Did cut her owne throte

John Dee, a mathematician, philosopher, alchemist and original fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, was born all of 490 years ago today. He left behind a diary - one of the very earliest English diaries - covering most of the second half of the 16th century. It was first found in the Ashmolean Museum and published in the mid-19th century, but has since been re-edited and re-published several times. Much of what modern historians know about this extraordinary’s man life - including the gruesome fact that his nurse committed suicide - comes from the diary.

Dee was born in London on 13 July 1527. His father was a mercer, and a courtier to Henry VIII, supplying the king with clothes and fabrics. Young Dee attended the Chelmsford Chantry School (now King Edward VI Grammar School) until 1542, and then entered St John’s College, Cambridge. In his last year, 1546, he began to make astronomical observations, that same year he became an original fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, on its founding by Henry VIII. From 1548 to 1551, he travelled to the Continent, staying in Louvain (where he wrote texts on astronomy, and became friends with the geographer Gerardus Mercator), and well as Brussels and Paris (where he gave very popular lectures).

Dee returned to England with a collection of mathematical and astronomical instruments, and soon joined the service of the Earl of Northumberland, when he wrote a work on tides. When the Catholic Queen Mary came to the throne, Dee’s father was among many protestants arrested. He was released but only after being deprived of all his financial assets - assets which Dee had expected to inherit. Subsequently, having apparently come to terms with Catholic society, he proposed to Queen Mary that she build a Royal Library. Although the idea was not taken up, Dee himself began to build his own library. After Mary’s death, in 1558, Dee soon found favour with the Protestant Queen Elizabeth (some historians believe Dee might have been spying for her while Mary was still Queen) to the point of being asked to use his astrological skills to choose a coronation day. He served as her trusted advisor on astrological and scientific matters; and also provided technical assistance for the various global voyages of discovery under way at this time.

Dee spent much time abroad, collecting books for his library (at his mother’s house in Mortlake), and studying the linked subjects of astronomy, astrology, mathematics and magic. By the mid-1560s, he had returned to live with his mother. In 1568, he published Propaedeumata Aphoristica, which he presented to Queen Elizabeth who was so impressed she took maths lessons from Dee to understand it. And two years later, he published his Mathematical Preface (on the central importance of mathematics for other arts and sciences) to Henry Billingsley’s translation of Euclid’s Elements. In time, this would prove to be Dee’s most influential and reprinted work. In 1578, Dee (who had already lost two wives who bore him no children) married Jane Fromand, and together they had eight children. The following year, Dee’s mother gave him her house, and the year after she died.

From the early 1580s, Dee began turning his studies towards the supernatural, especially with the much younger Edward Kelley, a medium he met in 1582. Together they travelled to Poland, at the behest of an impoverished yet popular Polish nobleman, and Bohemia, arranging spiritual conferences and giving magical performances. Kelley was taken on as an alchemist by Emperor Rudolf II, but, after six years, Dee returned to England in financial difficulties. There he found the Mortlake house ransacked, and much of his library and many of his scientific instruments stolen. He tried without success to get compensation for his losses. Queen Elizabeth did approve him for a post in London but this failed to materialise. Eventually, in 1595, he was appointed warden of Manchester College. In 1605, after his wife and several children had died of the plague, he returned to Mortlake, living his final years in poverty, dying himself in 1608. Historians believe that three years later, William Shakespeare based his character of Prospero in The Tempest on Dee. Further biographical information can be found at Wikipedia, MacTutor, Encyclopedia.com or Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Dee’s intermittent, and often brief, diary was first published by the Camden Society in 1842 entitled The Private Diary of Dr John Dee, and The Catalogue of his Library and Manuscripts, as edited by James Orchard Halliwell. The preface explains that the diary was written in ‘a very small illegible hand on the margins of old Almanacs’ and was only discovered ‘a few years ago’ in the library of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. The editor goes on to state: ‘The publication of this Diary will tend perhaps to set Dee’s character in its true light, more than any thing that has yet been printed.’ The text is freely available online in various places, not least Internet Archive. It certainly counts as one of the very earliest of English diaries. More recent editions of the diary include: The Diaries of John Dee, edited by Edward Fenton (Day Books, 1998); Dr. John Dee’s Spiritual Diaries: 1583-1608, A True & Faithful Relation, edited by Stephen Skinner and Meric Casaubozn (Llewellyn Publications, 2012); and John Dee’s Diary, Catalogue of Manuscripts and Selected Letters (various editors, Cambridge University Press, 2013).

Here are several extracts from the 1842 edition (the first includes a gruesome account of how his nurse killed herself).

1590
‘Aug. 5th, Rowland fell into the Tems over hed and eares abowt noone or somewhat after. Aug. 8th, I gave Nurse Barwick six shillings, so she is payd for the half yere due on Weynsday next. Aug. 9th, I payd to Mr. Lee the scholemaster 5s. Aug. 22nd, Ann my nurse had long byn tempted by a wycked spirit: but this day it was evident how she was possessed of him. God is, hath byn, and shall be her protector and deliverer! Amen. Aug. 25th, Anne Frank was sorowfol, well comforted and stayed in God’s mercyes acknowledging. Aug. 26th, at night I anoynted (in the name of Jesus) Ann Frank her brest with the holy oyle. Aug. 30th, in the morning she required to be anoynted, and I did very devowtly prepare myself, and pray for vertue and powr and Christ his blessing of the oyle to the expulsion of the wycked; and then twyse anoynted, the wycked one did resest a while. Sept. 1st, I receyved letters from Sir Edward Kelley by Francis Garland. Sept. 8th, Nurse Anne Frank wold have drowned hirself in my well, but by divine Providence I cam to take her up befor she was overcome of the water. Sept. 23rd, Sonday, T gave Nurse Barwyk six shillings for a monthis wages to ende on Wensday comme a fortnight; Mrs. Stackden was by. Sept. 29th, Nurse Anne Frank most miserably did cut her owne throte, after-none abowt four of the clok, pretending to be in prayer before her keeper, and suddenly and very quickly rising from prayer, and going toward her chamber, as the mayden her keper thowght, but indede straight way down the stayrs into the hall of the other howse, behinde the doore, did that horrible act; and the mayden who wayted on her at the stayr-fote followed her, and missed to fynde her in three or fowr places, tyll at length she hard her rattle in her owne blud.’

1592
‘Oct. 13th, I exhibited to the Archbishop of Canterbury two bokes of blasphemie against Christ and the Holy Ghoste, desyring him to cause them to be confuted: one was Christian Franken, printed anno 1585 in Poland; the other was of one Sombius against one Carolius, printed at Ingolstad anno 1582 in octavo. Oct. 14th, 15th, a mighty wynde at sowth-west. Oct. 30th, 31st, one of these two dayes I hurt my left shyn against the sharp small end of a wooden rammar abowt four of the clok afternone. Nov. 1st, Mr. Ashly, his wife, and their familie, did com to my howse and remayned ther. They had my mother’s chamber, the mayde’s chamber, and all the other howse. Nov. 9th, Her Majestie’s grant of my supplication for commissioners to comme to me. The Lady Warwik obteyned it. Nov. 22nd, the commissioners from Her Majestie, Mr. Secretary Wolly and Sir Thomas George, cam to Mortlak to my howse. Nov. 28th, to Richard Walkdyne of his wagis 20s. Dec. 1st, a little after none the very vertuous Cowntess of Warwik sent me word very speedily by hir gentleman Mr. Jones from the cowrt at Hampton Cowrt that this day Her Majestie had granted to send me spedily an hundred marks, and that Sir Thomas George had very honorably dealt for me in the cause. Dec. 2nd, Sir Thomas George browght me a hundred marks from her Majestie. Dec. 24th to 31st, at Mr. Lurensey of Tooting all these days, and Newyere’s Day allso, and so cam home by coach (as we went) by Tuesday none, I, my wyfe, Arthur, Kate, &c. Dec. 31st, at Tooting at Mr. R. Luresey his howse; abowt thre of the clok after dynner dyd the Bishop of Laigham serve process uppon me for the nangle, but most unduely.’

1600
‘Aug. 5th, I visited the grammar schole, and fownd great imperfection in all and every of the scholers to my great grief. Aug. 6th, I had a dream after midnight of my working of the philosopher’s stone with other. My dreame was after midnight toward day. Aug. 10th, Eucharistam suscepimus, ego, uxor, filia Katharina, et Maria Nicolls. Aug. 30th, a great tempest of mighty wynde S.W. from 2 tyll 6, with wayne. Sept. 11th, Mr. Holland of Denby, Mr. Gerard of Stopford, Mr. Langley, commissioners from the bishop of Chester, authorized by the bishop of Chester, did call me before them in the church abowt thre of the clok after none, and did deliver to me certayn petitions put up by the fellows against me to answer before the 18th of this month. I answered them all eodem tempore, and yet they gave me leave to write at leiser. Sept. 16th, Mr. Harmer and Mr. Davis, gentlemen of Flyntshire, within four or five myle of Hurden Castell, did viset me. Sept. 29th, I burned before Mr. Nicols, his brother, and Mr. Wortley, all Bartholomew Hikman his untrue actions. Sept. 30th, after the departing of Mr. Francis Nicolls, his dowghter Mistres Mary, his brother Mr. William, Mr. Wortley, at my retume from Deansgate, to the ende whereof I browght them on fote, Mr. Roger Kooke offred and promised his faithfull and diligent care and help, to the best of his skill and powre, in the processes chymicall, and that he will rather do so then to be with any in England; which his promise the Lord blesse and confirm! He told me that Mr. Anthony considered him very liberally and frendely, but he told him that he had promised me. Then he liked in him the fidelity of regarding such his promise.’

The Diary Junction

Cows in the river

‘I find many strawberries deep in the grass of the meadow near this Hosmer Spring; then proceed on my way with reddened and fragrant fingers, till it gets washed off at new springs. It is always pleasant to go over the bare brow of Lupine Hill and see the river and meadows thence. It is exceedingly sultry this afternoon, and few men are abroad. The cow’s stand up to their bellies in the river, lashing their sides with their tails from time to time.’ This is the great American philosopher naturalist, Henry D. Thoreau, born two centuries ago today, waxing lyrical in his daily journal. Much of the material in all 47 diaries he left behind were published in 1906 in 14 volumes (freely available online). However, a new and fully annotated edition of all the diary material is being published by Princeton University Press, albeit rather slowly. In the interim, however, images of many of the journal manuscripts have been made available online, along with transcripts.

Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts, on 12 July 1817. He studied at Harvard but left with an undistinguished record. On returning to Concord, he and his brother John set up a progressive school. It operated for several years until John, having contracted tetanus from a cut, died in 1842. Some years earlier, in 1837, Thoreau had been introduced to the distinguished poet and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson who had moved to Concord, and he had allowed Thoreau to use his library. It was Emerson who encouraged young Thoreau in his writing, and who introduced him to other local writers and thinkers, many of whom followed Transcendentalism, a philosophy of finding insight through personal intuition rather than religious doctrine. Some of Thoreau’s first writings appeared in the Transcendentalist magazine, The Dial. In 1841, Thoreau moved into the Emerson house, acting as a caretaker and children’s tutor.

In 1845, with permission from Emerson, Thoreau cut down some trees on Emerson’s land, Walden Pond, and built a timber hut. There he lived for more than two years in a simple manner, occasionally working at his family’s pencil factory or as a land surveyor, but generally devoting his time to philosophical and literary interests, in particular a a memoir about a canoe trip he had taken with his brother John (published in 1849 as A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers). Thoreau returned to Emerson’s house for a couple of years, and then lived in his parent’s house, but the period at Walden Pond was to prove a formative experience for him. In 1854, he published Walden; or, Life in the Woods, in which he recommended simple living in natural surroundings, closely in touch with nature. Though a modest success at the time, the book has since become an American classic.

In his later years, Thoreau became far more focused on botany than on Transcendentalism. He also was outspoken against slavery, and helped with a clandestine network that helped escaped slaves make their way to Canada. He died relatively young, in 1862, of tuberculosis. Further biographical information is readily available online at The Thoreau Society, The Writings of Henry D. Thoreau (the library of University of California, Santa Barbara), The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Poetry Foundation, or Wikipedia.

It was on Emerson’s advice that Thoreau, soon after meeting the older man, began keeping a journal. (Indeed, Emerson was also a diarist - see The drollest mushroom with diary extracts by Ralph Waldo Emerson on Thoreau). Thereafter, Thoreau’s journal became something of a life’s work. He left behind 47 volumes. According to the Thoreau Edition website: his ‘Journal that began as a conventional record of ideas, grew into a writer’s notebook, and eventually became the principal imaginative work of his career. The source of much of his published writing, the Journal is also a record of both his interior life and his monumental studies of the natural history of his native Concord.’

Substantial parts of Thoreau’s diary were published by Houghton Mifflin in 1906 as part of the 20 volume edition of The Writings of Henry David Thoreau. The journals - which took up volumes 7-20 - were edited by Bradford Torrey. All volumes are freely available online, at Internet Archive: Volume 7 - 1837-1846; Volume 8 - 1850-1851; Volume 9 - 1851-1852; Volume 10 - 1852-1853; Volume 11 - 1853; Volume 12 - 1853-1854; Volume 13 - 1854-1855; Volume 14 - 1955-1956; Volume 15 - 1956-1957;  Volume 16 - 1857-1858; Volume 17 - 1858-1859; Volume 18 - 1859; Volume 19 - 1859-1860; Volume 20 - 1860-1861). They can also be found online at the Thoreau Institute’s Walden Woods Project (which claims to maintain ‘the preeminent collection of works by and about Henry David Thoreau’).

Meanwhile, The Writings of Henry D. Thoreau (also known as the Princeton Edition or the Thoreau Edition) is slowly compiling a complete annotated edition of all of Thoreau’s writings including 16 printed volumes of the journals. To date, eight volumes have appeared (covering the manuscripts dated from 1837 to 1854), the first in 1981 and the most recent (volume 8) in 2002. Both the manuscripts themselves and their transcripts for all the remaining years, i.e. 1854 to 1861, have been digitised and put online by the Thoreau Edition in advance of the printed volumes. Further information about the process, and links to the manuscripts and transcripts can be found on the website. Here, though, are several extracts from Thoreau’s diary taken from the original Houghton Mifflin edition (plus a screenshot from the Thoreau Edition of the actual manuscript page for the last diary entry below).

11 January 1852
‘What need to travel? There are no sierras equal to the clouds in the sunset sky. And are not these substantial enough? In a low or level country, perchance, the forms of the clouds supply the place of mountains and precipices to the eye, the grosser atmosphere makes a mountainous country in the sky.

The glory of these afternoons, though the sky may be mostly overcast, is in the ineffably clear blue, or else pale greenish-yellow, patches of sky in the west just before sunset. The whole cope of heaven seen at once is never so elysian. Windows to heaven, the heavenward windows of the earth. The end of the day is truly Hesperian.

R. W. E. showed me yesterday a letter from H. Greenough, the sculptor, on architecture, which he liked very much. Greenough’s idea was to make architectural ornaments have a core of truth, a necessity and hence a beauty. All very well, as I told R. W. E., from Greenough’s point of view, but only a little better than the common dilettantism. I was afraid I should say hard things if I said more.

We sometimes find ourselves living fast, - unprofitably and coarsely even, - as we catch ourselves eating our meals in unaccountable haste. But in one sense we cannot five too leisurely. Let me not live as if time was short. Catch the pace of the seasons; have leisure to attend to every phenomenon of nature, and to entertain every thought that comes to you. Let your life be a leisurely progress through the realms of nature, even in guest-quarters.

This reminds me that the old Northman kings did in fact board round a good part of the time, as schoolmasters sometimes with us.

But as for Greenough, I felt as if it was dilettantism, and he was such a reformer in architecture as Channing in social matters. He began at the cornice. It was only how to put a core of truth within the ornaments, that every sugar-plum might in fact have an almond or carroway seed in it, and not how the inhabitant, the in-dweller, might be true and let the ornaments take care of themselves. He seemed to me to lean over the cornice and timidly whisper this half truth to the rude indwellers, who really knew it more interiorly than he. What of architectural beauty I now see, I know has gradually grown from within outward, out of the character and necessities of the indweller and builder, without even a thought for mere ornament, but an unconscious nobleness and truthfulness of character and life; and whatever additional beauty of this kind is destined to be produced will be preceded and accompanied, aye, created, by a like unconscious beauty of life. One of the most beautiful buildings in this country is a logger’s hut in the woods, and equally beautiful will be the citizen’s suburban box, when the life of the indweller shall be as simple and as agreeable to the imagination, and there is as little straining after effect in the style of his dwelling. Much it concerns a man, forsooth, how a few sticks are slanted under him or over him, what colors are daubed upon his box! One man says, in his despair, “Take up a handful of the earth at your feet, and paint your house that color!” What an abundance of leisure he must have on his hands! An enterprise to improve the style of cottage architecture! Grow your own house, I say. Build it after an Orphean fashion. When R. W. E. and Greenough have got a few blocks finished and advertised, I will look at them. When they have got my ornaments ready I will wear them. What do you take up a handful of dirt for? Why don’t you paint your house with your blood? with your sweat? Thin not the paint with spirits of turpentine. There’s a deal of nonsense abroad.

The question is not where did the traveller go? what places did he see? - it would be difficult to choose between places - but who was the traveller? how did he travel? how genuine an experience did he get? For travelling is, in the main, like as if you stayed at home, and then the question is how do you live and conduct yourself at home? What I mean is that it might be hard to decide whether I would travel to Lake Superior, or Labrador, or Florida. Perhaps none would be worth the while, if I went by the usual mode. But if I travel in a simple, primitive, original manner, standing in a truer relation to men and nature, travel away from the old and commonplace, get some honest experience of life, if only out of my feet and homesickness, then it becomes less important whither I go or how far. I so see the world from a new and more commanding point of view. Perhaps it is easier to live a true and natural life while travelling,  as one can move about less awkwardly than he can stand still.’

11 June 1852

‘I hear the bobolink, though he does not sing so much as he did, and the lark and my seringo, as I go down the railroad causeway. The cricket sings. The red clover does not yet cover the fields. The whiteweed is more obvious. It commonly happens that a flower is considered more beautiful that is not followed by fruit. It must culminate in the flower. The cistus is a delicate flower in sandy woods now, with a slight, innocent spring fragrance, - one of those, like the pink, which you cannot bring home in good condition. June-grass is ripe. The red-eye sings now in the woods, perhaps more than any other bird. (In the shanty field.) The mountains are misty and blue. It has been quite windy for ten days, and cold a part of the time. The maple-leaved viburnum at Laurel Glen; the round-leaved cornel, and the mountain laurel, all budded. The yellow diervilla (D. trifida) ready to blossom there. The low blueberry leaves and flowers (Vaccinium vacillans of Gray) have a sweet scent. Froth on the pigeon-plain pines. A robin sings (3.30 P. M.) and wood thrush amid the pines; flies hum, and mosquitoes; and the earth feels under the feet as if it were going to be dry. The air in this pitch pine wood is filled with the hum of gnats, flies, and mosquitoes. High blackberries a day or two since. The bullfrogs in Walden (some of them at least) are a light-colored greenish brown. The huckleberry-bird is heard. I perceived that untraceable odor by the shore of Walden near railroad, where there are grape-vines, and yet the vines do not smell, and I have perceived it for two or three weeks. The vines appear but just in flower. Bittersweet, woody nightshade (Solarium Dulcamara). It has a singular strong odor. Everywhere the leaves of goldenrods from the old roots; also, in some places, epilobium. The veery reminds me of the wood thrush in its note, as well as form and color. You must attend to the birds in the spring. 

As I climbed the Cliffs, when I jarred the foliage, I perceived an exquisite perfume which I could not trace to its source. Ah, those fugacious universal fragrances of the meadows and woods! Odors rightly mingled! 

The snapdragon, a slight blue flower, in dry places. Interesting. The oak balls lie about under the black oaks. The shrub oaks on the plain are so covered with foliage that, when I looked down on it from the Cliff, I am impressed as if I looked down on a forest of oaks. The oven-bird and the thrasher sing. The last has a sort of chuckle. The crickets began to sing in warm dry places. 

Another little veronica (?) on the Cliffs, just going out of bloom, V. arvensis (?), with crenately cut leaves and hairy. The first was the smooth. The pines are budded. I do not see the female flower yet. There is froth at the base of the new shoots even at the top of the highest pines. Yarrow, with a strong tansy scent. Lupines, their pods and seeds. First the profusion of color, spikes of flowers rising above and prevailing over the leaves; then the variety in different clumps, rose (?)-purple, blue, and white; then the handsome palmate leaf, made to hold dew. Gray says from lupus (wolf) because they “were thought to devour the fertility of the soil.” This is scurrilous. Under Fair Haven. First grew the Viola pedata here, then lupines, mixed with the delicate snapdragon. This soil must abound with the blue principle. Is that the tephrosia, so forward? The fruit of the Cerasus pumila is puffed up like How’s plums. The Aralia nudicaulis already shows small green berries. The lupine has no pleasant fragrance. The cistus a slight enlargement of the cinquefoil, the June (?) cinquefoil, what the summer can do. 

It was probably the Thalictrum Cornuti, meadow-rue, which I saw at the Corner Spring, though it has no white stamens. The red (Indian (?) red) huckleberry and the white and red blueberry blossoms (the Gaylussacia resinosa, black huckleberry, and Vaecinium vacillans) are very handsome and interesting now and would attract more attention if the prospect of their fruit did not make us overlook them. Moon-seed is a good name for a plant. I should know it. 

The Jones elm is fifteen and three twelfths feet circumference at five or six feet from ground, or at the smallest place; much more at twelve or fourteen feet from ground, - larger, then, than C. Davis’s elm at the smallest place. 

The pyrolas now ready to blossom. Shin-leaf is a good name for one. Scleranthus annuus, common knawel, in the paths; inconspicuous and moss-like. Utricularia vulgaris, common bladderwort, a dirty-conditioned flower, like a sluttish woman with a gaudy yellow bonnet. Is the grape out ? Solomon’s-seal, two-leaved, with a third. Sanicula Marylandica, black snake-root, without color at first, glows [?] like a buttercup, leaf and stem. Those spotted maple leaves, - what mean their bright colors? Yellow with a greenish centre and a crimson border on the green leaves, as if the Great Chemist had dropped some strong acid by chance from a phial designed for autumnal use! Very handsome. Decay and disease are often beautiful, like the pearly tear of the shellfish and the hectic glow of consumption. 

The ivy or Rhus Toxicodendron (radicans when climbing trees), budded to blossom, looks like an aralia.’

24 February 1857
‘A fine spring morning. The ground is almost completely bare again. There has been a frost in the night. Now, at 8.30, it is melted and wets my feet like a dew. The water on the meadow this still, bright morning is smooth as in April. I am surprised to hear the strain of a song sparrow from the riverside, and as I cross from the causeway to the hill, thinking of the bluebird, I that instant hear one’s note from deep in the softened air. It is already 40°, and by noon is between 50° and 60°. As the day advances I hear more bluebirds and see their azure flakes settling on the fence-posts. Their short, rich, crispy warble curls through the air. Its grain now lies parallel to the curve of the bluebird’s warble, like boards of the same lot. It seems to be one of those early springs of which we have heard but have never experienced. Perhaps they are fabulous. I have seen the probings of skunks for a week or more. I now see where one has pawed out the worm-dust or other chankings from a hole in base of a walnut and torn open the fungi, etc., there, exploring for grubs or insects. They are very busy these nights.

If I should make the least concession, my friend would spurn me. I am obeying his law as well as my own.

Where is the actual friend you love ? Ask from what hill the rainbow’s arch springs! It adorns and crowns the earth.

Our friends are our kindred, of our species. There are very few of our species on the globe.

Between me and my friend what unfathomable distance! All mankind, like motes and insects, are between us.

If mv friend says in his mind, I will never see you again, I translate it of necessity into ever. That is its definition in Love’s lexicon.

Those whom we can love, we can hate; to others we are indifferent.

P. M. - To Walden. The railroad in the Deep Cut is dry as in spring, almost dusty. The best of the sand foliage is already gone. I walk without a greatcoat. A chickadee with its winter lisp flits over, and I think it is time to hear its phebe note, and that instant it pipes it forth. Walden is still covered with thick ice, though melted a foot from the shore.

The French (in the Jesuit Relations) say fil de l’eau for that part of the current of a river in which any floating thing would be carried, generally about equidistant from the two banks. It is a convenient expression, for which I think we have no equivalent.’

Get my boat out the cellar.’

12 July 1857
‘To Equisetum hyemale.

Those little minnows, a third or half inch long or more, which I catch when bathing, hovering over open sandy spaces, as here at Clamshell, appear to be little shiners. When left dry on my hand, they can toss themselves three or four inches with a spring of their tails, and so often get into the water again. Small as they are, it is rather difficult to catch them, they dodge your hands so fast.

I drink at every cooler spring in my walk these afternoons and love to eye the bottom there, with its pebbly caddis-cases, or its white worms, or perchance a luxurious frog cooling himself next my nose. Sometimes the farmer, foreseeing haying, has been prudent enough to sink a tub in one, which secures a clear deep space. It would be worth the while, methinks, to make a map of the town with all the good springs on it, indicating whether they were cool, perennial, copious, pleasantly located, etc. The farmer is wont to celebrate the virtues of some one on his own farm above all others. Some cool rills in the meadows should be remembered also, for some such in deep, cold, grassy meadows are as cold as springs. I have sometimes drank warm or foul water, not knowing such cold streams were at hand. By many a spring I know where to look for the dipper or glass which some mower has left. When a spring has been allowed to fill up, to be muddied by cattle, or, being exposed to the sun by cutting down the trees and bushes, to dry up, it affects me sadly, like an institution going to decay. Sometimes I see, on one side the tub, - the tub overhung with various wild plants and flowers, its edge almost completely concealed even from the searching eye, - the white sand freshly cast up where the spring is bubbling in. Often I sit patiently by the spring I have cleaned out and deepened with my hands, and see the foul water rapidly dissipated like a curling vapor and giving place to the cool and clear. Sometimes I can look a yard or more into a crevice under a rock, toward the sources of a spring in a hillside, and see it come cool and copious with incessant murmuring down to the light. There are few more refreshing sights in hot weather.

I find many strawberries deep in the grass of the meadow near this Hosmer Spring; then proceed on my way with reddened and fragrant fingers, till it gets washed off at new springs. It is always pleasant to go over the bare brow of Lupine Hill and see the river and meadows thence. It is exceedingly sultry this afternoon, and few men are abroad. The cow’s stand up to their bellies in the river, lashing their sides with their tails from time to time.

A strong and wholesome fragrance now from the vegetation as I go by overgrown paths through the swamp west of Nut Meadow. Equisetum hyemale has been out a good while; is mostly effete, but some open yet. Some have several flower-spikes on the sides near the top, but most one at top, of the last year’s plant. This year’s shoots a foot high, more or less. All the Pyrola secunda I can find is out of bloom. The Chimaphila umbellata flower-buds make a very pretty umbel, of half a dozen small purple balls surmounted by a green calyx. They contrast prettily with the glossy green leaves.
A song sparrow’s nest in a small clump of alder, two feet from ground! Three or four eggs.

I hear the occasional link note from the earliest bobolinks of the season, - a day or two.’

19 August 1860
‘Examine now more at length that smooth, turnip-scented brassica which is a pest in some grain-fields. Formerly in Stow’s land; this year in Warren’s, on the Walden road. To-day I see it in Minot Pratt’s, with the wild radish, which is a paler yellow and a rougher plant. I thought it before the B. campestris, but Persoon puts that under brassicas with siliquis tetraedris, which this is not, but, for aught that appears, it agrees with his B. Napus, closely allied, i. e. wild rape. Elliot speaks of this as introduced here. Vide Patent Office Report for 1853 and “Vegetable Kingdom,” page 179. The B. campestris also is called rape.

Leersia (cut-grass) abundantly out, apparently several days.’

The Diary Junction

Discovering Pitcairn Island

Pitcairn Island, in the Southern Pacific Ocean, was first discovered by Europeans 250 years ago today thanks to one of a series of circumnavigation expeditions undertaken by the British Royal Navy. Captain Philip Carteret, a naval officer in charge of the Swallow, was sailing west across the Southern Pacific Ocean when one of his crew spied ‘a great rock rising out of the sea’. A first hand account of the discovery can be found in Carteret’s diary - published in 1773.

Carteret was born in 1733 on the island of Jersey, but joined the Royal Navy aged 14 or so. He served first as an officer’s servant, and then in 1755 passed his officer’s examination. In 1761, he inherited the family estate on Jersey but continued serving with the navy. From 1764, he served as lieutenant on the frigate Dolphin under Captain John Byron during his circumnavigation of the world. On returning to Britain, he was given his own command, the Swallow, which was ordered to sail with Dolphin on a second circumnavigation in search of a southern continent. However, after several months, the two vessels became separated.

Carteret proceeded west through the Pacific discovering Pitcairn Island and the Carteret Islands (named after him) as well as a new archipelago inside Saint George’s Channel to be named Duke of York Islands; he is also credited with rediscovering the Solomon Islands and the Fernández Islands first sighted by Spaniards two centuries earlier. On his return to Jersey, he became involved in local politics. He married Mary Rachel Silvester in 1772, and they had five children, four of whom survived into adulthood. His requests for a new ship fell on deaf ears at the admiralty, until 1779 when he took charge of HMS Endymion, and sailed it to the West Indies. There, however, he was paid off and displaced as captain; petitions for another ship were unsuccessful. He retired in 1794 with the rank of rear-admiral, and died in 1796. Further information is available at Wikipedia, decarteret.org.uk, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (log-in required), or Captain Carteret and the Voyage of the Swallow by H. G. Mowat (which can be previewed at Googlebooks).

After returning from his expedition in the Swallow, Carteret gave his journal of the expedition to John Hawkesworth who published it in 1773 in the first of the three volumes entitled: An Account of the Voyages Undertaken by the Order of His Present Majesty for Making Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere, and Successively Performed by Commodore Byron, Captain Wallis, Captain Carteret, and Captain Cook, in the Dolphin, the Swallow, and the Endeavour: Drawn up from the Journals which were kept by the Several Commanders, and from the Papers of Joseph Banks, Esq. This is freely available online at Internet Archive.

Carteret was so aggrieved at changes made by Hawkesworth to his manuscript that he prepared his own version. However, this manuscript languished through the centuries, and was in a private collection in Sydney in the mid-20th century when Helen Wallis edited it for the Hakluyt Society. Carteret’s Voyage Round the World, 1766-1769 was published in two volumes in 1965. The following extract, however, on the first sighting of Pitcairn Island comes from the 1773 Hawkesworth edition.

3 July 1767
‘We continued our course westward till the evening of Thursday the 2d of July, when we discovered land to the northward of us. Upon approaching it the next day, it appeared like a great rock rising out of the sea: it was not more than five miles in circumference, and seemed to be uninhabited; it was, however, covered with trees, and we saw a small stream of fresh water running down one side of it. I would have landed upon it, but the surf, which at this season broke upon it with great violence, rendered it impossible. I got soundings on the west side of it, at somewhat less than a mile from the shore, in twenty-five fathom, with a bottom of coral and sand; and it is probable that in fine summer weather landing here may not only be practicable but easy. We saw a great number of sea birds hovering about it, at somewhat less than a mile from the shore, and the sea here seemed to have fish. It lies in latitude 20° 2’ S., longitude 133° 21’ W. and about a thousand leagues to the westward of the continent of America. It is so high that we saw it at the distance of more than fifteen leagues, and it having been discovered by a young gentleman, son to Major Pitcairn of the marines, who was unfortunately lost in the Aurora, we called it PITCAIRN’S ISLAND.

While we were in the neighbourhood of this island, the weather was extremely tempestuous, with long rolling billows from the southward, larger and higher than any I had seen before. The winds were variable, but blew chiefly from the S. S. W.  W. and W. N. W. We had very seldom a gale to the eastward, so that we were prevented from keeping in a high south latitude, and were continually driving to the northward.’

Since it’s discovery Pitcairn Island has had a chequered history. In 1790, it was populated by mutineers from the Bounty and several native Tahitians (most islanders today remain their descendants). Nearly 20 years were to pass before the island was visited by another vessel. The group of islands became a British colony in 1838. The population peaked at over 200 in the 1930s, and is around 50 today. In 2004, several men, including the mayor, were convicted of sexual offences against children, since when restrictions on children visiting have remained in place.

Lead in the mountains

‘Passed Stonecyplus an old bachelor who they say knows where there is lead in the mountain near but will give no account of it. Left my wagon at Dyck Jones, and went on a couple of miles further to John Lipps and then up the creek a mile and a half further to see some black lead. Found a little in the granite rocks but none of any value.’ This is from a short diary kept by Elisha Mitchell, an American professor and geologist. He died 160 years ago today, while trying to establish the height of Black Dome which was later renamed in his honour as Mount Mitchell.

Mitchell was born in Washington, Connecticut, in 1793, the eldest son of a farmer. He studied at Yale, and, after teaching for a while on Long Island, returned to Yale as a tutor. In 1817, he took over the chair of mathematics and natural philosophy at the University of North Carolina (UNC). In 1819, he married Maria Sybil North, and they had five children that survived into adulthood. In 1821, he was ordained as a presbyterian minister. In 1825, when still only in his early 30s, he became professor of chemistry, mineralogy and geology at UNC. In parallel, he worked as the state surveyor, making many geological and botanical excursions. He was the first to establish that the mountains of North Carolina were the highest east of the Rockies. While on an expedition to Black Dome (now Mount Mitchell), trying to establish its exact height as the largest peak in the range, he was overwhelmed by a storm and died - on 27 June 1857. Further information can be found at Wikipedia, North Carolina Digital History, or Documenting the American South.

UNC holds a collection of Mitchell papers including: ‘Mitchell’s diary, 1813-1816, begun at Yale and kept irregularly while he was teaching at various places in the North, containing mainly religious reflections and slight personal comment; his private notebook, 1818-1847, containing miscellaneous comments on mathematics, musicology, electricity, the natural sciences, and history, and personal accounts and notes on reading and letters received; [and] Mitchell’s journal, letter book, and account book, 1818-1842.’ Mitchell also kept a short diary in July 1828 - the only one, in fact, to have been published, i.e. by UNC in 1905 as part of the James Sprunt Historical Monograph Series. The short book - Diary of a Geological Tour by Dr. Elisha Mitchell in 1827 and 1828 - which includes an introduction and notes by Kemp P. Battle can be read freely online at Internet Archive or New River Notes.

Although Mitchell’s record is called a ‘diary’ it is written, in fact, as a series of letters describing his experiences over the previous few days. And, though 1887 is included in the title, there is only one entry from December that year, and all other entries are dated July 1827. Battle notes in his introduction: ‘The letters, while containing allusions of a personal and family nature, were evidently intended to be material for a report or an article for a scientific journal.’ Here is part of one extract.

20 July 1828
‘Tuesday morning. Rode up to see Gen. Stokes and Col. Wellborn. Their father-in-law Hugh Montgomery owned one of the finest plantations on the river. They married sisters, and this plantations was divided among them. Stokes is considerably the oldest. They have not formerly agreed very well but are said to be on good terms now. Wellborn is nearest to town - only two miles off. Called on him. He offered me breakfast - whiskey and then feeding of my horse, but I declined them all. Showed me some minerals and I went on to Gen. Stokes’ two miles farther. What Wellborn’s real character is I cannot make out. He has been a member of the Baptist church and will now allow no swearing about him. He left the church under the idea that he was unfit to remain in it. He seems to have a religious paroxysm. He is a candidate, a furious Jacksonite and a prompt bold man. At Gen. Stokes’ I was treated with great kindness. I used to wonder why he was so much put forward in the state but it now appears. He is a very pleasant man of good sense. His wife appears much younger than himself. He was born 20 or 30 miles above Petersburg in Virginia and was a sailor in his youth. In his family he has been exceedingly unfortunate - perhaps this is not the proper word. He has been a great card player and is at present a great swearer himself so that we may conjecture what their education has been. In addition to this I suspect some defect in the moral and physical constitution of the young men themselves. One, Hugh M. Was educated at Chapel Hill and is now a lawyer in Morgantown. He is said to possess respectable talents but is intemperate. I was told of his reformation as I passed through Morganton last year. As we were conversing freely about his children I told him I had understood that Hugh had reformed. He said he had hoped so - had sent him on his circuit with Judge Donnell with high expectations but on his return he staid at Morganton instead of coming home and he knew but feared to ask for what. Another son is a midshipman, a third is at West Point and I gathered from his father not succeeding very well, a fourth is at home. I told him I intended to give my children the best education in my power and then if they did not succeed, not to permit it to trouble me - he said I could not help it - and I suppose he was right. He gave me some information respecting the running the line first by Strother and Co.65 to painted rock and then by himself, Dr. Caldwell, and others along the great Smoky mountains. After dinner rode out to see Michals Forge and Ore Bank; the Forge (not yet completed) is the only one in the county. The ore bank is 2 or 3 miles off; the ores appear to be tolerably good though not of the first quality and has been manufactured into iron pretty extensively at Beard’s Forge in Burke. There seems to be a series of beds of iron, one lying on this side of the Brushey Mountains, on one of the spurs of which Michals ore Bank is extending like everything else in this country from N. E. To S. West; returned to town - and took tea at Major Finley’s where I saw Col. Patterson and his wife - granddaughter of Gen. Lenoir.

Wednesday Morning. The repairs of my wagon not being yet completed I did not start till about eleven. In the meantime walked out to see the Wilkesboro mineral spring. ‘Tis only some water that oozes through some earth and leaves that has been brought down the road, and that it contains perhaps a little iron has little to recommend it besides its dirty nauseous taste. Started at eleven with Dr. McKenzie and passed up the river, found the rocks mostly Gneiss the whole day and indeed throughout this whole excursion; found iron on the road 6 miles from town in white flint rock. Near Millers when we crossed the river McKenzie told me there was a bank of Porcelain clay; I did not visit it. Passed Stonecyplus an old bachelor who they say knows where there is lead in the mountain near but will give no account of it. Left my wagon at Dyck Jones, and went on a couple of miles further to John Lipps and then up the creek a mile and a half further to see some black lead. Found a little in the granite rocks but none of any value. Was told by Lipps of the garnet on the lands of ___ Church, his father-in-law, who lives just under the Blue Ridge. Returned to Jones’s and got an excellent cup of coffee. Anderson Mitchell and another Lipps came in with specimens chiefly from flat Knob amongst which I found rich characterized Sappare or Kyanite.

Thursday Morning. Crossed over through a barren country to the river which we had left and then up the river to Gen. Jones where we arrived about noon or a little after. It is not difficult to account for the deterioration of the “Range” of which people are continually complaining in this part of the country. Two causes operate in the production of this effect. 1. Since the country has been cleared and plantations laid out it will not answer to burn the woods as formerly for fear of destroying the fences and the consequence is that the small undergrowth is not destroyed as it used to be - the woods become thicker and not like an orchard as they are in the indian country - and thus herbage of all kinds being shaded does not grow and flourish. 2. Of the different kinds of herbage those suited to the sustenance of cattle as the pea-vine and natural grasses are fast devoured and both become less vigorous in their growth and are prevented from going to seed whilst the contrary effect is produced upon the bitter unpalatable weeds. Thus our woods become thick also and shady and the little herbage they produce is not fitted to the sustenance of cattle. Passed Gen. Lenoir’s (Old Fort Defiance) and stopped at the house of his son-in-law Gen. Jones to dinner. The Gen. out electioneering. A man of wealth - has two sons one at Hillsboro with Mr. Bingham and the younger with Mr. Gay. His daughters all married, two of them at table - one recently wedded to Lawyer Henry of Greenville, district S. Co. originally a Yankee? and a well enough man, the other - the youngest stole a march upon her parents and married her cousin Larkin Jones described to me by McKenzie as the smartest young man that has been raised in Wilkes. After his marriage was raised into favour and went on last winter to attend the medical lectures at Philadelphia and the agitation produced by the sudden and unexpected return of her husband at night caused a miscarriage from which she is still feeble. After a thunderstorm, occurring whilst we were at dinner, was over, obtained a horse and rode accompanied by a son of Catlett, the General’s brother, to Gidding’s old place to see some ore said to be there - the distance 10 miles. For two or three miles the country was tolerably open but the hills afterwards closed in upon us and we wound our way beneath them beside the river bank and were finally obliged to cross one or two pretty considerable ridges in order to reach our place of destination. A ride of this kind to one accustomed to the monotonous sameness of the Low Country is pleasant and agreeable and would have been highly so to me but for a shower that fell. Giddings old place, now occupied by three men by the name of Harrison - a father and his three sons, is a fine sample of what is called in the mountains as a Cove. The Yadkin is here a brawling mountain stream and the mountain instead of coming up close to it recedes so as to leave a handsome plantation of level land along its banks. Here is a fine peach and apple orchard and as pleasant a spot but for its situation as is to be found in the country. But the only access to it is by a trail or foot-path leading over a mountain ridge. Tis a very valley of Wyoming - the place for a person to retire to, who has been illtreated by the world and is disgusted with it - the place for him to retire to and not be happy. I recommend it as a retreat to Lawyer Henry - telling him how finely he could shoot bears for his wife to eat and get fine skins to warm her - the orchard would also furnish fine whiskey for her as well as the field the best of wheat and he could present the whole to her as the product of his own labor and a testimonial of his love. But he did not seem to approve the plan. We did not leave the place before sun-down and had then to wind our way over the hills and down the river ten miles but it was a fine moon-light night. We reached home after the family had all retired to rest but found a good supper ready for us.’

The Diary Junction

Tarkovsky father and son

Arseny Tarkovsky, born 110 years ago today, was a prominent Soviet poet and translator, but he was also the father of the internationally famous film-maker Andrei Tarkovsky. Andrei left behind personal diaries covering the 1970s and 1980s which often mention his father and their sometimes strained relationship.

Tarkovsky was born on 25 June 1907  in Elisavetgrad, then part of Russia now Kropyvnytskyi in central Ukraine. His father was a bank clerk, but also an actor and revolutionary. In 1921, after the civil war in Ukraine and the establishment of Soviet power, Arseny and several friends published a poem critical of Lenin. They were arrested but Tarkovsky managed to escape. He is said to have wandered around Ukraine trying several trades; but other sources have him simply moving to Moscow in 1923 to live with his father’s sister. From the mid-1920s, he worked for Gudok, a newspaper for railroad workers, but was also studying literature. From 1931, he worked for a radio station, and from around 1933 began translating poetry. During the Second World War, he volunteered as a war correspondent, but then served as a soldier. He was wounded in 1943, and contracted gangrene which led to one leg being amputated.

After the war, Tarkovsky was due to have his first book of poems published but at the last minute it was blocked for political reasons. For nearly a decade, his poetry remained unpublished. Instead, he worked at translating poetry from Turkmen, Georgian, Armenian and Arabic, sometimes travelling abroad. As a young man he had married Maria Ivanova Vishnyakova, and they had had two children, Andrei and Marina, but after the war they divorced. Tarkovsky married twice more, to Antonina Alexandrovna Bokhonova and then to Tatyana Ozerskaya. 

Tarkovsky’s first book of poems -  Before Snow  - was published in 1962, and more collections followed every few years. In the early 1980s, he went to Italy to work with his son, Andrei, a film maker, on Nostalgia, but he disagreed with Andrei’s decision not to return to the Soviet Union. Tarkovsky died in 1989, three years after the death of Andrei. Although there is plenty of information online in English about Andrei Tarkovsky, there is very little about his father. However, there is a little at Wikipedia, The Culturum and the Russia Info Centre; and more can be gleaned from an English translation of the Russian Wikipedia entry on Andrei.

Arseny Tarkovsky is mentioned fairly frequently in his son’s diaries. These were translated from the Russian into English by Kitty Hunter-Blair and published in 1994 by Faber and Faber: Time Within Time: The Diaries 1970-1986 by Andrei Tarkovsky. The whole book is freely available to read online at Monoskop. Here are several extracts in which Andrei reflects on his father, Arseny.

12 September 1970
‘I haven’t seen my father for ages. The longer I don’t see him the more depressing and alarming it becomes to go to him. It’s patently clear that I have a complex about my parents. I don’t feel adult when I’m with them. And I don’t think they consider me adult either. Our relations are somehow tortured, complicated, unspoken. It’s not straightforward, any of it. I love them dearly, but I’ve never felt at ease with them, or their equal. I think they’re shy of me too, even though they love me. [. . .]

All the same, I must go and see my father before I leave for Japan. It’s a torment for him too, our relationship being as it is. I know that for certain. I just can’t imagine how things would develop if I were the one to break the ice. And it’s so difficult. Perhaps I should write a letter? But a letter won’t decide anything. Afterwards we would meet and both pretend the letter had never happened. It’s a kind of Dostoievskyism, or Dolgorukyism. We all love each other and are shy, afraid of one another. For some reason it’s far easier for me to relate to total strangers . . .

Now I shall go to bed and read Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game. I’ve been tracking it down for ages, and today, at last, it has actually reached me. How scared I am of funerals. Even when my grandmother was being buried it was frightening. Not because she had died, but because I was surrounded by people who were expressing their feelings. I can’t bear seeing people express their feelings, even sincere ones. I find it intolerable when my nearest and dearest give expression to their feelings. I remember my father and I were standing by the church, waiting for the moment when we could take grandmother’s coffin away (the service and burial were in different places) and my father said (it doesn’t matter what it was about), ‘Good is passive. And evil is active.’ [. . .]

I remember when I was still quite small and was visiting my father in Party (!) Street, Uncle Leva (I think it was) appeared. My father was sitting on the sofa wrapped in a blanket, I suppose he was unwell. Uncle Leva stopped in the doorway and said, ‘You know, Arseniy, Maria Danilovna has died.’

My father sat there for a moment, not taking it in, then he half turned away and started to cry. He looked terribly unhappy and alone, sitting on the sofa in a blanket. Maria Danilovna was my paternal grandmother. My father hardly ever saw her. He seemed somehow ill at ease as well. Perhaps it runs in the family, anyhow on my father’s side? Or maybe I’m mistaken about my father and grandmother Maria Danilovna. They may have had a quite different sort of relationship from my mother and me. My mother has sometimes said that Arseniy only ever thought about himself, that he was an egoist. I don’t know whether she’s right or not. She’d have every right to say that I’m an egoist, too. I must be. But I do love my mother, and my father, and Marina, and Senka. Only a stupor comes over me and I can’t utter my feelings. My love is not active, somehow. Probably all I want is to be left in peace, even forgotten. I don’t want to count on their love, nor do I demand anything from them, apart from freedom. But there is no freedom, nor will there be. Then they blame me for Ira, I can feel that. They love her, normally and simply. I’m not jealous, only I don’t want them to torment me and think I’m a saint. I’m not a saint and I’m not an angel.

What I am is an egoist, who is afraid more than anything else in the world of pain suffered by those he loves.

I’m going to go and read Hesse.’

17 November 1970
‘My father has had a heart attack. He categorically refuses to go into hospital - he’s got a thing about hospitals altogether. He doesn’t want to see the doctor. And there he is with his aneurysm!

I think he has a contract - or if he hasn’t got it yet he will any minute now - for another book. Marvellous. I so want him to write more poetry now. Only - God grant him health.’

24 March 1979
Someone asked my father, ‘What do you think of Pasternak?’ He said, ‘I have always felt as I might of a woman - adoration one moment, hatred the next, now admiration, now contempt.’

6 June 1981
‘Father rang. He is in Moscow, and Tyapa and I are going to see him tomorrow. Just like me (or rather, the other way round) he has those spasms in the head which stop him seeing properly. Does that mean it is hereditary?’

UK-US talks on commercial union

‘Spent the morning at the Embassy [. . .] making final revisions to the text of the joint Anglo-American statement on Commercial Policy, the Agenda Outline (derived from this statement and for communication to the Russians, Chinese and eventually the other United Nations). [. . .] It is clear that each side must now do two things: (i) prepare the way by technical studies to see, for example, which of the tariff formulas are practicable and by what means; (ii) obtain certain major decisions or guidances on policy from their Ministers (on our side particularly on the subject of preferences).’ This is from the rather dry diary (though with touches of humour) kept by James Meade, a Nobel Prize winning British economist born 110 years ago today. The diary documents early discussions between the US and the UK on a future international commercial union, which would lead, in 1947, to 23 nations agreeing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

Meade was born in Swanage on 23 June 1907, and brought up in Bath, England. He was schooled at Lambrook and Malvern College before entering Oriel College, Oxford in 1926 to study classics; however, he then switched to philosophy, politics and economics. In 1930, he was elected to a fellowship at Hertford College where he taught economics, a relatively new subject at the time. In 1933, he married Margaret Wilson, and they had three children. 

In 1937, Meade joined the Economic Section of the League of Nations in Geneva as editor of the World Economic Survey, but in 1940 returned to England where he worked in the economic section of the War Cabinet Secretariat. There he was joined by Lionel Robbins and John Maynard Keynes; together they tackled economic problems ranging from the rationing system to the pricing policy of nationalised companies. From around 1942, they focused on post-war reconstruction, domestic and international. In particular, Meade was involved in international discussions for a ‘commercial union’, which would lead, in time, to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

In 1947, Meade returned to academic life at the London School of Economics. In the early-mid 1950s, he published his most important contribution to economics, The Theory of International Economic Policy (two volumes). From 1957, he was Professor of Political Economy at the University of Cambridge until his retirement in 1969. Thereafter, he remained at Cambridge, as a senior research fellow of Christ’s College. His many offices and honours included: the chairmanship of an Economic Survey Mission to Mauritius in 1960, presidency of the Royal Economic Society from 1964 to 1966, and chairmanship of a committee of the Institute of Fiscal Studies from 1975 to 1977. In 1977, Meade was awarded, jointly with the Swedish economist Bertil Ohlin, the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics ‘for their pathbreaking contribution to the theory of international trade and international capital movements’. He died in 1995. Further information is available from Wikipedia, the Nobel Prize website, The British Academy, or various obituaries, such as those in The New York Times and The Independent.

For a short period, in the latter part of his time working for the government and while involved in the negotiations for a commercial union, Meade kept a diary. This is now held in the library archives of the London School of Economics. In 1990, it was published (as edited by Susan Howson and Donal Moggridge) by Macmillan Academic and Professional in The Wartime Diaries of Lionel Robbins and James Meade, 1943–45. The book is still in print and available as a hard copy or e-book for around £50 from Amazon or Palgrave. Some pages can be read freely online at Googlebooks. Here are several extracts from Meade’s diary as reproduced in the Palgrave book.

16 September 1943
‘Spent the morning and afternoon working in the Embassy, first on a revision of the Aide-Memoire on Commercial Policy (now to be called the Introductory Note on Commercial Policy) and on the Illustrative Outline. We have altered the order in which the points are to be dealt with - taking Quantitative Import Restrictions, State Trading and Subsidies before Tariffs and Preferences, and ending up with International Institutions. The idea behind this manoeuvre is not to suggest a frontal attack on the American tariff quite so brutally. [. . .] It seems that all is going well from our point of view on procedure. Our ideas that there should be frequent plenary sessions to stress the interdependence of all the subjects, and that the agenda should cover four main topics - namely Money, Investment, Commod and Commercial Policy - were more or less accepted with the reservation that there should at a later stage be two more committees on International action against Unemployment, and International Cartels. [. . .] Before supper I went to a cocktail party at Magowan’s house, at which all (or most) of the American and British delegations were present plus a number of other people from the Embassy etc. I exchanged words in the course of the evening with the Keynes’, the Butlers, R. L. Hall and Margaret Hall (who in a most affected manner declared that she felt like kissing me), Hawkins, Feis, the Pasvolskys, Dennis Robertson, Sir George Sansom (? pre-war commercial attache at Tokyo - at any rate a great authority on Japan and the Far East), and Law. Dennis and I had a talk with Sansom on the problem of low-cost Japanese competition. It was most refreshing to meet a British diplomat who really knew the Far East who held the commonsense view that we should have been generous and liberal in our economic treatment of Japan but adamant with her politically and militarily (except just the opposite). He and Dennis and I are to have dinner together one day to discuss these problems. I had a talk with Law who was most anxious that we should go ahead in an enthusiastic and positive manner to discuss the international implications of post-war unemployment policy. I argued strongly that, in view of the delicate position on the discussion of these problems at home, it really was out of the question that we should give any very positive lead on this subject. What a role to have to play, - to apply the soft pedal on this of all subjects! After the cocktail party I went on to supper with Di to Mrs Wheatcroft (a ‘British Mum’ evacuated with Margaret who works in the Embassy and was a great friend of Margaret’s). The evening consisted in a display of short snippets (none complete) of toy cinema films and a demonstration of chemical experiments (some of which worked) by her son and Billy Hart (aged 12 and 13).’

29 September 1943
‘A morning free from meetings, which I spent at the Embassy clearing up many odd points with Liesching, reading papers etc. I also spoke with Robbins on the subject of the British attitude on the currency problem. He seems to realise clearly that the question whether the Fund deals in national currencies or in Unitas is really of secondary importance. We must not allow there to be a break on such a senseless issue. Had lunch with two men from the State Department, Phelps and Gay, who wished to discuss the problem of state trading. I argued that we should set certain price rules and criteria for state trading which would correspond to the price rules with private enterprise as modified by permitted subsidies and tariffs. After lunch I saw Rasminsky for twenty minutes. He has come from Ottawa to talk with Keynes and others on the currency discussion. He is in exactly the same sense of perplexity as myself. Why must the British fight so on a point which is of so little substance as the monetisation of Unitas? In the afternoon another meeting of the Anglo-American group on commercial policy. First we discussed export taxes and restrictions, on which subject the Americans accepted our suggested rule without any difficulty. Then I introduced the general subject of the formation of the Commercial Union and of its institutions. The Americans are in very much the same mind as ourselves on these issues; but they want it to be made compulsory for members of the Commercial Union not to extend the advantages of membership to non-members. Later I dined with Galbraith and his wife at the Cosmos Club and then went on to their home in Georgetown to talk. He is the ‘relentless’ type of radical, believes that Russia should be permitted to absorb Poland, the Balkans and the whole of Eastern Europe in order to spread the benefits of Communism, that the outlook for American politics is very black because even if the Roosevelt administration wins the next election the liberal New Dealers are now all a crowd of tired, cautious and conservative liberals, etc. I think he may be a little embittered at the punishing experience he had at OPA where there was a witch-hunt against liberal College professors of which he was the main victim. He is off to New York to join the editorial board of Fortune.’

18 October 1943
‘Spent the morning at the Embassy with Liesching and Shackle, making final revisions to the text of the joint Anglo-American statement on Commercial Policy, the Agenda Outline (derived from this statement and for communication to the Russians, Chinese and eventually the other United Nations), and the similar Agenda of the Cartels group. Lunch with Hawkins, Pasvolsky and Liesching at the Cosmos Club, where we discussed future procedure on Commercial Policy. It is clear that each side must now do two things: (i) prepare the way by technical studies to see, for example, which of the tariff formulas are practicable and by what means; (ii) obtain certain major decisions or guidances on policy from their Ministers (on our side particularly on the subject of preferences). Then we shall be prepared to renew our meetings, by next January or February. Meanwhile, and after our next series of meetings, we must decide how to introduce the subject to other nations. For this, it was agreed, the Agenda Outline, posing the questions covered by our joint statement, will be very useful. After Hawkins had left we had some further conversation with Pasvolsky about the extent to which we should in the near future give a lead to the other Europeans and smaller United Nations. Pasvolsky was inclined to argue that when approached by them we should ask them what they wanted instead of telling them what they should do. His reason was mainly that they should not be in a position later if anything went wrong to maintain that they had no responsibility. There is no doubt some force in this; but 1 think that we must nevertheless give a very strong lead. In Commercial Policy in particular these countries just are not in a position to say what they want until they have some idea what the USA and UK are likely to do; and even if they could be persuaded to say what they wanted without knowing what we intended, they would be very likely to say quite the wrong thing, whereas with a little prompting they might quite genuinely be persuaded to ask for the right things. [. . .]

Went to a cocktail party at the Brighton Hotel, at which drinks on a copious scale were provided for the entertainment of the Board of Trade permanent delegation in Washington by us visitors from the Board at home. Miss Dalgleish mixed strong and frequent drinks. The party went through the symptoms of incipient alcohol poisoning, which I observed as an impartial spectator, confining myself to tomato juice. Liesching made a good pep-talk speech telling the Washington delegation what good people they were; and every effort, unsuccessful but only just unsuccessful, was made to get Liesching laid out on the floor. The party broke up and I returned, with Joan Carmichael and Mary Williamson, to a late supper at 2820 N. Street.’

19 October 1943
‘Spent the morning partly at the Embassy writing notes for our report to ministers on the result of our commercial policy talks, but mainly in sorting papers, arranging money matters, signing declarations about income tax etc. in preparation for our departure. Lunch with Bernstein of the US Treasury, with whom I discussed the prospects of the monetary plans from the point of view of American Congress and public opinion. Bernstein said that they would have the Federal Reserve Board with them and seemed hopeful that they might persuade some of the American bankers that a scheme was essential. Nevertheless he was clearly very impressed by the political opposition which they would have to be prepared to face. I asked him whether he was satisfied with the progress made in the Anglo-American discussions on this subject. He said that he was very satisfied, and that they had never considered that getting agreement with the British would prove any very real obstacle. But he added that he was sorry that tempers had not always been good during the talks. He is still evidently smarting somewhat from Keynes’s ill manners. But he added sweetly that he thought we should not have considered their ideas so sinister as we did, if only they had had a real opportunity to explain the workings of their ideas. (Visions of Bernstein preparing another hundred questions and answers on the Stabilisation Fund!) Went back to the Embassy in the afternoon to work on my notes for our report to ministers on commercial policy. Took Di and Joan Carmichael to supper at the Washington hotel and to the cinema to see Fred Astaire dancing, which is certainly a very pleasing sight.’

Grandfather’s Rattlesnake diary

Today marks the birth 130 years ago of the eminent British evolutionary biologist Sir Julian Sorell Huxley. Although there is no evidence of him having been a diarist, he did discover a diary written by his grandfather, a biologist who earned the nickname Darwin’s Bulldog, and then edit them for publication just a year or two, in fact, after Darwin’s diary had first been published.

Julian was born in London on 22 June 1887 into the distinguished Huxley family, and grew up at the family home in Surrey where his interest in nature was enlivened by lessons with his grandfather, Thomas Huxley. Julian’s father Leonard was a biographer (Thomas Huxley, Darwin) and editor. Julian was schooled at Eton and entered Balliol Collage, Oxford, in 1905 on a zoology scholarship. His produced important scientific work in various fields: hormones, developmental processes, ornithology, and ethology. When still in his mid-20s, he pioneered a biology department at the newly formed Rice University in Houston, Texas. But, from 1916 to the end of WWI, he served in British Army Intelligence.

In 1919, Huxley married Juliette Baillot who, later wrote an autobiography that revealed Huxley had suffered severe depression on occasions. In 1925, he was appointed professor of zoology at King’s College, London University, though he gave up the chair in 1927 to help H. G. Wells with his three volume Science of Life. Subsequently, he did much travelling, especially in East Africa, taking part in a wide range of scientific and conservation activities. From 1935, and for seven years, he was secretary to the Zoological Society of London, where he focused on reinvigorating London Zoo and Whipsnade Park alongside his writing and research. He became a member of the Royal Society, was the first director general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and was knighted in 1958. In 1961 he cofounded the World Wildlife Fund for Nature. He died in 1975. Further information can be found at Wikipedia, Encyclopedia.com, National Center for Biotechnology Information or New World Encyclopedia.

Among the 50 or so works produced by Huxley that are listed with his Wikipedia entry is T. H. Huxley’s Diary of the Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, published by Chatto & Windus in 1935. Julian Huxley’s grandfather, Thomas Huxley (1825-1895), had been an eminent biologist in the mid-19th century, and a strong supporter of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Aged only 20, and too young to apply to the Royal College of Surgeons, he joined the Royal Navy and was assigned to H.M.S. Rattlesnake as assistant surgeon. The survey ship soon departed for the Far East, and over a period of four years, Huxley was able to undertake many studies of marine invertebrates, always sending his findings back to England where they were published. On returning to London in 1850, the value of his work was recognised and he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1854, he was appointed professor at the School of Mines in London. His most famous work, published in 1863 (only five years after Origin of Species), was Evidence on Man’s Place in Nature, which is considered to be the first attempt to apply evolution explicitly to the human race. His promotion of Darwin’s ideas earned him the nickname ‘Darwin’s Bulldog’. Further biographical information on Thomas Huxley can be found at Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica or the New World Encyclopedia.

During Thomas Huxley’s time on H.M.S Rattlesnake he kept a diary. He used it occasionally through his own life, and as late as 1888, for autobiographical notes, but thereafter it got lost among his many papers. Leonard Huxley, who inherited all his father’s paper from his mother (when she died in 1915), appears never to have found the diary. It was only after Leonard’s death, in 1933, that the papers were finally sorted, to ‘sift the wheat from the very large amount of chaff’ (according to Julian Huxley) that Thomas Huxley’s Rattlesnake diary was found ‘among a group of old household account books’. Julian Huxley took it on himself to edit the text, and to put it into a wider context. He says, in his preface: ‘It is interesting that the publication of this Journal should follow so soon after that of Darwin’s [Diary of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, edited by Nora Barlow, Cambridge, 1933]. The two greatest British biologists of the nineteenth century each began his career as naturalist on a long voyage of scientific exploration. To both, the experience was of inestimable value, and indeed in Darwin’s case, had it not been for his journey on the Beagle, it is on the cards that The Origin of Species would never have been written.’

And Huxley goes on: ‘But there is a remarkable contrast between the two Diaries. That of Darwin, though revealing the most interesting glimpses of the writer’s character and personality, has as its chief and absorbing interest the growth and development of his ideas on the mutability of species: in it we are assisting at the birth of the Evolution Theory. Huxley, on the other hand, records singularly little about his scientific views in his Journal. [. . .]

But if Huxley’s journal is meagre where Darwin’s is generous, the converse also holds. There can be few other such abundant source-books for studying the growth of a great scientist’s personality. In these pages are revealed the many sides of Huxley’s complex temperament; his struggles with himself, with his fellow-men, with nature; the steps in the organization of his powerful character. Add to this that it was during this voyage that he met and became engaged to his future wife, and that the Diary contains a record of the beginnings of that deep love which endured undimmed throughout his life, and it will be seen that we have here a document of the highest personal interest.

Huxley’s character was indeed as remarkable as his scientific achievements and his literary talent; and I venture to believe that many to whom Huxley the scientist makes no special appeal will find in this Diary a deeply interesting picture of the growth of a great and rare personality.’

Finally, here are a couple of extracts from Thomas Huxley’s journal. (Most of Huxley’s diary entries are long, covering a period of time since his last entry. I have omitted several long paragraphs from the published 22 June entry, as indicated by square brackets with trailing dots. Sometimes the entries are accompanied by the author’s own drawings - such as the one below of Asmodeus.)

22 June 1847
‘Since my last entry we have had quite another sort of thing to the “quiet river”. It has been cold miserable weather with occasional hard close-reefed topsail breezes, and to add to our discomfort the fuel was all of a sudden found to have fallen short some ten days ago. By way of meeting this alarming deficiency the galley fire was put out at twelve every day, and lately there has been no galley fire at all, all cooking being done in the coppers, and the fire in these even put out at 4 p.m. It is astonishing what a difference this makes in one’s small stock of ship’s comforts. No hot grog, tea at half-past three, and other abominations. If the present state of things continues however we shall soon have an end of these things. We are within 200 miles of Van Diemens Land with a glorious 8½ knot breeze and expect to see land to-morrow evening at farthest.

I had one of my melancholy fits this evening and as usual had recourse to my remedy-a good “think” to get rid of it. It took me an hour and a half walking on the poop however to accomplish the cure. Among other thoughts that I thought I sketched out the plan of my next paper, “On the Diphydae and their relations with the Physophoridae”. I have the material all ready and will send it from Sydney. [. . .]

Suppose I finish my account of our trip in Mauritius. I left off where we started, provided with eatables and drinkables and altogether three “proper men”. Away we trudged, full of life and spirits, and I confess that the whole scene, the bright sunlight, the brilliant foliage, the firm earth, so refreshing in its very resistance to the foot of one who has been for weeks reeling at sea, intoxicated me, and I would have readily undertaken to walk to Jericho if required. As it was we put a good ten miles between us and the town before calling a halt. By this time the sun was getting hot, and never was anything so sweet as the water of the little Belle Isle river on whose banks we rested.

But there are seven miles to go and we must not rest here. So on we go, asking our way from the innocent blacknesses who cross our path in the best French we can command, as it turned out to little purpose, for after crossing the Rivière du Tamarin and being quite elated at the prospect of leaving our carriage friends in the lurch, we took the turn to the Black River instead of that to the Cascades. We walk on some way and then inquire of a Frenchman who keeps a sort of wayside auberge for further directions. We get capital vin ordinaire at sixpence a bottle and our good friend, seeing us I suppose look somewhat vexed at having come out of the road, assured us that the Cascade du Tamarin is nothing so very grand - he himself has seen that, but that if we want to see the real beauty of the island we should go on to Chamarelle which is only twelve miles off. We must sleep somewhere, and there is nowhere else to sleep at but the Military Post at Black River from whence it is an easy stage to Chamarelle. Our friend assures us that we need be under no apprehension about a reception as M. le docteur at the Porte is a “tres joli petit docteur”. Could we do else? No, so we agree to go on. [. . .]

The Riviere du Cap rises among the high land towards the centre of the island, thence winds its way as a quiet rivulet, till it reaches Chamarelle, when it precipitates itself over the edge of a huge chasm, sheer down for 350 feet; at the bottom it breaks into rainbows of foam against the rocks and then becomes a dark still pool of many acres in extent, ultimately finding its way to the sea by a fissure in one side of the rocky basin. An old tree overhangs one edge of the precipice and hanging on by this you can look down and see the birds wheeling and soaring below you. A little Asmodeus of a boy, Sewan by name, accompanied us and I made him hang on to the tree for a foreground while I sketched. The sides of the pit are all covered with large trees and the whole aspect of the place conveys to the mind at once the strongest ideas of wildness and of richness. We bathed in the rivulet just above the falls and had a sort of small washing day so as to get rid of any rate the superficial layer of dust with wh. we were enveloped. In the afternoon King and I made another visit to the falls and saw them under a different point of view. At dinner we met the ladies of our host’s family, and I fear that we did not represent the navy creditably in consequence of our imperfect knowledge of French. Chess-playing and conversation whiled away the evening, and we started early on the morrow on our way back to Port Louis, taking a somewhat different course to the way we came.

At noon we were going to bivouac at the bottom of a long avenue wh. led up to a gentleman’s house, but he spying us out came down, and carried us up to lunch with him. M. Butte was not contented with entertaining us in first rate style, but seeing that Brady walked rather lame, he insisted upon his riding on a donkey for some miles, sending a black servant to bring the said donkey back. We reached Port Louis that night at ten, having walked thirty odd miles. Brady was disabled for some days, but the rest of us were ready for anything the next morning. And so ended one of the most pleasant trips I ever had.

Van Diemen’s Land.
The sight of the bold land about S.W. Cape was I may venture to say the most pleasant thing that happened to us in our last cruise, always excepting, by the bye, the jolly face and English tongue of the old pilot who came off to us in Storm Bay. The pilot was a man well to do in the world. He lived on Bruny [?] island and we sent a boat to his farm to get such supplies of firewood, fresh meat, potatoes and other luxuries as he had at hand. Those who went brought back reports about a very nice well-furnished cottage, with piano and the like, and ladylike wife with three or four rosy children. And this in a place where fifty years ago you would have seen nothing but naked savages or kangaroos.

Light winds and calms detained us so that we did not get to anchor in Sullivan’s Cove before the second day after leaving Storm Bay. I got ashore in the jolly-boat before the ship came up to her anchorage, and having done what business I had to do, got before a huge fire in the Ship Inn with McGillivray and there stuck, imbibing considerable quantities of toddy, until ten or eleven o’clock. We were all invited to a ball that evening but it had no charms for me compare with that splendid wood fire.’

15 June 1849
‘Boats out sounding to find us a new anchorage nearer the land. We saw seven or eight canoes with 8-10 men in each, but none of them would come near us. Several however went to the Bramble. I suppose they thought she was smaller and less able to do them harm.

They had some of them the large bushy heads of hair of the Papuans but others were without this distinctive mark and they varied considerably in colour. For the most part they were coppery. The canoes have a single outrigger and a good deal resemble those we saw at Cape York. The sail consists of three sheets of some fibrous substance, and shortening sail is performed by taking down each sheet separately and laying it along the gunnel. The upper end of each sheet has a great many little pennants streaming from it.

The paddles are something like the ace of spades with a long handle. They sail up near to the place they wish to reach, then strike sails, masts and all, and paddle up. The only articles of barter they brought to the Bramble were yams, cocoa-nuts and tortoiseshell. They were very greedy for iron and stole one of the crutches wh. happened to be lying loose on the thwart of a boat astern. Like any dexterous London thieves they passed it from hand to hand and concealed it at the far end of their canoe, and when charged with the theft looked as innocent and impassive as M. de Talleyrand himself could have looked under similar circumstances.

But when from the threatening attitude the Brambles put on they saw it was “no go” they passed the crutch over again and paddled off as hard as they could paddle - more ashamed of the failure than the theft, I fancy.’