A sort of Christmas present

‘When Freud said laughingly “I really think you look on analysis as a sort of Christmas present,” I could only agree.’ This is from the diary of Lou Andreas-Salomé, a Russian born writer, psychoanalyst and lover, who died 80 years ago today. She had very significant relationships/associations with several of the most important turn-of-the-century figures in Continental Europe - not least Nietzsche, Freud, and Rilke - and wrote about them in her autobiographical works. Diaries from only two short periods have been published, one concerning a journey with Rilke, and the other about her association with Freud.

Louise von Salomé was born in St Petersburg in 1861, the sixth child and only daughter of a former general in the Imperial Russian army. She grew up speaking French and German as well as Russian, and as a teenager found her first mentor, a Dutch-born minister named Hendrik Gillot. He taught her philosophy, theology and world religions. He confirmed her in the German Lutheran church, gave her the nickname of Lou, and nurtured in her a spirit of independence and self-regard. However, when the relationship broke down, her mother went with her to Zurich first, and then Rome. There she met two young philosophers, Paul Rée and Friedrich Nietzsche, both of whom fell in love with her. The three of them and Salomé’s mother travelled through Italy with the idea of finding a place to launch a commune, but they never did.

After a time, Salomé and Rée separated from Nietzsche and moved to Berlin to live together. Nietzsche’s work Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spoke Zarathustra) was written soon after the break-up, and was inspired by Salomé: According to the Dictionary of Literary Biography, he wrote, ‘My disciple became my teacher - the god of irony achieved a perfect triumph! . . . She inspired me with the thought of Zarathustra: my greatest poem celebrates our union, and our tragic separation.’ In 1885 she published, under a pseudonym, her first book, an autobiographical novel (Im Kampf um Gott). That same year, the relationship with Rée came to end. Two years later, she married linguistics scholar Friedrich Carl Andreas. She remained married to him until his death his 1930, though the marriage was never consummated, and the two separated in the late 1890s.

Andreas-Salomé continued to publish books, a study of Nietzsche in 1894, another novel in 1895, and collections of stories, often erotic. She had an affair with the Viennese doctor, Friedrich Pineles, and another, famously, with the much younger poet, Rainer Maria Rilke. In 1911, she met Sigmund Freud, with whom she studied and collaborated, writing essays on psychoanalytic theory. In 1913, she began to practice psychoanalysis, and by the early 1920s was widely recognised as an analyst. Partly as a result of an ongoing friendship with Rilke, she wrote several essays on psychology and creativity; she also wrote a play and further studies of authors she had known. She died on 5 February 1937. Further information is available from Wikipedia, Brainpickings, Encyclopedia.com or 3:AM Magazine.

Andreas-Salomé started keeping notebooks when still a girl, and she certainly kept journals at some points in her adult life. However, I can only find published texts in English relating to two periods in her life: in 1900 during a trip to Russia with Rilke, and in 1912-1913 while studying with Freud. The former was published in George C. Schoolfield’s Young Rilke and His Time (Camden House, 2009) - for more on Rilke’s own journals see Art but no artists.

The Freud Journal of Lou Andreas-Salomé, translated and with an introduction by Stanley A. Leavy, was published much earlier, in 1964, by Basic Books. The whole book can be read/downloaded freely from Monoskop (a wiki for collaborative studies of the arts, media and humanities). Here are two extracts.

9 December 1912
‘Adler writes me complaining of Stekel’s “disloyalty” - which I think is funny; it could not have been documented with greater speed. But he also complains of mine, and justly. We met and talked for two hours while racing all over town. But really it is perfectly possible to overcome all the differences between Freud and Adler insofar as Adler’s feeling of inferiority already comprises a primal repression experienced as a basic slight, and also insofar as Freud’s “repressed” is founded on psychized material which had already in the past attained consciousness. If we call this material “sexual” we do so by assuming it to be distinguished from “mental”; the two belong together to emphasize their duality. On the other hand, when Adler emphasizes the “ego protest,” he does so only by contrasting it with the murky totality which in a certain sense is sexuality. The mark of sexuality is that it may be viewed from two sides, from both the mental and the physical; it is here where all mental disorders and neuroses meet, as if at the point of intersection which exemplifies the whole. But only Freud has appropriated the word “compromise” for this, and only he has done justice to the double character of the process, even though he has predominantly emphasized the sexual side (especially in the beginning, when hysteria was under consideration). Only he has uncovered the intermediate range of unconscious mental functions, and only thereby has he succeeded in making room for the positive mechanisms of the process; and only this is important. Beyond merely elucidating illness, and led that far by the pathological process, we find our way into the mystery of the normal unconscious state, in which sexuality and the ego maintain their narcissistic union and the true enigma of mankind begins. For Adler there can be no enigma strictly speaking; he secs the ego confronted only by its own game.’

2 February 1913
‘Spent Sunday afternoon until evening at Freud’s. This time much more personal conversation, during which he told me of his life, and I promised to bring photographs next time. Most personal of all perhaps was his charming account of the “narcissistic cat.” While Freud maintained his office on the ground floor, the cat had climbed in through the open window. He did not care much for cats or dogs or animals generally, and in the beginning the cat aroused mixed feelings in him, especially when it climbed down from the sofa on which it had made itself comfortable and began to inspect in passing the antique objects which he had placed for the time being on the floor. He was afraid that by chasing it away he might cause it to move recklessly in the midst of these precious treasures of his. But when the cat proceeded to make known its archaeological satisfaction by purring and with its lithe grace did not cause the slightest damage, Freud’s heart melted and he ordered milk for it. From then on the cat claimed its rights daily to take a place on the sofa, inspect the antiques, and get its bowl of milk. However, despite Freud’s increasing affection and admiration, the cat paid him not a bit of attention and coldly turned its green eyes with their slanting pupils toward him as toward any other object. When for an instant he wanted more of the cat than its egoistic-narcissistic purring, he had to put his foot down from his comfortable chaise and court its attention with the ingenious enticement of his shoe-toe. Finally, after this unequal relationship had lasted a long time without change, one day he found the cat feverish and gasping on the sofa. And although it was most painstakingly treated with hot fomentations and other remedies, it succumbed to pneumonia, leaving naught of itself behind but a symbolic picture of all the peaceful and playful charm of true egoism.

Freud also talked about why I had become so deeply involved in psychoanalysis. To begin with, it was nothing but the kind of neutral objective interest that one feels when embarking on new researches. Then the opportunity came in all its liveliness and personal urgency to stand in the presence of a new science, again and again to be at a beginning and thus related to the problems of the science in an increasingly intimate way. What settled the matter for me, however, was the third and most personal reason that psychoanalysis bestowed a gift on me personally, its radiant enrichment of my own life that came from slowly groping the way to the roots by which it is embedded in the totality. When Freud said laughingly “I really think you look on analysis as a sort of Christmas present,” I could only agree, since for me it was not a question of resolving conflicts between the depth and the surface. And quite possibly neither joy nor anguish are ever so vividly impressed on us as when they proceed from the unconscious to the level of experience; just as bliss once enjoyed can be horribly transformed into pain in the course of the night, so too it is likely that the memory of hours of crucifixion may be transformed to a life beyond, a resurrection glistening with the stars. In the homeland of our emotional life it is true that heaven and hell - in other respects only fictions - are preserved for us in the unconscious as our eternal reality.’

Alongside Carl Rogers

‘I forgot in my last entry to say anything about the river life here in South China. It is one of the most interesting things I have seen. [. . .] I have seen five and six people, a whole family, living on a little covered sampan not more than twenty feet long and six feet wide. How they do it is a mystery. [. . .] The bareness of their existence must be beyond comprehension.’ This is a Carl Rogers, who died 30 years ago today, writing in a travel journal long before he became one of the most influential of 20th century psychotherapists. One review says it ‘offers a great opportunity to be alongside him as his philosophies form and develop.’

Rogers was born in 1902 in Chicago into a family of Pentecostal Christians. He was a studious child, by all accounts, and went to study at the University of Wisconsin, where he joined the YMCA. Aged 20, he was selected as one of ten students to go to the World Student Christian Federation conference in Peking. On returning, he switched to studying history. After graduating, in 1924, he moved to New York and began to study at the Union Theological Seminary, while taking psychology lectures at Columbia University That same year he married Helen Elliott and they had two children.

After two years, though, Rogers left the seminary to attend teachers college at Columbia obtaining an MA and then, in 1931, a PhD. While completing his doctoral work, he had begun studying children, and he had been appointed director of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in Rochester, New York. From 1935 to 1940 he lectured at the University of Rochester and wrote his first book, The Clinical Treatment of the Problem Child (published 1939). In 1940, he became a professor of clinical psychology at Ohio State University, where he wrote Counseling and Psychotherapy (1942). From 1945, Rogers was a professor at the University of Chicago, where he founded a new counselling centre; this allowed him to pioneer research into what goes on in therapy sessions, and led to his 1951 book, Client-Centered Therapy.

In 1956, Rogers became the first President of the American Academy of Psychotherapists, and from 1957 he taught psychology at the University of Wisconsin, and wrote one of his best-known books, On Becoming a Person. With Abraham Maslow, he pioneered a movement called humanistic psychology. In 1963, he became a resident at the new Western Behavioral Sciences Institute (WBSI) in La Jolla, California, but then left WBSI, though remaining in La Jolla, to help found the Center for Studies of the Person in 1968. He died on 4 February 1987, a few days after a bad fall. For further biographical information see Wikipedia, Encyclopædia Britannica, New York Times obituary, the Norwich Centre.

Online Archive of California provides this assessment of the man: ‘Rogers was a psychologist and psychotherapist who initiated what Abraham Maslow later called the “third force” of psychology, following the behaviorism of Pavlov (and later B. F. Skinner) and Freudian psychoanalysis. This “third force” of humanistic psychology has been so closely identified with Rogers that it is often called Rogerian, a term its namesake objected to. His innovation was to treat clients as if they were essentially healthy, and he felt that growth would occur when a non-judgmental, non-directive (later, “client-centered”) therapist created a warm, accepting environment to nurture the client and allow self-knowledge and self-acceptance to occur. Rogers is considered by many to be the most influential psychologist after Freud.’

Rogers was an occasional diarist, but only one of his diaries has been published - the one kept in 1922 during his six month travels to China and the Far East. Another dozen or so diaries are held in the Carl R. Rogers Collection at The University of California, Santa Barbara, but they all date from the latter years of his life, and remain restricted to public view. The Collection describes the diaries as follows: ‘Fourteen notebooks from the period of 1977-82. Eleven notebooks contain travel notes, primarily concerning workshops. In addition to practical notes and narrative description, these diaries contain observations on the workshops and thoughts on Rogers’s relationships with women. One notebook relates dreams, memories, and personal musings unrelated to travel, and two others are purely records of dreams.’

The China Diary, however, as edited by Jeffrey H. D. Cornelius White, was published in the UK in 2012. It is a direct copy (Rogers wrote the diary on a typewriter he lugged around) with spelling and grammatical mistakes included. Rogers’ daughter Natalie provides a foreword, in which she says of the diary that it is a ‘doorway to [Rogers’] heart, mind and soul in his most formative year’. A review - in Person-Centered & Experiential Psychotherapies Vol 13 No 1 (2104) - says the diary is ‘a really valuable insight into Carl Rogers, and offers a great opportunity to be alongside him as his philosophies form and develop.’ Here are several examples - though there’s not much forming of philosophies apparent!

20 March 1922
‘This has been one of the most beautiful days that we have had since we left home. The trip from Kobe down to the end of the Island has been simply one grand panorama of changing scenes; rice paddies, mountains, hills, fishing villages, great broad rivers, and the beautiful inland sea.

There were many interesting things in the morning; the train was taking us rapidly into warmer country and it looked more and more like summer. For the first time we saw rice growing in the fields, and the men and more often the women out in the water up to their ankles, weeding the rows. The rice is a very slender wiry looking plant when it is small, and a darker green even than the winter wheat.

During the afternoon we rode for a long time within sight of the inland sea. The little thatched huts of the fishing villages were most interesting. They were the same general type as the farmers houses, one storied, with thin wooden walls, and a very neatly thatched roof, but they were not as prosperous looking as the farmhouses. In many places there were ponderous stone or earth dikes to keep the sea from rushing in on the little rice fields. The fishermen in many places have placed weirs, crude little bamboo traps, across the mouth of the rivers that empty into the sea, and catch the fish as they go up the river to spawn.

The scenery along the coast is the best I have seen anywhere since I have started. The mountains and jagged rocks formed a “stern and rockbound coast,” and the rocky islands off the coast were about as fine as anything of that sort I have ever seen. In some places there were rocky reefs where the breakers were breaking and casting great clouds of spray into the air, for the wind was very strong.

The craft were as interesting as the sea itself. There were many of the large, clumsy fisherman’s dories being sculled along by means of the large orr at the stern; there were little native coasting boats, with patched old sails; and now and then we would see a larger freighter steaming along.

We got to Sheminoseki right on time (all Japanese trains seem to be right on time) and got our baggage transferred to the boat. We were all prepared for a rough night, for we knew how strong the wind was, but we were a little surprised to find that the passenger steamer that had set out for Fusan in the morning had had to give up and come back, because it was too rough to cross. However the officers of the boat thought we could make it all right, and they were going to make another try, anyway, so we steamed out of the long harbor. There was surely some gale blowing, but it didnt bother most of us. Austin, Mildred, Jean, and myself even went so far as to have some bread and jam and tea before we went to bed. I slept like a log, though every now and then when I woke up, the boat seemed to be doing its best to stand on its head. It didnt roll so badly, but it pitched and bucked as badly as I have ever wished to try it.’

29 March 1922
‘Last night we had dinner, we being the men of the American delegation, with Jack Childs and five Chinese, leaders in YM work. We had an interesting discussion about the Chinese Student Movement, but the most interesting part of the discussion for me was to see the way in which the Chinese worked. Two of them, Dr. Lew and Mr. Koo, were, I think, the keenest men there. All the Chinese were fully the equals of the Americans. There surely is no doubt in my mind that the Y is following the right policy in turning over the leadership of the work to the Chinese Just as fast as that is possible.

We had a Chinese dinner, with about twenty courses. They eat in even a more informal way than the Japanese, putting the bowl of food in the center of the table, and going after it with their long chopsticks. We had more queer stuff than I ever hope to see again. We had preserved eggs, which had been burled for years in the dirt. They were alright, though I failed to get very enthusiastic over them. We had fish eggs, and fish, and rice and chicken, and bamboo sprouts, and various kinds of sweet dishes, and tea, and finally ended up with a lotus seed pudding. It was some feast. I dont think that I liked it quite as well as the Japanese guenabi dinners that we had. The food all seems to have a rather insipid taste, without much spice of any kind.

The only thing that I didnt like was that it kept us until midnight - at least the feast and discussions did, and as the next day was the opening of the work of the General Committee, I thought that was too bad.’

27 May 1922
‘Here we are still in Hongkong, I in the hotel and Ken in the hospital. He is getting better, but rather slowly, and I expect that we will be in town for at least three days more. He had dysentery on his last trip out here, and this seems to be a mild return of it. It is too bad he had to get sick here. It is one of the most uninteresting towns we have struck, and we also know very few people here, so that it isnt an awfully exciting time I am having. I wish we were up at Canton. Hongkong is about as provincial a city as I have ever seen. In their newspapers nothing but Hongkong news is printed. I dont suppose there has been a total of one column of U.S. news in the five days we have been here. Even the North China news is very scanty. They had chucked off in one inside column what may very possibly prove to be the most important bit of news in China since the Revolution, namely, that Wu Pei Fu, being now of course the master at Peking, is planning to call together the Old Parliament of 1913, is trying to reconcile Sun Yat Sen, and is suggesting Li Yuan Hung for president as a man who can reconcile both parties. If he can put those things thru, it will reunite China under one govt, and perhaps do away with her civil war for some time. Incidentally Dr. C.T. Wang told Ken when we were in Peking that that was what he thought Wu Pei Fu would do if he beat Chang Tso Lin. I expect that C.T. had quite a little to do with formulating that policy, too. You see, the South will not consider uniting with the North unless they recognize the Parliament which was illegally dismissed several years ago, and which fled to Canton to set up the southern govt as the only legally constituted govt in China. So it may be that this proposition of Wu Pei Fu’s, including as it does the recognition of the Old Parliament and the suggestion of a strong moderate like Li Yuan Hung, may really be very Important, I sure hope It works out.

No shipping has been going out of this port until yesterday on account of a typhoon which has been moving northwest from Manila, and also partly on account of the launchmens strike. I guess it is becoming normal again, tho. The Empire State left yesterday, and the Pinetree State will be leaving Wed, so you ought to get lots of mall.

I forgot in my last entry to say anything about the river life here in South China. It is one of the most interesting things I have seen. Thousands of people dont know what it means to spend 24 hours on land. They form a kind of separate caste from the land dwellers, and they live on their boats all the time. It is an inexpensive life, and they earn a little money by ferrying people across the river, and doing a little freight work. I have seen five and six people, a whole family, living on a little covered sampan not more than twenty feet long and six feet wide. How they do it is a mystery. They have a little place in the back for a fire to cook their food, and they sleep on the bare boards, with a wooden block to put under their necks for a pillow. They often have a brood of little chicks in a tiny yard on the boat, and on the larger boats they often have a dog. They dont have to worry about space to keep their property. Their wardrobe consists of the clothes on their back, their cupboard is a place big enough to hold a bowl apiece and an iron bowl for cooking, their washtub, and bath, and dishwashing sink, and toilet, are all found in one place - the river - and that is about all there is to their lives. The bareness of their existence must be beyond comprehension.’

8 June 1922
‘Well, our wind didnt develop into a typhoon after all, tho it was fairly rough. It was a great sight to watch the little fishing junks trying to get to shore from way out five or ten miles where they had been fishing. They would sink almost out of sight in the trough of the waves, and then be lifted way up on the crest, with the dripping prow just balanced in empty space, and then they would plunge nose down into the next wave, raising a cloud of spray that would hide the whole boat for a second or two. I sure admire the nerve of their skippers.

This morning we arrived at Amoy. We wound around several fine islands into the harbor of Amoy, which is itself located on an island. As the ship was only going to stop three hours, we had very little time to see things. We went off onto Kulangsu, the island where most foreigners live, and saw some of the mission schools, and had a long talk with Mr. Elliott, the Y secretary there, but we didnt get over to the city itself, partly because our time was so short, and partly because the plague was a little worse there than in most of the cities we have been in, and Ken was a little scared to risk it, tho there was no real danger, I think. We pulled out of the harbor shortly after noon, and got under way for Foochow.’

Schubert’s diary fragment

The great Austrian composer Franz Schubert was born 220 years ago today. His life was tragically short - he died aged only 31 - and yet he managed to leave behind an astonishing collection of musical masterpieces. However, he did not leave behind much written material, to the frustration of biographers, which is why a four-day diary fragment, from when he was just 19, is considered so important.

Schubert was born in Vienna on 31 January 1797 son of a schoolteacher and his wife who had many children, more than half dying in infancy. His first lessons in violin and piano came from his father and a brother respectively. By the age of seven, though, he was receiving instruction from a local organist and choirmaster. In 1808, he won a scholarship that earned him a place with the imperial court chapel choir and an education at the Stadtkonvikt, the principal boarding school for commoners in Vienna which had its own orchestra. By the age of 14, encouraged by the violinist Joseph von Spaun, Schubert was already composing various types of music, quartets, piano solos and duets, and even part of an opera.

In 1812, Schubert’s voice broke. No longer of service to the choir, he found little interest in further academic schooling and soon left the Stadtkonvikt to focus on composition. He took private lessons with Antonio Salieri, but under pressure from his family, he also went to work in his father’s school as a teacher from 1814. During this period, he wrote many Lieder (a kind of German song of the Romantic period usually for solo voice and piano), church works and symphonies. In 1818, he left his teaching work to concentrate on music, in part inspired by a first public performance of one his works, Italian Overture in C Major.

Although Schubert and his compositions were becoming increasingly popular, he had trouble earning a living. Compositions for two opera houses were not a success; and music publishers were afraid to take a risk on such a young composer, his music being far from traditional. By the early 1820s, he was offering his songs on a subscription basis, and across Vienna the wealthy began hosting concert parties - Schubertiaden - with Schubert’s song and dances.

In late 1822, Schubert fell ill, biographers suggest this was because of syphilis. Nevertheless, he continued to compose prolifically, producing masterpieces, the song cycles, Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise, the Eighth (Unfinished) and Ninth (Great) Symphonies, Octet in F Major and the Wanderer Fantasy. By the late 1820s, Schubert’s health was failing and he even confided to friends that he feared being near to death. Some of his symptoms are known to have matched those of mercury poisoning (mercury being a common treatment for syphilis). He died in November 1828, aged but 31. Only in the decades after his death did interest in, and appreciation of, Schubert’s music spread, as many other 19th century composers began to champion his works. Further information is available at The Schubert Institute, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Franzpeterschubert.com, Wikipedia, or Bio.com

Schubert appears to have kept a diary only once or twice during his short life, and only fragments have survived. One fragment, in particular, covering the period 13-16 June 1816, has been much studied by biographers. Christopher H. Gibbs, for example, writing in Current Musicology (no. 75, spring 2003) says the 16 June diary entry is ‘notorious’, and ’has long played a role in accounts of Schubert’s life’. He goes on in his essay - entitled Writing Under the Influence?: Salieri and Schubert’s Early Opinion of Beethoven - to analyse the diary entries in some detail. Gibbs also notes: ‘Schubert’s only other known diary, or rather fragments from it, dates from 1824 and survives only in copies by Eduard von Bauernfeld that may well be incomplete and inaccurate [. . .]. Given so little from Schubert himself, a problem compounded by the fact that so few of his letters survive, each word assumes extraordinary weight.’

Henry Frost’s 1881 biography Schubert (available at Internet Archive) gives a little more information: ‘Whether Schubert was averse to letter writing there is no evidence one way or the other, but very little of his correspondence remains; and so one great asset which we find in the study of the lives of Mozart and Mendelssohn, and to a lesser extent of Beethoven and Weber, is denied to us. The remnants of his diaries that are still with us barely compensate for this loss.

It appears that he kept a daily record of his thoughts and experiences in 1816, but owing to that wanton carelessness with which Schubert’s precious manuscripts seem to have been generally treated, only a small portion of these remain. Aloys Fuchs, in his Schubertiana, tells the story thus: “Some years ago I found at an autograph dealer’s in Vienna the fragment of one of Schubert’s diaries in his own handwriting, but several of the pages were missing. On my asking the reason of this, the wretched owner of the relic replied that he had for a long time been in the habit of distributing single pages of this manuscript to hunters of Schubert relics or autograph collectors. Having expressed my indignation at this vandalism, I took care to save what was left.” ’

The following translation of the extant fragment of Schubert’s diary can be found online at Internet Archive in The Life of Franz Schubert by Kreissle Von Hellborn (volume 1) as translated by Arthur Duke Coleridge (Longmans, Green, and Co, 1869).

13 June 1816
‘This day will haunt me for the rest of my life as a bright, clear, and lovely one. Gently, and as from a distance, the magic tones of Mozart’s music sound in my ears. With what alternate force and tenderness, with what masterly power did Schlesinger’s playing of that music impress it deep, deep in my heart! Thus do these sweet impressions, passing into our souls, work beneficently on our inmost being, and no time, do change of circumstances, can obliterate them. In the darkness of this life, they show a light, a clear, beautiful distance, from which we gather confidence and hope. Mozart! immortal Mozart! how many and what countless images of a brighter, better world hast thou stamped on our souls! This quintett may be called one of the greatest amongst his smaller works. I too was moved on this occasion to introduce myself. I played variations by Beethoven, sang Göthe’s “Rastlose Liebe,” and Schiller’s “Amalia.” The first met with universal, the second with qualified applause. Although I myself think my “Rastlose Liebe” more successful than “Amalia,” yet I cannot deny that to Göthe’s musical genius must be attri-buted in a large measure the applause which greeted the song. I also made acquaintance with Mdlle. Jenny, a pianoforte-player with extraordinary powers of execution; but I think her wanting in true and pure expression.’

14 June 1816
‘After the lapse of a few months, I took once more an evening walk. There can hardly be anything more delightful than, of an evening, after a hot summer’s day, to stroll about on the green grass: the meadows between Währing and Döbling seem to have been created for this very purpose. I felt so peaceful and happy as my brother Carl and I walked together in the struggling twilight. “How lovely!” I thought and exclaimed, and then stood still enchanted. The neighbourhood of the churchyard reminded us of our excellent mother. Whiling the time away with melancholy talk, we arrived at the point where the Döbling road branches off, and I heard a well-known voice issuing as though from heaven - which is our home: the voice came from a carriage which was being pulled up. I looked up, and there was Herr Weinmüller, who got out and greeted us with his hearty, manly, cheerful-toned voice. How vainly does many a man strive to show the candour and honesty of his mind by conversation equally sincere and candid! - how would many a man be the laughing-stock of his fellow-creatures were he to make the effort! Such gifts must come naturally; no efforts can acquire them.’

15 June 1816
‘It usually happens that we form exaggerated notions of what we expect to see. At least, I found it so when I saw the exhibition of pictures of native artists, held at Saint Anna. The work I liked best in the whole exhibition was a Madonna and Child, by Abel. I was much disappointed by the velvet mantle of a prince. I am convinced that one must see things of this sort much more frequently, and give them a longer trial, if one hopes to find and retain the proper expression and impression intended to be conveyed.’

16 June 1816 [After returning home from Salieri’s jubilee festival]
‘It must be pleasant and invigorating to the artist to see all his pupils collected around him, every one striving to do his best in honour of his master’s jubilee fete; to hear in all their compositions a simple, natural expression, free from all that bizarrerie which, with the majority of composers of our time, is the prevailing element, and for which we are almost mainly indebted to one of our greatest German artists; free, I say, from that bizarrerie which links the tragic with the comic, the agreeable with the odious, the heroic with whining (Heulerei), the most sacred subjects with buffoonery - all this without discrimination; so that men become mad and frantic instead of being dissolved in tears, and tickled to idiotic laughter rather than elevated towards God. The fact that this miserable bizarrerie has been proscribed and exiled from the circle of his pupils, so that their eyes may rest on pure holy Nature, must be a source of the liveliest pleasure to the artist who, with a Gluck for his pioneer, has learned to know Nature, and has clung to her in spite of the most unnatural influences of our day.

Herr Salieri celebrated by a jubilee his fifty years’ residence in Vienna, and an almost equally long period of service under the Emperor. His Majesty presented him with a gold medal; and numbers of his pupils, both male and female, were invited to the ceremony. The compositions of his pupils, written specially for the occasion, were produced seriatim [i], according to the date of admission of each pupil, as he had received them when sent to him. The music concluded with a chorus from Salieri’s Oratorio, “Jesu al Limbo” (“Christ in Hades”). The Oratorio is worked out in the true Gluck spirit. Everyone was interested in the entertainment.

To-day I composed the first time for money - namely, a Cantata (“Prometheus “) for the name-day festival of Herr Professor Watteroth von Dräxler. The honorarium 100 florins, Viennese currency.

Man is like a ball between chance and passion. I have often heard it said by writers: “The world is like a stage, where every man plays his part. Praise and blame follow in the other world.” Still, every man has one part assigned him - we have had our part given us - and who can say if he has played it well or ill? He is a bad theatrical manager who distributes amongst his players parts which they are not qualified to act. Carelessness here is not to be thought of. The world has no example of an actor being dismissed because of his bad declamation. As soon as he has a part adapted to his powers, he will play it well enough. Whether he is applauded or not, depends on a public with its thousand caprices. In the other world, praise or blame depends on the Grand Manager of the world. Blame, therefore, is balanced.

Natural disposition and education determine the bent of man’s heart and understanding. The heart is ruler; the mind should be.

Take men as they are, not as they ought to be.

Happy is he who finds a true friend. Happier still is he who finds in his own wife a true friend. To the free man, at this time, marriage is a fearful thought; he confounds it either with melancholy or low sensuality.

Monarchs of our day, you see this and keep silence! Or do ye not see it? Then, God, throw a veil over our senses, and steep our feelings in Lethe! Yet once, I pray, draw back the veil!

Man bears misfortune uncomplainingly; and, for that very reason, feels it all the more acutely. For what purpose did God create in us these keen sympathies?

Light mind, light heart: a mind that is too light generally harbours a heart that is too heavy.

Town politeness is a powerful hindrance to men’s integrity in dealing with one another. The greatest misery of the wise man and the greatest happiness of the fool is based on conventionalism.

A noble-minded unfortunate man feels the depth of his misery and intensity of his joy; just so does the nobly prosperous man feel his good fortune or the opposite.

Now I know nothing more! To-morrow I am sure to know something fresh! Whence comes this? Is my understanding to-day duller than it will be to-morrow? Because I am full and sleepy? Why doesn’t my mind think when my body sleeps? I suppose it goes for a walk. Certainly, it can’t sleep!

Odd questions!
I hear everyone saying;
We can’t venture here on an answer,
We must bear it all patiently.
Now good night
Until ye awake.’

Canada for the British

Today marks the double centenary of the birth of Jeffrey Amherst, a British soldier with an illustrious career. His crowning achievement was to orchestrate Britain’s conquest of New France, ousting the French; subsequently, he became the first British governor general of the territories that eventually became Canada. He kept a diary for many years, though this was not discovered until the 1920s. There have been two editions - one in 1931, freely available online, and another in 2015 - both published in North America where there seems to be more interest in Amherst than in the UK.

The son of a lawyer, Amherst was born in Sevenoaks, England, on 29 January 1717. Aged 12, he was appointed a page to the Duke of Dorset at nearby Knole. Subsequently, in 1731, the Duke secured Amherst a commission, through Sir John Ligonier, as an ensign in the 1st foot guards, though it seems he spent his formative years in Ireland in Major-General Ligonier’s horse regiment in Ireland. Amherst saw his first active service as aide-de-camp to Ligonier in Germany during the War of the Austrian Succession, being promoted to lieutenant colonel in late 1745. He then joined the staff of William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, for whom he organised intelligence matters. In 1753, he married Jane Dalison; following her death, he married Elizabeth Cary in 1767 - neither union produced any children.

Amherst’s first involvement in the Seven Years War took him to Germany, but when Ligonier became commander-in chief of the British forces, he was appointed to command an expedition against the French fortress of Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island (off the North American Atlantic coast, then one of the most important commercial and military centres of New France). Supported by a naval squadron, Amherst safely landed 14,000 men ashore in 1758, putting Louisbourg under siege. The town fell in seven weeks, and, soon after, Amherst was named as commander-in-chief of British forces in North America. Amherst proved more successful than his predecessors in persuading the North American colonies to support the war effort with men and finance. In mid-1760, he launched a three-pronged invasion of Canada, all converging on Montreal. The capitulation of Montreal in September marked the end of French rule in what would become Canada.

Amherst’s conquest of Canada for the British is considered his finest achievement. Having been appointed Governor-General of British North America, based in New York, he oversaw the dispatch of troops to the West Indies leading to the capture of Dominica, Martinique and Cuba in 1761-1762. In 1759, he had been named governor of Virginia (on a non-resident basis) and in 1761 he was knighted. However, his tenure as Governor-General was marred by a failure to deal well with the Native Americans. Growing unrest among many of the tribes in the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes region grew into, what became known as, Pontiac’s War in early 1763. One notorious episode, in particular, scarred his record: an attempt to infect Indians with smallpox by providing them with contaminated blankets. A long-standing request to be relieved of his command was soon granted, and he returned to England, where there was more criticism of his handling of the Pontiac War than he had expected. Around this time, he commissioned a new family house - which he called Montreal House - on the family estate near Sevenoaks.

Amherst was promoted to lieutenant-general in 1765, though that same year he was displaced - much to his annoyance - from the governance of Virginia. He was made Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance in 1772 with a Privy Council seat. Although not holding the rank of commander-in-chief  he was still considered the foremost military authority in the country. However, Amherst declined twice to return to North America to take charge of the British forces trying to quell American nationalism. In 1776, he was raised to the peerage, and two years later was promoted to full general and commander-in-chief with a seat in the Cabinet. In 1780, he was in charge of the British army when it suppressed the Gordon Riots in London; but, with a change of government in 1782, he was dismissed from his post.

After war broke out again with France, Amherst was recalled as commander-in-chief in 1793, but by 1795 he had been replaced by the king’s son, Frederick, Duke of York. Subsequently, Amherst declined an earldom but was given the highest army rank of field marshal in 1796. He died 1797. Further information can be found at Wikipedia, Dictionary of Canadian Biography or the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (log-in required).

Amherst’s diaries were discovered, in 1925, among a large collection of letters and documents being made ready for removal after the family had sold Montreal House. They were edited by John Clarence Webster for publication in 1931 by the Ryerson Press (Toronto) and the University of Chicago Press as The Journal of Jeffery Amherst Recording the Military Career of General Amherst in America from 1758 to 1763. Much more recently, in 2015, the diaries were edited by Robert J. Andrews and published in two volumes by Michigan State University Press as The Journals of Jeffery Amherst, 1757-1763. According to Michigan State University Press, the latter book is the most comprehensive study of Amherst’s role in the Seven Years’ War to date.

According to Lorne Pierce, the publisher, who wrote a foreword for Webster’s book, Amherst’s journal consists of eighteen small volumes, measuring about six and one-half by four inches, inscribed in his own hand-writing. The published journal only starts with the eighth volume, when Amherst was serving in Germany, and received the King’s command to return to England and prepare for the expedition ordered to Louisbourg. It ends just prior to Amherst’s departure for England, in November 1763. The first seven volumes, Pierce explains, ‘deal with that part of his career which is of little or no interest to students of American history.’

Pierce also adds the following critique: ‘An interesting feature of Amherst’s Journal is the great variety of details which it records. He takes time to intersperse among the more important enterprises of his campaign such incidents as, the hanging of a deserter, the scalping of a sentry, notes on topography, unusual natural phenomena, records of visits to towns and hamlets, friendly calls on both humble and distinguished citizens, exchange of flags of truce, sending of despatches, the health of the regiments, homesickness among his troops and the making of spruce beer. Following a detailed order to one of the military Governors there will appear an expression of his personal grief over the loss of a valiant junior officer; jostling a despatch to London, or plans for the siege of an enemy fortification, one will encounter spicy comments on the lack of judgment, enterprise or some other practical virtue among his officers or men, and emphatic private judgments on a great variety of subjects. Altogether it is a unique document, and amid the crowding details there emerges Amherst himself, perhaps over cautious and deliberate, certainly nothing of the dashing commander, but at any rate a competent general, who knew what he was about and how to go about it, who was everywhere and always himself, certain of his plans and confident in his opinions.’

Here are several extracts from the Webster edition (which is freely available at Internet Archive).

20 March 1758
‘We saw three sail and one we took for a french Privateer which we chased. The weather was so calm we could not get up to her; we tryed an Eighteen Pounder to throw it as far as they could but it did not go above half way to her and in the evening I believe the Privateer got out her oars, for she got allmost out of sight and we gave over the chase. In the night it began to blow very hard and the 21st it blew hard and was very heavy. In the morning as we were going Eleven Nots an hour a ship was seen to Windward laying by within half a mile of us, & was taken at first for an English frigate. Capt. Rodney ordered the Mainsail to be hauled up immediately and ship to be cleared, and knew the ship to be a french one; directlv we began to fire he hoisted English colours, and on continuing to fire at him as he did not lower his sail his English ensign was blown away and he hoisted French. The Dublin fired five and twenty or thirty shots, and the frenchman three and some musketry and then struck. The first Lieut., Mr. Worth, went on board her and sent the captain who told us he came from L’Isle de Bourbon, had been four weeks on his Voyage and was laying by for fair weather to run into Brest which he said was twenty leagues from him, that he had seven hundred Thousand Pounds weight of Coffee, Part for the India Company and part for Monsr. LeBorde, Merchant at Bayonne, and some thousand Pounds of Logwood 40,000 P weight; his Vessel LeMonmartel of about 400 Tons and 73 men, officers included. All the men except the sick were brought on board just before night and 30 men sent with Lt. Worth into the Prize.’

13 June 1758
‘A fine morning but a most terrible day afterwards. We could not land anything. Getting our tools on shore last night we worked to clear a Road from the Right to the Left, I walked in the morning over the Front with M. McKullogh (McKellar) and ordered three Redoutes in front. At twelve about 200 came from the Town and got toward our Camp; we beat them back with 40 men and some of the Light Infantry before two Picquets got up to their assistance.’

15 June 1758
‘The Redoutes not finished, I ordered them to be palisaded. A good deal of firing in the night at sea. I sent away everything to Br. Wolfe that he asked, added to his Artillery two 18-inch and two 13-inch Mortars. I could not yet get any artillery on Shore. At night two deserters from Volontaires Etrangers, said the 13th they had 40 wounded in the Skirmish, 5 killed. Fine weather today. Sir C. Hardy came back and anchored off the Harbour, I was afraid last night as the Harbour was open the Enemy might have warped a Ship out and took our ordinance and Sloops at the Mackarel Cove and Lorembeck.’

30 June 1758
‘We continued working at the Road between the advanced Redoute and Green Hill — very heavy and tedious. A great deal of Cannonading all day and Skirmishing. The Enemy sunk four ships the 29th in the night in the Harbours Mouth, the Apollo, a two-decker was one, La Fidelle of 36 Guns another and La Pierre and La Biche of 16 Guns each the two others, and this last night they cut off most of their Masts. Remained in the Harbour 5 two deckers and one Frigate, Le Prudent, L’Entreprenant, Le Celebre, Le Bienfaisant, Le Capricieux, L’Arethuse Frigate, 36 Guns. At night we had a good deal of firing in the rear; some of the Marines at Kenning ton Cove thought they saw Indians. The Frigate 46 fired near 100 Shot at night at our Epaulement.’

6 July 1758
‘I went over all the works, asked the Admiral for four 32-Pounders to joyn Br. Wolfe which he readily granted. I changed the Guards, took 600 Men and 3 Companies of Grenadiers to the Right and 300 Men to Green Hill. I put a Subaltern and 24 in each Redoute, the works on the Right were continued and perfected; cannonading continued all day. At night Br. Wolfes Battery forced the Frigate to retire. We lost some few men by the cannonading and some wounded. The Admiral sent me a letter taken out of a French mans Pocket who was found drowned. A Sloop sailed out of the Harbour with a flag of truce to Sir C. Hardy, to carry some things to their wounded officers and Prisoners.’

6 September 1759
‘I sent a Scouting Party on the west to try to track the three People that the man of Ruggles reported he had seen the Tracks going down the Lake. Wrote Col Montresor to forward some tools &c demanded for Oswego. Capt Gray returned at night; said he had spyed out three boats at the Narrows, just as he was coming back; that he lowered his sail to wait for them but they stoped or, rather, seemed to go over to the Eastern Shore. I suppose a scalping Party, as they appeared just at night. I ordered the Guards on the batteaus to be particularly watchful, our Deserters of which they have two from Gages & one from the Inniskilling (who probably robbed Capt Williams) may have told them they can burn our boats. I ordered two boats with three Pounders, a Canoo of Indians, a whale boat of Rangers, 24 men & a Sub. of light Infantry in two whale boats to go early under the comand of the Capt. of Gages with the daily Guard of 60 men of that Regt; to march a body down the Eastern side of the Lake & come back on the West. If the Enemy land any people & draw up a boat they must find it.’

25 September 1760
‘Our Battery continued firing with good Success. Col Williamson began to fear his ammunition would fall short, as he has such a quantity on board the Onondaga. I therefore consulted with Lt Sinclair & the Seamen the best method of getting it out by night which was fixed on. In the Afternoon Mons Pouchot put a stop to our Preparations by Beating a Parley and sending me a Letter which I immediately answered & sent him terms of Capitulation by Capt Prescott for him to sign & send back to me, which he did. I ordered Lt Col Massey with three Companys of Grenadiers to take Possession of the Fort [Fort Levis on Isle Royale], the Garrison being Prisoners of War. I did not permit an Indian to go in. The Garrison that remained consisted of 291 including Officers. 12 men were killed with a Lt of Artillery & 35 were wounded.

Their Artillery consisted of twelve 12-Prs, two 8-Prs, thirteen 4-Prs, four 1 Pr & four Brass 6 Prs, besides several Guns with Trunions broke off, small Arms, and a great quantity of Powder & ball & provisions.’

You look like terrorists

Forty years ago today, two Chilean friends, Christian and Nene, and myself were minding our own business in the Brazilian city of Curitiba when we were arrested as murder suspects (‘you look like terrorists’, we were told) and put in prison. It was a frightening experience, more so for my friends who had spent the past three years living under Pinochet’s military rule in Chile. But Brazil and Argentina were also subject to military rule at this time, and in Argentina, especially, it was not unusual for people to be arrested, and go missing, never to be seen again - the desaparecidos. Here is my diary entry, dated 29 January, first about visiting Iguacu Falls on the Wednesday and then about our arrest and release on the Thursday (27 January).

29 January 1977
‘Foz da Iguacu is an ugly dirty town. It lies 20-30km from the falls, and a few km from the Paraguay border. It is full of hotels and restaurants, but the streets are dug up and full of rubbish. We installed ourselves in a hotel for 30 Cr but our room was smaller and hotter than an oven. A friendly joven befriended us and promised to take us to a church where we could sleep for free, idle away the evening soaking in impressions of Brazil or listening to some Paraguay folklorico with a hand harp. In the late evening, the joven took us to a large church where he said we could sleep beneath a covered courtyard. We thanked him profusely and began to spend a night fighting the mosquitoes and the heat. It was one very terrible night. [. . .]

Wednesday was dominated by the falls of Iguacu, one of the centres of tourism of South America and truly ‘impressionante’. It is so large, so magnificent. For a kilometre or more an enormous river breaks up and falls hundreds of feet in hundreds of different falls, different levels, different widths. It is a magnificent sight, completely natural. In the distance there’s a catwalk across the still gently flowing upper river, it is the Argentine tourist route. [. . .] A peaceful gentle brown river flows above, and suddenly there is no more river bed, and it goes thrashing, thrushing, torrenting down in a brown and white froth sending out spray with the wind. Some tourists hire big yellow raincoats to get a better view of the devil’s gorge. At the top we walk into the selva a few feet and sit on a big stone that rests in the river. The selva is alive with animals. Spiders, with their 3D webs stretched between trees and bushes. Iguanas, more than a foot long, crawl softly in the undergrowth. Endless coloured butterflies, suck the wet from the stones. There are black ones with patches of phosphorescent mauve. There are small ones with red, black and white line designs on the outside. There are enormous yellow and black ones. There are orange ones and yellow ones and white ones. All so beautiful. There are mosquito eggs wiggling in stone pools. There is a snail slowly pulling itself up out of the water. There are flies and ants and the enormous river flowing by. I wonder how I can ever be impressed by a little waterfall again.

We take the bus to Curitiba through the night.

Christian is ill, he has an infection of the ear. We go to some hospitals; at one we leave him to the bureaucracy of the medical system. We arrange to meet at 11:00am in a plaza. Nene and I eventually find a tourist office. They do not see many tourists so we are overloaded with information, post cards, even a board game ‘to get to know Curitiba’. At 11 we meet Christian. We ask some policeman for some information. We stop to talk to a Brasileiro, and then the police decide to take all four of us to a police station. We are a little insulted but don't cause trouble. In the police station, we are body searched; all our possessions are removed. Laboriously long forms are filled out, and every personal item is listed. The money is counted scrupulously. The police are friendly, but we are suspects. We think we can go when they have finished, but no we have to wait while they phone headquarters. We are placed in cells. I start to ask to phone the British Consulate. After a while they try to bundle us into two police cars. They have armoured back seats. I am afraid for us. I start to protest and insist on phoning the British Consulate. They will not let me. Finally, I am forced in the car by two policemen. I have in mind untold horrible things that I know are possible. I am afraid for Nene. We are taken to the Centre of Investigations. There the same long forms are filled out again. Many policemen come and go, some with ugly greedy faces, some making jokes about how we look like terrorists. Once the forms are completed, we are locked in a room. It seems a policeman was killed by three Paraguayans yesterday, and when we spoke Spanish to the two cops in the Plaza they became suspicious. I am still afraid for us. The Brasileiro is cool and says the police do not lie. I sleep and have nightmares, and wake with a very bad headache. After three hours we are taken upstairs. Upstairs, there are secretaries, and people in suits coming and going. I am very relieved. Somebody gives me a pill for my headache. In 20 minutes we are out on the streets and very very relieved. Christian still has very bad face pain. We go finally to a hospital (to the one he had been told to go earlier in the day). He finds it is a private clinic and has to pay $20. He does not want to. We force him. A young doctor gives him a big painful injection and mountains of medicine. We play games for an hour in the shelter of the rain deciding what to do. Eventually we decide to take the bus back to Sao Paulo through the night. Nene and I kiss passionately on the bus.’

The 1st Earl of Avon

Anthony Eden 1st Earl of Avon, who stood firm with Churchill against appeasement of Hitler and remained the UK’s foreign secretary throughout the war, died 40 years ago today. His political career started young, and he did eventually become Prime Minister when Churchill finally retired, but he soon was forced to resign because of his handling of the Suez crisis. Biographers and historians make good use of his diaries, which cane found with the Avon Papers at the University of Birmingham, but I can find no trace of them ever having been published in their own right.

Eden was born in 1897 in County Durham, the son of a baronet. He was educated at Eton, and, after a distinguished military service record with the army in World War One, he studied studied oriental languages at Christ Church, Oxford. He stood for parliament in the 1922 general election as a Conservative candidate for the Spennymoor constituency, but failed to get elected. In 1923, he married Beatrice Helen Beckett and they had three children, though one died in infancy. After a brief honeymoon, he was selected to stand for Warwick and Leamington in the general election that December, and won, entering Parliament aged only 26.

In 1931, Ramsay MacDonald appointed Eden to his first ministerial post, under-secretary for foreign affairs in the National Government, and then, in 1933, he was appointed Lord Privy Seal (with special responsibility for international relations). Two years later, in 1935, he entered the cabinet, as foreign secretary, for the first time as part of Stanley Baldwin’s third administration. However, when Neville Chamberlain took over as Prime Minister after Baldwin’s resignation, Eden resigned (early 1938) in protest against Chamberlain’s appeasement policy towards Germany and Italy. With the outbreak of war, in 1939, Eden returned to Chamberlain’s government as secretary of state for dominion affairs, and when Churchill became Prime Minister he appointed Eden as secretary of state for war, then as foreign secretary. He remained one of Churchill’s closest confidants through the war (gaining the additional role of Leader of the House of Commons in 1942).

After the Labour Party won the 1945 election, Eden went into opposition as deputy leader of the Conservative Party. It it was not until 1951 that he returned to office as foreign secretary when the Conservatives, with Churchill still as leader, took power. In 1955, when Churchill finally retired, Eden took over as leader, called a general election, which the Conservatives won with an increased majority. Although a very popular figure, Eden lasted less than two years as Prime Minister: his handling of the Suez crisis in 1956 led to his resignation in the early days of 1957, and then from parliament a couple of months later. He was made an earl in 1961, entering the House of Lords as the 1st Earl of Avon. During his retirement, Eden traveled much, and wrote four volumes of memoirs, the last of which, Another World, was particularly well received. He died on 14 January 1977. Further information can be found at Wikipedia, Gov.uk, BBC, The British Empire, Spartacus Educational, or British Pathé.

Eden’s personal and political papers are held by the Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham, and are known as the Avon Papers. They include both political diaries and notebooks and personal diaries. As far as I can tell, however, Eden’s diaries have never been published in their own right. They have, though, been used and quoted by many biographers and historians, mostly rather briefly, for example in: Eden: The Life and Times of Anthony Eden First Earl of Avon, 1897-1977 by D. R Thorpe (Chatto & Windus, 2003); Anthony Eden by Robert Rhodes James (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1986); Searching for Security in a New Europe: The Diplomatic Career of Sir George Russell Clerk by Gerald J. Protheroe (Routledge, 2004) and Churchill’s Cold War: The Politics of Personal Diplomacy by Klaus Larres (Yale University Press, 2002).

David Dutton’s Anthony Eden: A Life and Reputation by David Dutton (Arnold, 1997) includes many quotes from Eden’s diaries, some within the flow of the narrative, but many standing alone, and all of them carefully annotated with a date. Dutton does not, though, provide any overview of the diary material (which I’ve not been unable to find anywhere else either). Interestingly (at least with regard to the value of diaries to biographers), Dutton does make extensive use of diaries kept by many contemporaries of Eden; the following are specifically acknowledged: James Chuter Ede, Hugh Dalton, Robert Bruce Lockhart, Henry Channon, 27th Earl of Crawford, Richard Crossman, Alexander Cadogan, Pierson Dixon, Blanche Dugdale, 1st Earl of Halifax, Harold Macmillan, Oliver Harvey, Cuthbert Headlam, William Clark, Sir John Colville, Hugh Gaitskell, Lord Reith, Beatrice Webb, Maurice Hankey, 1st Baron Moran, Harold Nicolson, Sir Evelyn Shuckburgh, and the 1st Earl of Woolton.

Here are several quotes from Eden’s diaries as found in Dutton’s book. (Square brackets inside the quotes are as used in Dutton’s book.)

27 August 1931
‘[Chamberlain] told me there was a chance I might go to F.O. That he had spoken strongly to Reading [the new Foreign Secretary] and that S.B. had agreed to his doing so. He hoped something would result but S.B. had given away so much to the Liberals it was impossible to say. He - S.B. - apparently greeted my name with more enthusiasm than any other. The F.O. in a national govt, with the S of S in the Upper House is higher than I hoped for and I do not expect that I shall get it.’

26 July 1932
‘He will not fight for his own policy. He expects the Cabinet to find his policy for him. That they will never do. They want to be told. The only result of present procedure is F.O. pushed into the background, which is not good either. . . . Poor Simon is no fighter. Nothing will make him one.’

28 October 1932
‘He has never fought for his own hand . . . The policy is as good as can be expected in the circumstances and it now remains for Simon to go for it. Anyway the ink wells at the F.O. are dry and if the Cabinet will not have it Simon should ask them to send someone else to Geneva.’

23 June 1933
‘Simon told me he could not take questions Monday, would I? ... It eventually transpired that there was a question on bombing that he did not want to answer because he could not express approval of government policy though he has urged me to often enough and has done little enough against it. Not very noble. He added: ‘I shall certainly feel ill again by then. Indeed I feel my illness creeping upon me already. It will certainly be bad on Monday.” Makes one wonder whether the whole thing is not a sham.’

26 March 1935
‘Only thing Hitler wants is Air Pact without limitation. Simon much inclined to bite at this, and to suggest separate conference on this. I had to protest and he gave up the idea. Total result of visit for European settlement very disappointing. Simon toys with idea of letting G. expand eastwards. I am strongly against it. Apart from its dishonesty it would be our turn next.

16 November 1936
‘Van came in and talked somewhat hysterically about this alliance being directed against us and not Russia. I fear that he is not balanced and is in such a continual state of nerves that he will end by making would-be aggressors think the more of us as a possible victim!’

5 January 1937
‘At least we have given nothing away to Italy. It remains to be seen whether what we have gained will prove of any material value. Time alone will show and nothing would be more foolish than openly to attempt to pull Mussolini away from Hitler.’

26 August 1943
‘G[ermany] and J[apan] had been the great restraints upon R[ussia]. We were committed to destroy both. R. would then be immensely powerful ... it might be that I should still see many years of war, perhaps all my life. I admitted that all this might be true but argued that only possible basis for a policy was to try to get on terms with Russia.’

6 June 1944
‘I was accused of trying to break up the government, of stirring up the press on the issue. He said that nothing would induce him to give way, that de Gaulle must go. F.D.R. and he would fight the world. I didn’t lose my temper and I think that I gave as good as I got. Anyway I didn’t budge an inch.’

January 1957
‘Americans would not have moved until all was lost. All through the Canal negotiations Dulles was twisting and wriggling and lying to do nothing.’ (John Foster Dulles:  Dwight Eisenhower’s Secretary of State)

The sweetest fish ever eaten

‘Fried lake trout for breakfast were positively the sweetest fish ever eaten. All the trout on stringers were dead. Have never yet found a way to keep trout alive, short of a tight pen in the water. A fine chorus of white-throated sparrows when the sun came up. Their note sounds like ‘Ah, poor Canada!’ This is from the journals of Aldo Leopold, the great American ecologist/conservationist, born 130 years go today, who introduced and propagated ideas and procedures for sustainability in wildlife and wilderness management.

Leopold was born in Burlington, Iowa, on 11 January 1887, the eldest of four children. He was educated locally, but his father taught him skills of the outdoors, woodcraft and hunting. He attended The Lawrenceville School, New Jersey, and Sheffield Scientific School in preparation for studying a masters at the newly established Yale School of Forestry. After graduating, he joined the U. S. Forest Service and was given his first field assignment in Apache National Forest in southeastern Arizona. He rapidly gained promotion becoming supervisor at Carson National Forest in northern New Mexico in 1911. The same year he launched the Carson Pine Cone newsletter; and the following year he married Estella Bergere with whom he would have five children.

Leopold remained in New Mexico for more than a decade, becoming the Forest Service’s assistant district forester in charge of operations. During this time, he developed the first comprehensive management plan for the Grand Canyon, wrote the Forest Service’s first game and fish handbook, and proposed the Gila Wilderness Area, the first such national wilderness area in the Forest Service system. In 1924, he moved to the U.S. Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin, becoming an associate director; but, in 1928, he left to conduct game surveys of Midwestern states, funded by the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers’ Institute.

By the 1930s, Leopold had become the foremost expert on wildlife management, advocating the scientific management of wildlife habitats by both public and private landholders; and, in 1933, he published Game Management, setting out revolutionary principles for sound management of wild areas that had suffered the kind of adverse conditions he had observed during his Midwestern surveys. That same year he was appointed Professor of Game Management in the Agricultural Economics Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the first such professorship in wildlife management.

Thereafter, Leopold was influential in setting up the Wilderness and Wildlife Societies; he was appointed chairman of the Department of Wildlife Management at the University of Wisconsin; he initiated cooperative ventures between farmers and sportsmen to improve habitats; and he served on the Wisconsin State Conservation Department’s game and fisheries committees. He also purchased 80 acres of once-forested land in central Wisconsin, where he put his own theories into practice, and which provided the inspiration and experiences for A Sand County Almanac. He died of a heart attack in 1948 while battling a wild fire on a neighbour’s property. Further information is available from Wikipedia, The Wilderness Net, The Aldo Leopold Foundation, an article in Minding Nature available at Centre for Humans  & Nature, Environmental Education for Kids, or Americans who tell the truth.

A Sand County Almanac, Leopold’s most famous book and one that is considered a landmark in US conservation, was edited by his son Luna and not published until the year after his death. A few years later, in 1953, Luna also edited some of his father’s diaries which were published by Oxford University Press Inc (New York) as Round River, From the Journals of Aldo Leopold (available to preview at Googlebooks). In fact, Leopold was an inveterate keeper of journals, all (or certainly most) of which are held today in The Aldo Leopold Archives at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries.

The Aldo Leopold Archives places Leopold’s diaries and journals into three groups: United States Forest Service Diaries and Miscellaneous, 1899-1927; Hunting Journals, 1917-1945; Shack Journals, 1935-1948. Many of the Archives’ holdings have been digitalised including the diaries and journals, so all can be freely read online - although only in the original handwritten text, i.e. there are no transcriptions available on the Aldo Leopold Archives website.

Here are several extracts from Round River. (I have placed a screenshot, taken from the Aldo Leopold Archives website, of part of the diary entry for 27 November 1926 next to the text as found transcribed in Round River.)

15 June 1924
‘Fried lake trout for breakfast were positively the sweetest fish ever eaten.

All the trout on stringers were dead. Have never yet found a way to keep trout alive, short of a tight pen in the water.

A fine chorus of white-throated sparrows when the sun came up. Their note sounds like ‘Ah, poor Canada!’ Thank the Lord for country as poor as this.

We had a laundering and sewing bee around camp. Then explored the lake and found tomorrow’s portage into Trout Lake. Trolled to the sand beach, where we found fresh moose tracks and had a fine but brief swim, the water being cold. Coming back to camp we photographed the mallard nest. The nest consisted of a hollow pushed into the dry litter under the overhanging branches of a little spruce. It had a perfect circle of a rim consisting of the gray down of the hen. The behavior of the hen was entirely different when approached from the water instead of the land - from the land she played cripple, whereas from the water she sprang directly into the air and hardly quacked. Only eight eggs and nest full.

While we were boiling tea for lunch, Starker caught another trout. After a nap all round we engaged in the very serious occupation of catching perch minnows to be used as bait for the evening fishing. Later I made Starker a bow of white cedar. In the evening we caught a few trout, one of which we had for supper. It was a female and had pink flesh, whereas the previous ones had white flesh. Only small fish were caught on first casts, indicating that big ones get used to a spoon and no longer get excited about it. The first three minnows also drew bites, but later minnows wouldn’t work.

Carl and I learned something while casting in a bay behind camp. The water was covered with willow cotton, which gummed up the line and the ferrules so as to make casting nearly impossible.

At dark a solitary loon serenaded us with his lonesome call, which Fritz imitates very well. This call seems to prevail at night, while the laughing call is used during the day. Carl remembers the laughing call at night, however, on the trip we made to Drummond Island with Dad about 1905.

The Lord did well when he put the loon and his music into this lonesome land.’

27 November 1926
‘Arrived Van Buren 9 a.m. and hit the river at 10:30. A fine sunny morning. The river is very fast for a mile or so below town, then calms down somewhat. About noon we had our first excitement when 30 mallards came up the river and began to circle the timber a hundred yards to our left, settling down in a little backwater. We sneaked them, only I going all the way. I got within 30 yards but got only one on the rise; alibi: dark background and brush. They circled and came over us. Everybody missed; alibi: too far. Just as we were leaving five came back, but seeing our boat they went on. We landed again to wait when eight got out unexpectedly below us, one big drake passing within easy range of Carl and me. Alibi: none. We named this Bungle Bay.’

6 December 1926
‘Our last day of hunting. All shaved in the hope of improving our shooting a bit. It is cool and cloudy.

Tried the quail above camp on the west bank. Found the canebrake covey and did a little better with them, getting three. Hunted a lot of new country that looked ideal but found no birds. Saw a large flock of doves but couldn’t get near them. Coming back I unexpectedly flushed a big mallard drake out of the head of the buck brush lake. I shot through some saplings at him but failed to connect. This is the first mallard we have seen since leaving the cove camp.

In the afternoon we crossed the river and while we were cutting mistletoe for the girls, Flick put up a beautiful covey out of the tinkleweeds but nobody had a loaded gun. We got two, however, out of a belated rise and later a couple of scatters.

Next hunted some lovely ragweed patches to the south and found a nice covey. Had a hard time finding them again because we overestimated the distance they flew. Finally got them out. Carl put five right over Fritz and me and we scored four clean misses overhead as they pitched down into the cane. Later we retrieved our reputation a bit by killing some singles.

It now began to rain and we regretfully left the whistling birds behind us as we hit for camp.’

8 November 1929
‘A bright fine morning. Up in dark at 4 a.m. and when sun came out started dolling up camp. We are under a big spreading alligator juniper on the edge of a pretty park full of fine grama grass. It is 200 yards down to Evans’ stock tank for water. There is enough oak and juniper wood within 200 yards of camp to furnish the U. S. Army, only they wouldn’t appreciate its fine qualities.

In the afternoon we de-horned a big dead juniper only 50 yards from camp and piled up half a cord of fragrant wood - also brought in some oak. Also started the sourdough and other similar ceremonies, including a pot of beans. Dined on beans and cornbread in a fall of snow which started in the middle of the afternoon and by bedtime was two inches deep. This will make fine prospecting for deer tomorrow. Had music in our snug dry camp after dinner while all the rest of the world outside was white and cold.’

27 December 1937
‘Floyd took us over the Perdita Mesa and back down Turkey Ridge. Saw one buck near the Chocolate Drop but few other deer. Much turkey sign on the hogback leading up to Perdita from the west and also a good deal of deer sign on the north rim of the mesa bordering Smoke Canyon. No shots with either bow or gun.’

28 December 1937
‘Explored the Crack Canyon region for the first time. Saw a large number of deer and the country looks very workable. No turkey sign.’

Adieu to my youth

‘Pretty cold this morning but we must get the carriage repaired, which broke down last night about 12 oclock. Managed to get to the polling place about an hour and half before it closed. This is my birthday, it is now 21 years since I came into this world. “Adieu to my youth - ” ’ This is Sandford Fleming, the great Scots-Canadian railway engineer, born 190 years go today, who created the idea of a standard worldwide time. Although he kept a diary for most of his life, he rarely wrote more than a few words each day. A selection of his youthful diary entries - considered rather ‘laconic and factual’ - were published in 2009, but, according to one critic, shed more light on that period in Canadian history than on the great engineer to be.

Fleming was born on 7 January 1827 in Kirkcaldy, Scotland. Aged 14, he was apprenticed to a prominent Fifeshire surveyor and assisted in tracking new railway lines between Edinburgh, Perth and Dundee. In 1845, he and an elder brother emigrated to Canada; their parents followed a little later. After dallying in various colonial Canadian cities, such as Montreal and Ottawa, the brothers settled in Peterborough lodging with a cousin.

Fleming moved to Toronto, where he worked with a printing company while looking to further his engineering career, through securing his surveyor’s qualification and by taking on various commissions. He was also involved in founding the Canadian Institute, and is credited with designing Canada’s first postage stamp, costing three pennies and depicting a beaver, now the national animal of Canada. Fleming married Ann Jean Hall, daughter of the county’s sheriff, in 1855, and they had six children.

From 1852 onwards, Fleming took a prominent part in the development of railways in Upper Canada; from 1855 to 1863 he was chief engineer of the Northern Railway. In 1863, the colonial government of Nova Scotia appointed him chief railway engineer and charged him with construction of a line from Truro to Pictou. On refusing to entertain high bids for small contracts, he resigned his position and carried out the work as a contractor rather than a civil servant. In 1867 or so, he was appointed by the new dominion government to the post of engineer-in-chief of the Inter-Colonial Railway, a position he would hold until its completion in 1876.

Meanwhile, in 1871, the construction of a Canadian Pacific Railway had been made part of the bargain by which British Columbia was induced to enter the new dominion, and Fleming was appointed the project’s engineer-in-chief. The following year, he headed an expedition to find a practicable route. In 1880, with over 600 miles of railway completed and most of the engineering difficulties overcome, the government decided to form an agreement with the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, handing over the project - together with vast subsidies of land and money - to the new commercial company. The privatisation was a severe blow to Fleming, who was effectively dismissed. However, a few years later he became a director of the Canadian Pacific Railway.

From 1880, Fleming was chancellor of Queen’s University in Kingston, a position he retained until his death. Apart from remaining involved in various commercial projects, he continued to devote himself to Canadian and Imperial problems, such as the unification of time reckoning throughout the world (and, indeed, is credited with inventing the ideal of unification and time zones), and the construction of a state-owned system of telegraphs throughout the British empire. He was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1897. His final years were spent mostly at his house in Halifax. He died in 1915, leaving the house and its 95 acres to the city, an area now known as Sir Sandford Fleming Park. Further information on Fleming can be found at Wikipedia, Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Web Exhibits, Atlas of Alberta Railways, and Queen’s University.

The 190th anniversary of Fleming’s birth is being commemorated today with a so-called Google doodle - and this in turn has led to sudden spurt of attention by the media to the great (and largely forgotten in the UK until now) Scottish engineer - see The Telegraph, The Independent, India Today, or The Sun. Not so forgotten in Canada: in 2009, the Toronto-based publisher, Dundurn, brought out Sir Sandford Fleming - His Early Diaries, 1845-1853 by Jean Murray Cole (which can be previewed at Googlebooks). According to Cole, Fleming began his lifelong habit of keeping a journal in Scotland on 1 January 1845, just seven days before his 18th birthday. Her book contains the early journals (1845-1853) which, she says, ‘give a vivid picture of Fleming’s development and maturing as he sought to make a place for himself in the competitive atmosphere of Canada West in the 1840 and 1850s.’

Michael Peterman, a past professor of English at Trent University, begins his foreword to the diaries as follows: ‘It is with great pleasure that I write this Foreword to Sir Sandford Fleming: The Early Diaries. As the Chair of the Publications Committee of the Peterborough Historical Society for the past fifteen years, I have shared with my fellow committee members a commitment to see this project shaped and realized. It began as an idea in the mid-1990s, spurred on by Jean Murray Cole, who had studied Fleming’s life and admired his diaries in their home at Library and Archives Canada. We felt then that an annotated and accurate transcript of young Sandford’s early diaries would make a useful and informative addition to the record of life in pre-Confederation Canada. It would provide a view of the colony through the eyes of a young and ambitious Scottish immigrant as he struggled to make a place for himself in a new land, to find satisfying work for his talents, and to develop his professional interests. Laconic and factual as the diary entries often are, they take us into the texture of Fleming’s brave new world and alert us to the kind of community he had to deal with as he sought to make a career and place for himself. To him, Canada was “a marvellous world” and a ‘‘goodly land.” ’

Richard White, reviewing the diaries in The Canadian Historical Review (Volume 91, Number 3, September 2010), agrees with Peterman’s assessment that the laconic, factual nature of the entries leave rather a lot unsaid: ‘The problem is that the diaries say so little. They are brief daily entries that simply note the main activities of the day. Some are very short - ‘Christmas. Out sleighing. Good dinner at the Drs’ (25 December 1845), ‘At Timson’s yesterday. Very severe frost. Drawing class evening’ (13 Februaray 1849), ‘Preparing paper and diagrams for Saturday evening’ (20 March 1851). Others are more substantial - ‘Intended going over to the Island to set back meridian but wind blowing & exceedingly cold, called on Lieut de Moleyers who thinks that I had better finish my drawing of Gloucester Bay immediately while the weather is rough & attend to this afterward’ (19 January 1852). Such entries do reveal details that researchers of early engineering and surveying techniques might find useful, but they are still very short, rarely more than four or five lines of printed text, and they leave much unsaid. The months and years go by without much of Fleming’s character being revealed. One has the sense that almost anyone could have written these entries.’

However, White does not believe they are quite so valuable in providing a forecast of the man to come: ‘In time, though, the numerous mundane facts and details begin shaping into a sketchy picture of Fleming, and perhaps the most striking quality that emerges is how resourceful and capable a man he was. He arrived in Canada with several valuable skills - drawing, drafting, surveying, engraving - and he used them all to make a living. He pursued every opportunity, and every job he did seems to have brought him some recognition, and often the opportunity to do the same again. The entries also reveal a strong commitment to work. A large map of Toronto, which he surveyed, drew, and engraved in association with the Toronto printers Scobie & Balfour, was a multi-year project, on which he seems to have persevered with extraordinary tenacity. All in all, Fleming emerges as the essential self-made man who established himself through his own competence and effort. One gets glimpses of his humbleness too. In one of his few reflective entries Fleming looks back and marvels that ‘a poor boy came to this country 8½ years ago with his brother’ (6 September 1953) and that he is now so respected and financially secure. The entries are slim, to be sure, and the editor’s concluding claim that the diary offers ‘a clear forecast of the accomplishments of his later years’ overstates the matter, but something of the man emerges, no doubt.’

Nevertheless, White believes there might be value in the picture that the diaries draw of the period: ‘These hundreds of mundane details, taken together, also reveal something of the world Fleming inhabited - that intriguing period from the late 1840s to the 1850s that was such a critical moment in the modernization of English Canada - and although the editor makes little mention of this it could well be as important as what the diary says about Fleming.’

Here are several extracts from Sir Sandford Fleming - His Early Diaries, 1845-1853.

1 January 1845
‘I went to bed for the last time in the year 1844 at 11 oclock, and rose at ½ past 7 on new years day. Almost everyone you met said “good new year to ye” &c. Happy to say I saw noone drunk except a carter boy who I believed pretended more than anything else. I finished a sketch of ‘Ravenscraig Castle’ in the morning which Mr Crawford was to make arrangements with Mr Lizars about the engraving of it. Began in the evening to draw on stone Kirkcaldy harbour to be lithographed by Mr Bryson. My present wish is to write a sort of diary so that I can put down anything particular that happens or is of utility to recollect.’

January 1848
‘How strange it sounds, but it will soon be familiar to us. Poor 1847 is dead, is now numbered with the past, and all our deeds and actions, evil or good are sealed. Yes sealed with the great seal of time. Let us form a good resolution to live the lives of honest men, let us learn the way to do good, and walk upright. If it should be for no other purpose than to honour our Father and Mother dear, to comfort them in their old age. Surely we could not see their grey hair go with sorrow to the grave.’

1 January 1848
‘Last night David, Ann & I were at a wedding. The party were very merry, finished about 3 A.M. and most of us went to finish at another party. It is enough to say we got to bed about 7 oclock and got up about eleven. David and I called upon several friends during the day, being the usual custom.’

3 January 1848
‘At work again, engraving a view of St Peters Church, Cobourg. It is very tedious work. Would rather be in the country chopping. It may be so but one is never content with their present condition.’

4 January 1848
Again at St Peters in the forenoon, but think it as well to give it up, in the mean time, as it is not likely that I shall make a good job of it when my mind does not go along with it.’

5 January 1848
‘Today I have commenced to design a Town Hall for the Town of Cobourg, as I promised when I was down last. It may never be of any pecuniary advantage to me but it is practice and they may probably take my unsold plans of Cobourg, as a sort of remuneration for me.’

6 January 1848
‘In the forenoon today I have been engaged sketching out a plan for the Town Hall at Cobourg. Afternoon I volunteered my services to take out two voters to the Township of Scott about 50 miles from Toronto. We started about 5 oclock P.M. and slept in Buffalo robes at the village of Stouffville 30 miles out.’

7 January 1848
‘Pretty cold this morning but we must get the carriage repaired, which broke down last night about 12 oclock. Managed to get to the polling place about an hour and half before it closed. This is my birthday, it is now 21 years since I came into this world. “Adieu to my youth - ” ’

8 January 1848
‘Winter morning - snowing. Started for Toronto, our ride was through the bush, only one house for about 10 miles. Arrived at Newmarket where the Hon Robert Baldwin is here with his party, they having defeated our friend Mr. Scobie by 260 majority. Went up to Sharon and saw David Willson & Temple.’

10 January 1848
‘Sunday is omitted in this Diary. It being near one before getting home I did not get up till near church time. Poor Mr. Russell confectioner was burnt out yesterday morning at 4 oclock. Lost all but the lives of his family. Today I have commenced at Scobie & Balfour again.’

11 January 1848
‘The balance of the 1st Quarters rent is due today amounting to £3.10. £1.10 being paid on taking the house. Reed 10/ from Scobie & Balfour to make up the balance. Mr. Holland promised to give me 4 dollars for making a plan for Mr Bethune.’

12 January 1848
‘Little Mr Buchan, Scobie & Balfour engraver had been drunk last night and cant work today. Silly fellow to spend his time and money, and breaking his constitution. Can it be possible that I shall be a drunkard; surely not. Paid the Jew £3/10 the Quarter rent.’

14 January 1848
‘The weather is unusually mild, it rained almost all day. In the evening a fire broke out in Yonge Street in a wooden house, but owing to the rain and the plentiful supply of water in the ditches, the fire was prevented from going farther.

15 January 1848
‘Last evening I saw along with Cochrane the sculptor, some plaster casts that have just been brought to town for the Society of Arts. There is some good things among them. Went over to John Buchans last night, he was just getting better from being drunk poor fellow. He has kept sober a long time now.’

17 January 1848
‘Today is Handsel Monday, if all is well there will be great merry makings at  Haugh Mills. Reed from Scobie & Balfour £2/10 paid Father £2/5. Last Wednesday I got from David 7 dollars to help pay the rent which with the other two makes 9 dollars I gave my Father that time & owe David $7. Engaged at Scobies just now making a title to the Newcastle & Colborne map. There is a vast deal of work at it, but shall try to make a good job.’

19 January 1848
‘In the afternoon today my Father, David, Mr Pollock & I went out to the Humber Mills about 16 miles out, to see them, they are to let or sell. It is a pretty place, a flour mill with two runs of stones just finished and a good saw mill with plenty of pine.’

26 January 1848
‘I have been thinking for some time that, the charcoal light of the magnetic battery might be brought to some practical use. I only require one experiment, but it would be an expensive one for me unless I could meet with a powerful battery, but I dont think there is one in Canada. It is to try if more than one light can be formed with one set of wires by masking the connection and interposing charcoal points. If this is the case, we have a good and cheap substitute for Gas, would give a much better light, and at least could be easily adapted to lighting streets or churches just by having a wire like the Telegraph ones, with a charcoal apparatus here & there. Worth trying.’