and a nurse - Sister Wilkins was keen at sewing - stitched it into a cushion. After the war Edith’s sister Lillian took the cushion as a keepsake. Thirty years later she gave it to her housekeeper, Mrs Mead, whose husband wondered at its lumpiness. They opened it, and found the diary fragment. It was for two days in April 1915. It showed what a detailed record Edith Cavell must have kept of her work, and how wide was the network of resistance.’ (In commemoration of the anniversary of her death, Quercus has brought out a centenary edition of Souhami’s biography - it can previewed at Amazon).

Here are extracts from those diary fragments (incidentally, held by the Imperial War Museum) as reproduced in Souhami’s book.

‘People are wonderfully generous with their loyal help - I went to a new house & there secure the services of a man who comes up to take our guests to safe houses where they can abide till it is time for departure. A little widow with a big house gives shelter to some & does all the work without a servant, waiting on and cooking for them with the best courage & good will in the world’

27 April 1915
‘Yesterday a letter from Monsieur Capiau who has gone to Germany voluntarily to inquire at Essen! with some other Belgian engineers. The letter came thro a young Frenchman who with 7 others had come from N. France to escape and hopes to get over the Dutch frontier in a day or two. The frontier has been absolutely impassable the last few days. Germany and Holland have been on the verge of war over the sinking of the Catwyk. The Dutch refused to allow anyone to cross and had massed their troops & laid mines all along from Maastricht to Antwerp. A sentinel on the Dutch side was posted very 15 metres & all the young men who had left to try & cross were stuck or came back - 5 of ours were heard of at Herrenthall yesterday & the guide left to bring them back.’

[Cavell gives a description of one of her guides and carriers of information - a boy, as she called him, of 23, Charles Vanderlinden, one of a family of nine brothers, ‘all strong and fighters’.] ‘This fellow is a fine type - about 5ft 6 or 7, slightly made but very strong and muscular. He amused himself when small with boxing a great sack of sand or corn which swung forward and butted him in the face if he failed to hit in the right place. He afterwards got some lessons in boxing & obliged me with a description of the right way to catch a man’s head under the arm & ‘crack’ his neck or to give him a back-handed blow and destroy the trachea or larynx. He is also a poacher in time of peace & sets lassoes in rows so that hares racing to their feeding grounds are bound to be caught in one of them. [. . .] He will be caught one day & if so will be shot but he will make a first class bid for freedom.’

Katie Pickles, also refers to the diary fragments in her biography, Transnational Outrage (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), and provides one quotation, as follows.

31 April 1915
‘Friday glorious and warm. E: wind. 2 guides left this morning. Charles Vanderlinden with 3 Fx and 2 Be. (1F Cw!). Last two paying 60 frs each. Charles says he will take them if it becomes easier.’

Breaking with Burr

Harman Blennerhassett, an Anglo-Irish aristocrat who emigrated to the US and got caught up in a 19th century land-grabbing conspiracy led by Aaron Burr, a former US vice-president, was born 150 years ago today. The plot was hatched with Blennerhassett’s money and while Blurr was staying at his estate on the Ohio river. President Thomas Jefferson ordered the conspirators to be arrested, and though eventually cleared of charges, Blennerhassett lost everything. From the first day of his arrest, he kept a journal, in which he detailed every twist and turn of the case, and his daily struggle to comprehend the enigmatic schemer, Burr.

Blennerhassett was born on 8 October 1765 in Hampshire, England, but, aged two, he returned to the family home, a large estate in County Kerry, Ireland. Later, he studied in London at Westminster School and Trinity College, Dublin, before reading law at the King’s Inns. He went on a grand tour of Europe, and then began to practice at the Irish bar. However, he preferred to cultivate his interests in science and literature. He also dabbled in politics, by joining the secret Society of United Irishmen, which aimed at securing independence from British control. After the death of his father, though, he wanted to escape the forthcoming rebellion against the British, so he divested the estate, amassing more than £100,000, and removed to London. Somewhat scandalously, he married his niece, Margaret Agnew, and, in 1796, they escaped to the United States.

Although planning to explore as far as Kentucky and Tennessee, Blennerhassett found himself much taken with an area along the Ohio river, where he spent time visiting families and exploring. The following spring, he bought 170 acres of an island in the river, downstream from what is now Parkersburg, West Virginia. There he built, with no expense spared, a European-style estate with a large mansion and landscaped lawns and gardens. For a period, it is said, the Blennerhassetts’ home became famous as the largest, most beautiful private residence in the American West, and was the scene of lavish parties. Blennerhassett continued his scientific, literary and music interests, but was also fond of hunting. Into this Eden, the Early America website says, there soon came a serpent!

During three sojourns at the estate, Aaron Burr, a former US vice president, planned a land-grabbing expedition to the southwest - possibly to separate the American west from the union, and to conquer Spanish Texas. The expedition, partly financed by Blennerhassett, was identified as a treasonous plot by Burr’s enemy, President Thomas Jefferson, who issued an arrest warrant for Burr, Blennerhassett and scores of other followers. In late 1806, the mansion and island were ransacked by local Virginia militia, and Blennerhassett fled. However, he was soon arrested, and then imprisoned in the Virginia state penitentiary. Only after a long trial and Burr’s acquittal was he released. Although he returned to the island, he could not afford to repair the damage; and the house was further ruined by a fire in 1811.

The Blennerhassetts settled on a cotton plantation near Port Gibson, Mississippi, but lost whatever had been left of their money. Thereafter, they moved to Montreal, Canada, where Blennerhassett tried to practice law, but, eventually, they returned to England, to live with family at Bath, before moving to the Channel Islands. There, Harman Blennerhassett died in 1831. Margaret returned to the US, to petition the government for compensation, and Congress decided to redress the grievance, but it was too late for she died at a New York City home for the poor. In the 1980s, the state of West Virginia undertook to restore the mansion, which opened to the public in 1991. ‘Today,’ the Early America website states, ‘the Blennerhassetts have reach an almost cult status in the Ohio River Valley. Plays and pageants remember and honor this couple that defied convention and for one shining moment established Eden.’ Further biographical information is also available at Wikipedia, and the Blennerhassett family tree website.

On the day Blennerhassett was taken into custody (at Lexington, Kentucky), 14 July 1807, he began to keep a detailed diary. He wrote in three notebooks (all now held by the Library of Congress), though the diary comes to an abrupt end in the third book with blank pages left. Most of the text was published in 1864, in William H. Safford’s The Blennerhassett Papers. This is freely available at Internet Archive. More recently, in 1988, the Blennerhassett’s diary was given a more thorough treatment in Raymond E. Fitch’s punningly-but-aptly titled Breaking with Burr - Harman Blennerhassett’s Journal 1807, published by Ohio University Press. According to Fitch, the edition by William H Safford in 1864 ‘does not accurately convey either the texture or the content of the original’ and he ‘suppressed passages of the journal which he evidently thought were distastefully personal or irrelevant to the objective progress of “historical” events.’

‘Blennerhassett’s journal, which records for his wife and a few friends the events and aftermath of the Burr trials, is an intimate yet often eloquent account,’ Ohio Univeristy Press says, ‘not only of the arguments, intrigues, and personalities involved, but also of the American social scene of the early nineteenth century. Included are striking vignettes and dramatic moments drawn from the diarist’s visits to Washington, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. But the recurrent theme of the journal, and its chief interest, is the interior trial it recounts: the chronicle of Blennerhassett’s growing disillusionment with Burr, his almost daily struggle to comprehend the enigmatic schemer, and his frustrating attempts to make Burr recognize and reimburse his losses.’

Here are several extracts from Blennerhassett’s diary, the first (28 September) from the earlier (Safford) edition, and the rest (all in November) from the more recent (Fitch) edition.

28 September 1807.
‘I had, this morning, a long double letter from my adored wife. Its red seal was as welcome to my eyes as the evening star to the mariner after the agitation of a storm. For I had, last week, suffered no small anxiety from the want of a letter. But the seal, notwithstanding its color, and every curve and turn of the letters in the superscription, had long passed under jealous inspection, to undergo every scrutiny from which I could augur the import of the intelligence within, before I would venture to break it open. But I was assured by the seal there was no mortality, at least on the 25th ult., as by the postmark. I trust, then, the heartfelt offerings of thanksgiving I tried to breathe forth to Heaven were borne to Almighty God, before I consulted the contents of the letter. There I soon saw how industriously my beloved continued to practice the only fraud her pure soul is capable of conceiving - that of endeavoring to hide from me all she feels for me, and has suffered for our dear boys. Her complaint in her chest is mentioned in a way to alarm me, through, the vail of disguise she has attempted to throw over it. But the weekly reports she will not fail to see of the criminal proceedings here, will, I trust, lighten much of the anxiety she labors under, which, I know, so much aggravates the affection in her breast. I next find my boys have, both of them, had fevers; and my dear Harman, who has suffered most, was perhaps at the height of his disease, about the period when I last dreame’d I had lost him. [. . .]

The Court does not sit to-day, on account of Burr’s illness. I find he is much worse than yesterday. He says he will take my medicine to-night, and has rejected bleeding, proposed to him by McClung, in which I fully agreed with him that he should not part with his blood, even at a Joe a drop. I called upon De Pestre, this morning, at Mr. Chevalier’s, where Mr. C. kindly pressed me to dine en famille, which I declined, through a desire to write at home and attend a private quartette-party at the Harmonic Society’s room this evening. The invitation of Chevalier was given in the most friendly manner, with a reprobation of the restriction imposed on the hospitable dispositions of the families of this town by the effects of a system of espionage, which is kept up by Government and its agents to a degree that has generally prevented those attentions we should otherwise receive. This must be the case, as I have not received a visit from any family-man, much less an invitation, since my release from imprisonment, though Mr. Pickett, who lives in the first style here, informed my landlord, Walton, the other day, he means to invite me to his house. So that etiquette seems also to be totally disregarded; and, no doubt, here, as in other countries, a want of better breeding is received by strangers as a proof of inhospitality not merited.’

10 November 1807
‘Soon after breakfast visited Burr and Pollock. Burr has again opened an audience chamber, which is much occupied. Altho’ I found 2 or 3 friends with him at breakfast; he was called out the moment he had breakfasted, and was absent about 1 3/4 hour; during which interval Mr Pollock gave me his company. [. . .] With respect to Burr, whatever may have been the ground of his present intimacy with Mr P. I can venture to affirm, it has already been abused, on the part of the former, altho’ the latter as yet, is evidently unaware of it. Upon B’s return P. withdrew, and I entered upon the objects of my visit. After informing Burr that Martin was resolved to appear for us at Chilicothe, he seemed all surprise and nothing could be more natural than the collision of such generosity with his own ingratitude. For he had fled fr Balt. without waiting even to thank his friend for the long and various services he had rendered him. [. . .]

This business being thus dispatched I next solicited him on the subject of his finances, on which indeed, he had partly anticipated me, by inquiring “what were my prospects thro’ my friends, the Lewises?” I informed him I had no expectations in that quarter, and shd absolutely starve whilst I was possessed of such splendid hopes in Europe if I was not relieved in the mean time. He regretted much the absence fr. town, of 2 persons with whom he expected to do something; but he had he said, negotiations on foot, the success of which he cd not answer for, but shd know in 2 or 3 days. [. . .]

by the bye, it is remarkable that many persons of penetration and intelligence who have indulged an eager interest in investigating every thing during the last year, relating to Burr, within the reach of their own inquiries, should have permitted that irredeemable passage of Alston’s letter imputing Burr a design to deprive his infant grandson of his patrimony.’

15 November 1807
‘I am much mortified by my detention here - thro’ the probably delusive hopes Burr has held out to me of the possible success of his efforts to raise money. I have almost let slip the season for descending the Ohio, for there is much appearance of an early winter: and thus will another item be probably added to the long account of my sufferings by this man.’

17 November 1807
‘Had a note fr. Burr this morning, to dine wth him tomorrow, at 4 o’clock, which invitation I have accepted, in anticipation of mixing probably for the last time with a few of his choice spirits.’

18 November 1807
‘To day however I did a little shopping, before I came home to dress for Burr’s party, which I joined at half past 4 [. . .] The party was as insipid as possible. Burr is evidently dejected, and tho’ he often affected to urge and enliven the conversation it languished - thro’ the stupidity of Randolph, the unconcern of Pollock, the vacant reserve of Cummins, the incapacity of Butler, the nothingness of Biddle and the aversion of myself to keep it up till 8 o’clock - when it expired and I took leave soon after the entrance of a General Nichol who seemed another of Burr’s gaping admirers [. . .] Thus ended the last invitation I shall ever probably receive fr this American Chesterfield, who is fast approaching the limits of that career he has so long run thro’ the absurd confidence of so many dupes and swindlers.’

20 November 1807
‘Having determined last wednesday, I wd not see two days more pass away, without leaving my ultimatum with Burr, I set out this morning for his quarters, resolved to burst the cobweb of duplicity of all his evasions with me upon money-matters. It will be seen every where in these notes, how long and how insidiously he has trifled with my claims upon him, fr. the time, when he assured Barton, I was a bankrupt, and denied to him, my possessing any legal claims upon Alston or himself, whilst at the distance of 1,500 miles he was writing most affectionately to me, ‘till the last interview I have this day, had with him, in which, he treated me, not as a faithful associate ruined by my connection with him, but rather as an importunate creditor invading his leisure or his purse with a questionable account. [The entry continues for another two pages and then breaks off, the rest of the journal being blank pages.]

An old, leaky, faded umbrella!

Yale University Press has just published an abridged version of the diaries of Ivan Maisky (Maiskii), the Soviet Union’s highly educated and very social ambassador in London during the 1930s and the early 1940s. The diaries, never before available in English, are beautifully written (and translated), and provide a very observant and colourful view of London’s political and intellectual life - such as, for example, when Maisky writes of Neville Chamberlain in 1939: ‘This is the leader of a great Empire on a crucial day of its existence! An old, leaky, faded umbrella! Whom can he save?’. The publisher also claims that Maisky’s narrative provides ‘a fascinating revision of the events surrounding the Second World War’.

Ivan Maisky was born in 1884 in Kirillov to a Polish family living in Imperial Russia. Apparently, early revolutionary activities led to him being expelled from St. Petersburg University in 1902. Following a period of exile in Siberia, he travelled to western Europe, where he learned English and French, and took a degree in economics at Munich university. He remained in London between 1912 and 1917, where he became friends with Georgii Chicherin and Maxim Litvinov, as well as with writers, such as G. B. Shaw, H. G. Wells and Beatrice Webb. He returned to Russia in February 1917, shortly after the tsar was overthrown, but it was only in 1919 that he renounced an association with the fading Menshevik party and joined the Bolsheviks. His command of foreign languages and familiarity with the international scene, bolstered by his friendship with Litvinov, secured a rapid rise in the Soviet diplomatic service.

Following various postings, during which time he also edited the new Petrograd literary magazine Zvezda, he was appointed Soviet ambassador to Finland in 1929, and, in 1932, official Soviet envoy to the UK, a position he then held until 1943. This was an important role, since Stalin considered Britain to be the Soviet Union’s main rival in the European power struggle. Maisky’s efforts to unify a security agreement against Nazi Germany through the League of Nations, however, collapsed in the face of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, a non-aggression treaty between Moscow and Berlin. For two years, thereafter, Maisky struggled to cope with tense relations between London and Moscow. Only with Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 did Stalin switch allegiance to the Allies.

During the later years of his London posting, Maisky maintained close contact with Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden, personally visiting the Foreign Office every day to get the latest news. In 1943, Maisky (and Litvinov, ambassador to Washington) were recalled to Moscow and entrusted with the preparation of the Soviet agenda for the peace settlement. Maisky advocated the continuation of collaboration with the Western Allies, and, as chief adviser to Stalin at the Yalta and Potsdam summits, he helped formulate Soviet strategy calling for a division of Europe into spheres of interest. With the onset of the cold war, Maisky retired to the Russian Academy of Sciences, where he took up historical research, and wrote his memoirs.

In 1953, shortly before Stalin’s death, Maisky was arrested and charged with espionage, treason, and involvement in a Zionist conspiracy. It would be two years before he was pardoned and released, and re-instated at the Academy of Sciences where he continued with his historical research, and with writing his memoirs. He died in 1975. Further biographical information is available online through Wikipedia or the Yivo Encyclopaedia.

During his term as ambassador to the UK, Maisky kept a detailed and personal diary, typing his entries each evening. This was frowned on by Stalin who discouraged his staff from keeping any written notes. Indeed, later, when he was arrested, his diaries and personal archive were confiscated, and they remained inaccessible to researchers for many years. Only in 1993, did Gabriel Gorodetsky uncover them in the Russian Foreign Ministry. The process, Gorodetsky says, of having the diaries declassified and then published in Russia (a prerequisite for publication in the West) was ‘long and arduous’. Translation of the diary entries has been undertaken by Tatiana Sorokina and Olivery Ready. The final result will be a three volume edition of the full diaries, to be published by Yale University Press, with commentary and annotations.

However, in the meantime, Gorodetsky says, he was encouraged to produce an abridged version to make the diary accessible to a wider audience. Publication of this single volume edition - The Maisky Diaries - Red Ambassador to the Court of St James’s 1932-1943 - took place in the UK on 1 September, but is not scheduled until 27 October in the US. Parts of the book can be read online at Googlebooks or Amazon; and several articles by Gorodetsky himself, with generous extracts from the diaries, can be read at the Yale Books blog (part 1, part 2, part 3). Reviews of the book can be read at The Conversation, The Telegraph, and The Spectator.

In his introduction, Gorodetsky says: ’For non-experts, with limited access to the rich and fascinating documents published by the Russians on the events leading up to the war, the diary provides a rare glimpse into the inner state of the Soviet mind: its entries question many of the prevailing, often tendentious, interpretations of both Russian and Western historiography.’ Apart from their political importance, though, Maisky’s diaries offer an intriguing, intelligent, vibrant and often humourous portrait of London, as well of many of its important characters and famous places. Here are several extracts.

15 November 1934
‘Today I attended the dinner given by the ancient guild, the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers (already 600 years old). I had expected the dinner to be accompanied by some very old customs, but I was disappointed. It was a dinner like all others, right down to the inescapable turtle soup, and only the painted arched windows of the dining hall suggested the past. I tell a lie: there was also ‘The loving cup’, but I had seen that already at the lord mayor’s banquets. The guests, though - they really did bring the odd whiff of medieval times. To my right sat Lord Marshall (a big publisher and former lord mayor of London), who proudly declared that he had been in the guild for 55 years!

‘Is membership hereditary?’ I asked in some perplexity. ‘No,’ answered Lord Marshall, ‘it is not. I joined the guild as soon as I became an apprentice in my profession.’

It turned out that my neighbour was already 70. To my left sat Lord Wakefield, a major oil industrialist, prominent philanthropist and London alderman. He’s also about 70 years old (a schoolmate of Marshall’s!). This venerable notable of the British Empire told me that about 30 years ago (a truly English time span!) he had planned to visit St Petersburg and had even the tickets when suddenly, at the last moment, he received a telegram claiming ‘plague in Russia’. Naturally, he decided not to travel. Perhaps now was the time to go? . . . I seconded his intention.

‘Tell me,’ he continued, wiping his brow and appearing to remember something, ‘You seem to have a man . . . Lenin . . . Is he really terribly clever?’

‘I can assure you he was,’ I answered, smiling, ‘but unfortunately he died back in 1924.’

‘’Died?’ Wakefield sounded disappointed. ‘Really? . . . I wasn’t aware of that.’

See how well the cream of the English bourgeoisie is informed about Soviet affairs! Truly it smacks of the Middle Ages!’

29 November 1934
‘The royal wedding finally took place today. From first light, and even from the previous night, London seemed to be overflowing its banks. Up to half a million people descended on the capital from all over the country. Many foreigners arrived from the Continent. The streets along which the wedding procession would pass were filled to bursting by an immense crowd that had gathered on the previous evening to occupy the best places. Typically the crowd consisted almost entirely of women. I, at least, noticed barely a single man on my way from the embassy to the Westminster Abbey. [. . .]

On this occasion I was obliged to attend the wedding ceremony itself, in Westminster Abbey. That’s what Moscow decided. It was the first time I had attended a church service since leaving school, 33 years ago! That’s quite a stretch.

The diplomatic corps sat to the right of the entrance, and members of the government on the left. Simon was my partner on the opposite side. MacDonald zealously chanted psalms during the service. Baldwin yawned wearily, while [Walter] Elliot [minister for agriculture] simply dozed. Churchill looked deeply moved and at one point even seemed to wipe his eyes with a handkerchief.’

5 August 1939
‘Went to St Pancras railway station to see off the British and French military missions. Lots of people, reporters, photographers, ladies and young girls. I met General Doumenc, head of the French mission, and a few of his companions. The heads of the British mission - Admiral Drax (head), Air Marshal Burnett and Major General Heywood - were my guests for lunch yesterday and we greeted one another like old acquaintances.

On my way home, I couldn’t help smiling at history’s mischievous sense of humour.

In subjective terms, it is difficult to imagine a situation more favourable for an Anglo-German bloc against the USSR and less favourable for an Anglo-Soviet bloc against Germany. Indeed, the spontaneous preferences of the British ‘upper ten thousand’ most definitely lie with Germany. In his sleep, Chamberlain dreams of a deal with Hitler at the expense of third countries, i.e. ultimately at the expense of the USSR. Even now the PM still dreams of ‘appeasement’. On the other side, in Berlin, Hitler has always advocated a bloc with Britain. He wrote about this fervently back in Mein Kampf. Highly influential groups among the German fascists, bankers and industrialists also support closer relations with England. I repeat: the subjective factor is not only 100%, but a full 150% behind an Anglo-German bloc.

And yet, the bloc fails to materialize. Slowly but unstoppably, Anglo-German relations are deteriorating and becoming increasingly strained. Regardless of Chamberlain’s many attempts to ‘forget’, to ‘forgive’, to ‘reconcile’, to ‘come to terms’, something fateful always occurs to widen further the abyss between London and Berlin. Why? Because the vital interests of the two powers - the objective factor - prove diametrically opposed. And this fundamental conflict of interests easily overrides the influence of the subjective factor. Repulsion is stronger than attraction.

The reverse scenario holds for Anglo-Soviet relations. Here the subjective factor is sharply opposed to an Anglo-Soviet bloc. The bourgeoisie and the Court dislike, even loathe, ‘Soviet communism’. Chamberlain has always been eager to cut the USSR’s throat with a feather. And we, on the Soviet side, have no great liking for the ‘upper ten thousand’ of Great Britain. The burden of the past, the recent experience of the Soviet period, and ideological practice have all combined to poison our subjective attitude towards the ruling elite in England, and especially the prime minister, with the venom of fully justified suspicion and mistrust. I repeat: the subjective factor in this case is not only 100%, but a full 150% against an Anglo-Soviet bloc.

And yet the bloc is gradually taking shape. When I look back over the seven years of my time in London, the overall picture is very instructive. Slowly but steadily, via zigzags, setbacks and failures, Anglo-Soviet relations are improving. From the Metro-Vickers case to the military mission’s trip to Moscow! This is the distance we have covered! The abyss between London and Moscow keeps narrowing. Field engineers are successfully fixing beams and rafters to support the bridge over the remaining distance. Why? Because the vital interests of the two powers - the objective factor - coincide. And this fundamental coincidence overrides the influence of the subjective factor. Attraction proves stronger than repulsion.

The military mission’s journey to Moscow is a historical landmark. It testifies to the fact that the process of attraction has reached a very high level of development.

But what an irony that it should fall to Chamberlain to build the Anglo-Soviet bloc against Germany!

Yes, mischievous history really does have a vicious sense of humour.

However, everything flows. The balance of forces described above corresponds to the present historical period. The picture would change dramatically if and when the question of a proletarian revolution outside the USSR becomes the order of the day.’

31 August 1939
‘Another day of tension and suspense. . . . At about five o’clock, Agniya and I got into a small car and drove around town to see what was going on. It was the end of the working day. The usual hustle and bustle in the streets, on the underground, and on the buses and trams. But no more than usual. All the shops are trading. The cafés are open. The newspaper vendors shout out the headlines. In general, the city looks normal. Only the sandbags under the windows and the yellow signs with arrows pointing to the nearest bomb shelters indicate that England is on the verge of war.

In the evening, Agniya and I went to the Globe to see Oscar Wilde’s delicious comedy The Importance of Being Earnest. The actors were superb. An image of the ‘good old times’ - without automobiles, radio, airplanes, air raids, Hitlers and Mussolinis - seemed to come alive. People were funny and naive then, to judge by today’s standards. We laughed for two hours. That’s something to be grateful for.

When we got back from the theatre, the radio brought sensational news: the 16 points which Hitler demands from Poland. The immediate return of Danzig, a plebiscite in the ‘Corridor’, an international committee made up of Italian, British, French and Soviet representatives, a vote in 1940, and so on and so forth.

What’s this? A step back? Slowing down?

I doubt it. It’s too late for Hitler to retreat. It’s almost certainly a manoeuvre. Is it an attempt to hoodwink the world’s public and perhaps the German people as well before a decisive ‘leap’?’

1 September 1939
‘Yesterday’s doubts have been fully justified. Today, early in the morning, Germany attacked Poland without any prior warning and began bombing Polish cities. The Polish army and air force are putting up strong resistance everywhere.

So, war has begun. A great historical knot has been loosened. The first stone has rolled down the slope. Many more will follow. Today, the world has crossed the threshold of a new epoch. It will emerge from it much changed. The time of great transformations in the life of humankind is nigh. I think I’ll live to see them unless, of course, some crazy incident cuts my days short. . .

Parliament met at six in the evening. As I drove up to Westminster, photographers began snapping away. And why not? What a sensation: the Soviet ambassador at a parliamentary session on the matter of war. And this directly after the signing of the Soviet-German pact!

A nervous and panicky mood reigned in the Parliament corridors. A motley crowd of every age and status had gathered. There were many rather young women and girls, gesticulating frantically and speaking in raised voices. I walked down the corridors, saluted in the usual manner by the Parliament policemen, and approached the entrance to the diplomatic gallery. It was quite jammed with ambassadors, envoys, high commissioners and other ‘notables’. As soon as the door attendant caught sight of me, he pushed back a few ‘ministers’ to clear a narrow path for me to the staircase.

. . . I looked down. The small chamber of the Commons was full to bursting with agitated, tense MPs. They were packed in like sardines. The Government bench was just the same. All the stars - if there are any - were present: Chamberlain, Simon, Hore-Belisha, Kingsley Wood, and the rest. The atmosphere was heavy, menacing and oppressive. The galleries of the Lords, the press and guests were jam-packed. Near the ‘clock’, wearing plain grey suits, sat the duke of Gloucester and the duke of Kent. A few MPs were in khaki . . . All eyes were trained on me. The mood was the same: restrained hostility, but with a hint of deference. I calmly endured this bombardment of glances. Then I began to make out individual faces. Lady Astor, as is her custom, seemed to be sitting on needles, and looked at me as if she meant to grab me by the hair. Mander, Nicolson and Ellen Wilkinson looked at me with friendly, sparkling eyes. I had the impression that Eden also cast a quick, and not remotely hostile, glance at me, but I can’t say for sure.

Chamberlain, looking terribly depressed and speaking in a quiet, lifeless voice, confessed that 18 months ago (when Eden retired!) he prayed not to have to take upon himself the responsibility for declaring war, but now he fears that he will not be able to avoid it. But the true responsibility for the unleashing of war lies not with the prime minister, but ‘on the shoulders of one man - the German Chancellor’, who has not hesitated to hurl mankind into the abyss of immense suffering ‘to serve his senseless ambitions’. . . . At times, Chamberlain even tried to bang his fist on the famous ‘box’ on the Speaker’s table. But everything cost him such torment and was expressed with such despair in his eyes, voice and gestures that it was sickening to watch him. And this is the head of the British Empire at the most critical moment in its history! He is not the head of the British Empire, but its grave-digger! . . .

Unless an extraordinary miracle happens at the very last moment, Britain will find itself at war with Germany within the next 48 hours.’

3 September 1939
‘Today, the denouement really did take place . . . the prime minister went on air at 11.15 a.m. and declared that, as of then, Britain was at war with Germany.

Half an hour later the air filled with the bellowing sounds of the siren. People scampered off to their houses, the streets emptied, and cars stopped in the road. What was it? A drill? Or a genuine raid by German bombers?

Fifteen minutes of tension and anxiety - then we heard the prolonged siren wail: ‘all clear’! It had been just a drill. There were no enemy planes.

I got to Parliament by midday. I was a couple of minutes late because of the alarm. I took the first available seat in the second row. Chamberlain was already speaking. A darkened, emaciated face. A tearful, broken voice. Bitter, despairing gestures. A shattered, washed-up man. However, to do him justice, the prime minister did not hide the fact that catastrophe had befallen him.

‘This is a sad day for all of us,’ he said, ‘and to none is it sadder than to me. Everything that I have worked for, everything that I hoped for, everything that I have believed in during my public life - has crashed into ruins.’

I sat, listened and thought: ‘This is the leader of a great Empire on a crucial day of its existence! An old, leaky, faded umbrella! Whom can he save? If Chamberlain remains prime minister for much longer, the Empire is ruined.’ . . .’

The nonconformist Newcome

‘I heard today yt a new complaint was gotten to Chester agst mee, wch a freinde hath prevented.’ This is the Rev Henry Newcome, who died all of 320 years ago today, writing in his diary. For a while, he was a very popular non-conformist preacher in Manchester, but he ran foul of new laws designed to shore up the episcopal church, and ostracise those clergy unwilling to follow the strict Church of England rituals. In time, he relaxed his views, and also the state took steps to allow more religious freedom.

Newcome was born at Caldecote, Huntingdonshire, in 1627, the fourth son of the local rector. Orphaned in his teens, he was educated by his elder brothers. From 1644, he studied at St. John’s College, Cambridge. In 1647, he became schoolmaster at Congleton, Cheshire, and, the following year, received Presbyterian ordination at Sandbach. The same year he married Elizabeth Mainwaring, and they had five children. The couple’s first home was with a relation of Elizabeth’s, and it was through her family connections that he was appointed, first, curate at Goosetry in Cheshire and, subsequently, in 1650, minister at Gawsworth where he stayed until 1657. During this period, he sought out other like-minded men who shared with him the ideal of a fully reformed national church; and he became part of a circle which met in the home of his friend and mentor John Machin.

In late 1656, Newcome was elected a preacher at the collegiate church of Manchester (later Manchester Cathedral), and after much hesitation he moved with his family to the city. His ministry was exceedingly popular. In 1660, he welcomed the restoration of the monarchy, but preached against the frivolity of celebrations surrounding the event. Unfortunately, when the constitution of Manchester collegiate church was restored (it having been subverted in 1645), Newcome was not among the elected fellows. He continued to serve as a deputy at the church until the Uniformity Act came into force, two years later, which, among many other things, required episcopal ordination for all ministers - some 2,000 clergymen refused to take the oath and were expelled form the Church of England as a result.

Newcome, having rejected suggestions that he should receive episcopal ordination privately, attended people in a more private capacity; he also preached at funerals, and visited the sick, as if a parish priest. However, even this way of work was prohibited him by the Five Mile Act, which came into force in 1666 further restricting the activities of non-conformists, by forbidding them from living within five miles of a parish from which they had been expelled (unless they swore the appropriate oath). He moved to Ellenbrook, in Worsley parish, Lancashire, but travelled about a good deal, to London several times, and to Dublin even. He returned, as well, to preach in Manchester but was fined for doing so.

In time, Newcome’s non-conformist principles appear to have weakened, drawing criticism from separatists and conformists alike. He tended to blame hardline episcopacy for driving Presbyterianism away from the Church of England, but remained on good terms with conformist friends. Cut adrift from the church, he ran short of money, but was helped by donations and bequests from friends and sympathetic laity. Life became easier after James II’s second declaration of indulgence in 1687, and then, two years later, the Act of Toleration, both steps towards bringing some religious freedom. In 1693, he became a moderator of the general meeting of ministers of the United Brethren in Lancashire; and the next year he preached the first sermon at a newly-built non-conformist meeting-house in Manchester. He died on 17 September 1695. At least two of his sons became Church of England clergymen. Further information can be found from Wikipedia, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, or Newcome’s own autobiography (see below).

From 1646 until his death, Newcome is known to have kept a diary. However, only one volume, for the period 1661-1663, has survived in manuscript form. This was edited by Thomas Heywood and printed for the Chetham Society in 1849 as Diary of the Rev. Henry Newcome from September 30, 1661 to September 29, 1663. A copy of the book is freely available online at Internet Archive.

‘The value of the book,’ Heywood writes in his introduction, ‘consists in its having been written as the events it describes occurred, and in its being designed solely for the author’s use. The passages of life are set down to be meditated upon, and as disguise would have been the writer’s own fraud upon himself, it evidently does not exist, eripitur persona, manet res. Whilst we perceive some faults in the full revealment thus afforded, as a want of moral courage and an exaggeration of theological trifles into essentials, yet, tried by this severe test, Newcome deserves the reputation which he has ever enjoyed - of being an earnest Christian.’

Three years later, encouraged by the reception of Newcome’s diary, the Chetham Society published a further work, The Autobiography of Henry Newcome (Volume I and Volume II). This was based on Newcome’s own, and much longer, Abstract - a work he completed in his lifetime for his children, and which he based substantially on his diaries - as edited by Richard Parkinson with modernised spelling. Here, however, are several extracts from the original diary as edited by Heywood (without modernised spelling).

19 March 1663
‘I rose not till after 8, and went to ye library. Studdyed a little on Ps. cxii 7. After dinner I was with Mr Hayhurst at Mr Illingw: a little while, and as wee came back Mr Jackson was preaching. Mr Hayh: came with me & stayed a while. I went after & walk’t with Mr Birch in ye Ch: Yard. & after supp: studdyed ag: My wife is ill in her head. The Lord help mee.’

30 March 1663
‘I rose after 8. Was basely imposed upon by Sathan I beleive in some suggestions to mee in my sleepe ye last night. After secret dutys wee went wth ye children to Nicholas Leigh in Salford. Wn wee returned wee went to dutys and after to ye library I went & read a little about lots. Mr Illingw: was wth mee a little before dinner. After I looked up papers in ye cockloft. My Cozen Davenport & his wife &c were here most of the afternoone. Wee should have met at bowles at 4 but it misst. I dispatched after am: my papers. My wive’s distemper & cozen’s toothach might awaken mee to some seriousnes ye night.’

1 June 1663
‘I rose about 8. Went to looke for a horse, & after some time was glad to accept Mr Page’s, tho a trotter. I went to ye feild for him, & ye warden walked wth mee to ye Broadhulme, wre I took horse & got to Dunham iust at dinner. Mr Weston & his wife dined there, & wee were wth ym in ye bouleinge greene all ye afternoone. I was forced to stay all night, tho’ I obtained freely of my Ld his lre to ye Lady Byron for Mr Taylor of Rochdale.

I was troubled yet I used too free a word to expresse my dislike tow: Dr Br: in wt he delivered, sayinge in iest he was a rascall. Yt word repeated not wth my accent might seeme very strange for mee to utter.

Ye horse I rode of was very fright, yet ye Ld preserved mee from fallinge.’

16 August 1663
‘I rose about 7. Wrot hard all ye forenoone. Wee dined at Mr Buxton’s. I was foolishly vexed wth envey & folly. I heard today yt a new complaint was gotten to Chester agst mee, wch a freinde hath prevented at ye chardge of 12s 6d. Mr Illingworth wth mee a while.’

The Diary Junction