The workings of Delacroix

‘The craft of the painter is the most difficult of all and it takes longest to learn. Like composing, painting requires erudition, but it also requires execution, like playing a violin.’ This is the great French romantic painter, Eugène Delacroix, who died 150 years ago today. The quote comes from his diary, almost as famous in art circles as his painting, for it provides so much insight into the painter’s life. Early diary entries, for example, show his youthful passion for women; and running through all the journal there are rich references to his opinions on other artists (living and dead), as well as to the work on his own paintings and his thoughts on artistic techniques.

Delacroix was born at Charenton-Saint-Maurice, near Paris, in 1798. As a school boy, he won awards for drawing, and in 1815 began to study under the painter Pierre Guérin, and was trained in the neoclassical style of Jacques Louis David. His first painting - The Barque of Dante, also known as Dante and Virgil in Hell - was accepted by the Paris Salon in 1822. Though largely disliked by the public it was purchased by the government, and now hangs in the Louvre. That same year, he received the backing of Louis Thiers, the statesman and historian who, as interior minister in the 1830s, would put Delacroix in charge of architectural decorations.

In 1825, Delacroix travelled to England, where he had contact with, and was influenced by, the painters J. M. W. Turner and John Constable. Thereafter, he achieved popular success with canvasses of vivid colour, the most well-known of which, Liberty Leading the People, came in 1830. A year later he was awarded the Legion of Honour, and then, in 1832, he travelled to Morocco, a journey which inspired his painting hugely.

In Delacroix’s mature years, he received many government commissions for murals and ceiling paintings, and he also illustrated many works of literature. In 1857, after several unsuccessful attempts, he was finally elected to the Institut de France. Delacroix never married (despite his early interest in women - see below) and for the last two decades of his life was cared for by a housekeeper. He died on 13 August 1863. His paintings are considered to characterise 19th century romanticism, while his bold technical innovations strongly influenced the development of later modernist movements. Further biographical information is readily available from, for example, Wikipedia, Artble, or Musée Eugène Delacroix.

Delacroix was not only a great painter, but he was a first class diarist too. His journal is thought by some to be among the most important works in the literature of art history, and certainly provides much insight into his life, his painting and his pictures. Although extracts had been published earlier, a full version in four volumes did not appear until 1893, compiled from hand-written copies by Paul Flat and René Piot. A new version, in three volumes, came in 1932. This led to a translation in English by Walter Pach in 1937, and another in 1951 by Lucy Norton. This latter version was edited and annotated by Hubert Wellington, and published by Phaidon. Much more recently, José Corti in Paris has published a new version in French of the journal, as edited by Michèle Hannoosh.

Writing for the website 19th Century Art Worldwide, David O’Brien says this of the new version: Eugène Delacroix’s Journal is one of the most famous and influential texts ever written by an artist, and yet, its contents and form have never been entirely stable. It has appeared in many, very different versions. The new edition under consideration here, edited by Michèle Hannoosh, completely revises those that have preceded it. It brings a new standard to documentary research on Delacroix and significantly changes our understanding of him.’ O’Brien goes on to give many details from Hannoosh’s introduction, including a synthesis of the complicated history surrounding Delacroix’s journals, and he explains in some detail why he believes the new version is so valuable.

The earliest editions of Delacroix’s journals in French can be found at Internet Archive. Wikiquote has a generous collection of extracts in English, and the Painting OWU blog has a few too. The following extracts from Delacroix’s diary (including the very first) are taken from the printed version translated by Lucy Norton and edited by Hubert Wellington. Wellington’s introduction concludes as follows: ‘There is one unifying quality in all that Delacroix did - his passionate quest for nobility, grandeur and the sublime, in art and in the lives of the great men who had formed his standards. It runs through his painting from ‘Dante and Virgil’ to ‘Jacob and the Angel’: the Journal shows it behind all the workings of his mind.’

3 September 1822
‘I am beginning my journal; the Journal I have so often planned to write. My keenest wish is to remember that I am writing only for myself; this will keep me truthful, I hope, and it will do me good. These pages will reproach me for my instability. I am beginning in good spirits.

I am staying with my brother. It is evening, and the church clock in Louroux has just struck nine or ten. I am sitting for a while in the moonlight, on the little bench by the door, trying to collect my thoughts. But although I feel contented enough this evening, I cannot recapture the mood of last night. Then there was a full moon, and seated on the bench outside my brother’s house I spent some hours of perfect happiness. Some friends had been dining with us, and after seeing them home we walked round the pond and came back to the house; my brother read the newspaper and I took up some of the Michelangelo engravings which I have brought with me. These wonderful drawings moved me deeply and put me into a happy frame of mind. In the clear sky a big red moon was slowly climbing between the trees, and in the midst of my meditations, and just as my brother happened to be talking about love, I heard Lisette’s voice in the distance. It has a sound that makes my heart beat faster and is her greatest charm, for she’s not exactly pretty, yet there is something about her of that quality which Raphael understood so well. The line of her arms is pure, like bronze, strong-looking yet delicate, and this girl, who is really not pretty, has a beguiling way with her, an enchanting mixture of sensuality and modesty - for instance, when she came in, and although I don’t usually care for her in tight Sunday clothes, I found her irresistibly attractive at that moment, especially for that heavenly smile I was speaking about. Someone was telling a bawdy story; it amused her yet caused her to look down and sideways in embarrassment. She was quite genuinely embarrassed, for when she answered some trivial question of mine her voice trembled a little and she avoided looking at me; besides, I could see the fluttering of her breast under her kerchief. I think it was on that same evening that I kissed her, in the dark passage as we came through the house into the garden on our way back from the village. I had stayed behind with her and allowed the others to go on ahead. She kept telling me to stop, but very softly and sweetly. But it all means very little; this is not important. The thought of her will not haunt me like a violent love affair. It will be nothing but a charming memory, a flower by the wayside. Her voice reminds me of Elizabeth Salter [an English girl in service with his sister] whom I’m already beginning to forget.

On Sunday morning I had a letter from Felix telling me that my picture had been hung in the Luxembourg [Dante and Virgil exhibited at the 1822 Salon in Paris]. Today is Tuesday, and I am still full of it. I must confess that it has done me a lot of good and that when I think about it the day brightens quite appreciably. At present I can think of nothing else; it has made me long to be back in Paris, where in all probability I should find nothing but concealed envy, and would soon be bored with what makes me feel triumphant now - and where there would be no Lisette, no moonlight, and none of this peaceful atmosphere.

Must try to remember all that I have planned to do in order to keep myself busy when I get to Paris, and all the ideas I’ve had about subjects for pictures.’

5 September 1822
‘Went out shooting with my brother; the heat was stifling. I shot a quail as I swung round and Charles congratulated me. What is more, it was our only success, although I had three shots at rabbits.

In the evening we went to meet Lisette, who was coming to mend some shirts for me. I took advantage of being a little behind the others to kiss her; she struggled, and it vexed me because I could see she meant it seriously. When we next met I tried again, but she quickly shook me off saying that if she wanted to she’d be sure and let me know. Then my feelings were really hurt and I pushed her away and strolled up and down in the lane under the rising moon. I came across her once more as she was drawing water for supper, but although I felt inclined to sulk and not go back to her I finally yielded to temptation. ‘Then you don’t love me?’ - ‘No!’ - ‘Do you like anyone else?’ - ‘I don’t love anybody’, or some such ridiculous answer, meaning, ‘Let me alone!’ This time, hurt and annoyed, I crossly let go her hand and turned my back on her. She gave a faint laugh, it was not really a laugh but the remains of her half-serious protest, but it has left a disagreeable taste.’

3 March 1847
‘Today, Wednesday, repainted the rocks in the background of the ‘Christ’ and finished the lay-in, the Magdalen, and the naked figure in the foreground. I wish I had applied the paint rather more thickly in this lay-in. It is incredible how time smooths out a picture; my Sibyl seems to me to have sunk into the canvas, already. It is a thing I must watch carefully.’

6 March 1847
‘After a good night’s rest I went back to the studio where I recovered my good humour. I am looking at the ‘Hunts’, by Rubens. The one I prefer is the hippopotamus hunt; it is the fiercest. I like its heroic emphasis, I love its unfettered exaggerated forms, I adore them as much as I despise those gushing empty-headed women who swoon over fashionable portraits and M. Verdi’s music.’

10 July 1847
‘Painted the Magdalen in the ‘Entombment’.

Must remember the simple effect of the head. It was laid in with a very dull, grey tone. I could not make up my mind whether to put it more into shadow or to make the light passages more brilliant. Finally, I made them slightly more pronounced compared with the mass and it sufficed to cover the whole of the part in shadow with warm and reflected tones. Although the light and shadow were almost the same value, the cold tones of the light and the warm tones of the shadow were enough to give accent to the whole.’

18 September 1847 ‘The craft of the painter is the most difficult of all and it takes longest to learn. Like composing, painting requires erudition, but it also requires execution, like playing a violin.’

The Diary Junction

Able at times to cry

The British Library has just put on display - in the Sir John Ritblat Treasures’ Gallery - one of only three journals kept by the great Anglo-American poet W. H. Auden. The Library recently paid nearly £50,000 at auction for the single volume, written in 1939, and says it ‘provides a fascinating juxtaposition of personal and political preoccupations’ and ‘gives an intimate insight into Auden during one of the most important periods in his life’. Although there is no particular link with the diaries, I cannot resist appending a few lines of Auden’s poetry from my favourite poem, Able At Times To Cry.

Wystan Hugh Auden was born in York, in 1907, the third of three sons, though the family moved to Solihull soon after, when his father took an appointment as a school medical officer. He was educated at boarding schools in Surrey (where he met Christopher Isherwood) and Norfolk, before entering Christ Church, Oxford, to study biology at first, then English. At Oxford, he made friends with, among others, Cecil Day Lewis, Louis MacNeice, and Stephen Spender, all of whom would go on to find artistic or literary fame.

From the mid-1920s, through the 1930s, Isherwood acted both as Auden’s literary mentor and occasional lover. After a sojourn together in Berlin, Auden returned to Britain and took work teaching. T. S Eliot at Faber and Faber accepted his first book of poems, published in 1930. In 1935, Auden married Erika Mann, the daughter of the German novelist Thomas Mann. It was a marriage of convenience to enable her to gain British citizenship and escape Nazi Germany. From the mid-1930s, Auden worked as a freelance lecturer and writer, and, for a while, he was employed by the GPO Film Unit, for which he wrote the famous Night Mail. Through his work for the GPO, he met the composer Benjamin Britten, with whom he went on to collaborate on many projects.

In early 1939, Auden sailed, with Isherwood, for the United States (the photograph shows them both in February 1939), and there met the poet Chester Kallman. Although their affair only lasted two years, they remained lifelong friends, and, from 1953, shared a home. During the war, Auden taught at various colleges. He was called up to be drafted in 1942, but was rejected on medical grounds; in 1945 he worked briefly with the US Strategic Bombing Survey in Germany studying German morale. In 1946, he became a naturalised American, and the following year he published The Age of Anxiety for which he won the Pullitzer Prize.

From 1948, Auden began to spend his summers in Europe, in Ishchia, Italy, and then in Kirchstetten, Austria. He was a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 1954 to 1973; and Professor of Poetry at Oxford University between 1956 and 1961, though this latter post only required his presence for three weeks a year. He returned to live in Oxford in 1972, and died the following year. Further information is available from Wikipedia, Poets.org, and the Poetry Foundation.

Auden is admired, Poets.org says, ‘for his unsurpassed technical virtuosity and an ability to write poems in nearly every imaginable verse form; the incorporation in his work of popular culture, current events, and vernacular speech; and also for the vast range of his intellect, which drew easily from an extraordinary variety of literatures, art forms, social and political theories, and scientific and technical information. . . His poetry frequently recounts, literally or metaphorically, a journey or quest, and his travels provided rich material for his verse.’

The Poetry Foundation says this: ‘Much of [Auden’s] poetry is concerned with moral issues and evidences a strong political, social, and psychological context. While the teachings of Marx and Freud weighed heavily in his early work, they later gave way to religious and spiritual influences. Some critics have called Auden an “antiromantic” - a poet of analytical clarity who sought for order, for universal patterns of human existence. Auden’s poetry is considered versatile and inventive, ranging from the tersely epigrammatic to book-length verse, and incorporating a vast range of scientific knowledge.’

Auden is known to have kept only three journals, and one of them came up for auction last June at Christie’s in London. The lot was described as follows: ‘Autograph manuscript journal and notebook, 30 August - 26 November 1939 (chiefly September and early October), autograph title ‘Journal August 1938 [sic]’, in pen and pencil, many passages lightly cancelled in pencil (?after copying), written primarily on rectos, the facing blanks often used for aphorisms, quotations, reading notes, metrical experiments and other fragmentary lines, the last c.20 leaves almost entirely verse drafts, quotations and records of popular phrases, the verse including drafts and sketches for at least eight sections of ‘New Year Letter’, as well as unpublished material, 93 leaves, 4to (258 x 198mm), plus a few blanks, in a notebook (label of ‘Eye-ease paper ... “Easy on the Eyes” ’), cloth-backed boards.’

The diary opens with a brief self-description: ‘At 32½ I suppose I shall not change physically very much for some time except in weight which is now 154 lbs . . . I am happy, but in debt . . . I have no job. My visa is out of order. There may be a war. But I have an epithalamion to write and cannot worry much’. Inevitably, Christie’s description says, ‘the early pages are written in the shadow of the impending outbreak of the war in Europe, and include a substantial narration (running to 8½ pages) of his activities and preoccupations on 1 September 1939, which sheds light on the composition and content of his famous poem of the same name’.

The lot description gives further information on the diary’s content: ‘Auden is perhaps not a natural diarist - the journal is always more preoccupied with thoughts and reflections rather than activities and observations, and in the latter pages takes on rather the character of a commonplace book or verse notebook; nevertheless, it reveals much about the poet’s associations at this pivotal period of his life (including with Kallman, George Davis, Gerald Heard, Archibald MacLeish, and others), his reading (Milton, Laura Riding, Flaubert), the importance to him of music (especially Wagner), his drinking, smoking and consumption of Benzedrine and Seconal, his dreams (including one of having a wasp down his trousers) and his intellectual preoccupations, including reflections on fascism/communism, sex, marriage (‘One wants marriage ... so that one does not feel abandoned. Apart from that one takes what is handy’), Thomas Mann, the Founding Fathers, science and medicine and much else.’

Christie’s quotes the following aphorisms and observations found in the diary:
- ‘All the great heretics Pascal, Rousseau, Lawrence, Kafka etc have been sick men’;
- ‘Mean like the American habit of washing one’s hands after pissing, as if the penis were an object, too filthy for any decent person to touch’;
- ‘All bureaucrats should be obliged to prove that they have a happy love-life, and immigration officials most of all’;
- ‘Tried to read Milton’s Apology for a Pamphlet but couldn’t. The adjectives are wonderful but there are too many of them’;
- ‘My hatred of women is such that if I am not afraid of them . . . I am cruel’;
- ‘It is impossible to listen to music and get an erection at the same time’.

The auction house description concludes: ‘Providing an incomparable insight into the poet’s activities and reflections at the turning point in his life, this is the most substantial and significant Auden manuscript to have been offered at auction.’

On 12 June, the British Library purchased the diary at Christie’s for £47,475. In a press release, it stated that ‘the journal, which provides a fascinating juxtaposition of personal and political preoccupations, gives an intimate insight into Auden during one of the most important periods in his life.’ It further adds: ‘Auden’s reflections in the diary are particularly interesting as they were written during the turbulent period which saw the outbreak of war in Europe and after Auden leaves England for the United States with novelist Christopher Isherwood, a decision considered shamefully unpatriotic by the British media and which even occasioned strong criticism in Parliament.’ The journal is now on display in the Library’s Sir John Ritblat Treasures Gallery.

1 September 1939
‘Woke with a headache after a night of bad dreams in which C[hester] was unfaithful. Paper reports German attack on Poland ... 6.0 pm. Benjamin [Britten] and Peter Piers [sic] came to lunch. Peter sang B’s new settings of Les Illuminations and some H. Wolf ... which made me cry. B played some of Tristan which seems particularly apposite today. Now I sit looking out over the river. Such a beautiful evening and in an hour, they say, England will be at war ... 10.30 Went to the Dizzy Club. A whiff of the old sad life. I want. I want. Je ne m’occupe plus de cela. Stopped to listen to the news coming out of an expensive limousine’

3 September 1939
‘War declared this morning at 7 a.m. Listened in the afternoon to a broadcast of the first 1½ acts of Tristan. Everyone very kind, some rather drunk. The frogs sang all night. We sang spirituals out on the lawn.’

Several of the famous (and gay) writers/artists associated with Auden were regular diarists, and have, previously, been the subject of Diary Review articles: Christopher Isherwood (Isherwood giving thanks), Benjamin Britten (Britten’s firecracker crits), and Stephen Spender (The ghost of a reader). Finally, on a personal note, my own favourite poem of all time is one by Auden, written in June 1937. Originally called As He Is, it was later also titled Able At Times To Cry, and - as I cannot find it anywhere else on the web - I can’t resist appending a couple of verses here.

‘Wrapped in a yielding air, beside
The flower’s soundless hunger
Close to the tree’s clandestine tide
Close to the bird’s high fever,
Loud in his hope and his anger,
Erect about his skeleton,
Stands the expressive lover
Stands the deliberate man.

Beneath the hot incurious sun,
Past stronger beasts and fairer
He picks his way, a living gun,
With gun and lens and bible
A militant enquirer,
The friend, the rash, the enemy,
The essayist, the able
Able at times to cry.’

Nooteboom in Berlin 1963

Happy Birthday Cees Nooteboom, eighty today. A noted Dutch novelist, Nooteboom has won various awards, not least the prestigious Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren, but is equally well known for his travel journalism. Recently, a translation into English of his writing about Berlin has been published in English, and this contains several diary entries about his first experiences of the Berlin Wall in 1963. They are so readable and interesting that one hopes Nooteboom has a stash of diaries to be published one day.

Cornelis (Cees) Nooteboom was born on 31 July 1933 in The Hague, Netherlands, the middle child of three. His parents separated, then his father died as a result of a bombing in 1945. After the war, Nooteboom’s mother took the family to live in Tilburg, and she remarried. Nooteboom was educated largely at religious schools. He made use of some early experiences hitchhiking around Europe for his first novel, Philip en de anderen (Philip and the Others), which, subsequently, became a classic of Dutch literature. After various clerical jobs, he found work as a journalist, with the weekly magazine Elsevier, then with the newspaper de Volkskrant, and then, in 1967, he became travel editor of the magazine Avenue. Meanwhile, he also published further novels and books of poetry.

In 1980, Nooteboom published Rituelen (Rituals) which was later made into a film. This book, Nooteboom himself says, marked the beginning of the second phase in his career as a writer, in which he produced many more poems, novels, novellas and anthologies of pieces on travel and art. In 1987, he taught for six months at the University of California at Berkeley, and in 1989 the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) invited him to live for a year in Berlin, from where he witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall, and wrote about it for many European newspapers. In 1991, his novel Het volgende verhaal (The Following Story) was given away free for Dutch Book Week.

Nooteboom has lived in Amsterdam since 1954. He married Fanny Lichtveld in 1957, but the marriage was annulled in 1964. For some years he was in a relationship with the singer, Liesbeth List, but is now married to Simone Sassen, and they divide their time between Amsterdam and Minorca. In 2009, Nooteboom was awarded the Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren, the most important literary award in the Dutch-speaking world. Further biographical information is available from Wikipedia or Encyclopaedia Britannica own website.

I do not know if Nooteboom keeps a diary or not - I hope so - but one of his recent books translated into English - Roads to Berlin - contains a few early diary entries. His first Dutch book on Berlin - Berlijnse Notities - was published in 1990 and a second book - Terugkeer naar Berlijn - in 1997. Texts from both these books were collected with new material for a more recent publication, Berlijn 1989/2009. This has now been translated by Laura Watkinson, and published in English by Maclehose Press, London (2012) as Roads to Berlin.

The Maclehose Press website quotes a few reviews: ‘It is a wonderful voyage of self-discovery, and a psychological exploration of a nation in turmoil’ in the Financial Times; ‘Nooteboom wears his erudition lightly, and weaves personal anecdote into memorable reportage’ in The Sunday Telegraph; ‘there is a melancholy in his writing and a nostalgia for the past, both of which are very German - or at least used to be’ in The Spectator; and ‘his Berlin reportage, from a 1963 Khrushchev rally in East Berlin to the tearing down of the Palast der Republik, brilliantly captures the intensity of the capital and its associated layers of memory,’ in The Economist.

Several pages of the Kindle edition (by Quercus) can be read freely online at Amazon. Here is one diary extract to be found in the Prologue.

15 January 1963
‘West Berlin. You drive down Kurfürstendamm, which is bedecked with high, white lights, to the corroded, mutilated Gedächtniskirche, and then onwards. To your surprise, you see that the West has its own ruins: magnificent, hollowed-out monuments and empty windows with no rooms behind them, chunks of fossilised war, bricked-up doors that no smiling father will ever pass through again, off for a walk with Werner the dog. The only crossing point for non-German, non-military personnel is in Friedrichstraße, but we end up at the Brandenburger Tor by mistake. Snow and moonlight. Nothing on the frozen square in front of the gate: no people, no cars. Along the edge of that space, the black columns topped by the quadriga, the triumphal chariot. Four horses race along, pulling a winged figure that holds aloft a wreath, towards the east. Beneath, a quarter of the height of the columns, the blunt teeth of the Wall. A West German policeman signals that we are not allowed to drive on. So we stay where we are and watch things not happening. Two Russian tanks stand up high on huge pedestals, a reminder of 1945. We see two Russian sentries, shadows amidst the marble.

Friedrichstraße is not far from here. The same checks as at Helmstedt: documents, pieces of paper, money being counted, barriers, a classic copperplate engraving through which we move, remaining as human as possible. Two low walls have been erected across the road so that a driver would have to perform a dramatic swerve if he wanted to get through quickly. When all the German boxes have been ticked, we are allowed through, and the city continues, the way cities do after walls: the same, yet different. It is probably just me being oversensitive, but it smells different here, and everything looks browner. [. . .]

Not much traffic. Lots of neon signs. Is it a disappointment? Would I have liked it to be more dramatic? And why do I think I have any right to expect something? Two motionless soldiers stand guard in front of a monument. At Alexanderplatz, a steam train passes over a viaduct, but otherwise there is nothing to report - the occasional sign with words that look rather unread, slogans talking to themselves.’

Haig and Wordsworth

The diaries of Field Marshal Douglas Haig and of Dorothy Wordsworth have just been added to the UK Memory of the World Register, a Unesco initiative to list documentary heritage of cultural significance. Haig’s diaries are considered important for the insight they provide into army operations during the First World War; and Wordsworth’s journal is judged a literary work of international significance, as well as having been an inspiration to her more famous poet brother.

Unesco announced on 9 July that 11 items had been selected from the UK’s libraries, archives and museums to represent the outstanding heritage of the United Kingdom. From the Domesday Book to Hitchcock’s Silent Films, it said, these priceless items span nearly 900 years, come from across the country and embody pivotal moments in the history of their communities and the UK as a whole. Included among the 11 new items are two diary-based collections: the Haig diaries, held by the National Library of Scotland, and the Dorothy Wordsworth’s journal, held by the Wordsworth Trust.

This was the third group of inscriptions to Unesco’s UK Memory of the World Register, an online catalogue created to help promote the UK’s documentary heritage across the UK and the world, and follows two earlier groups of inscriptions in 2010 and 2011 - the latter of which included Anne Lister’s diaries. See The Diary Junction for more on Lister’s diaries.

As well as country-specific registers, Unesco also administers an International Member of the World Register (‘a catalogue of documentary heritage of global significance and outstanding universal value’) which includes a number of UK collections.

For the UK Memory of the World Register, Unesco’s announcement said this of Haig’s diaries: ‘The role of the British Army in the First World War and the competence or otherwise of her generals continues to be a subject of debate. As Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force, Field Marshal Douglas Haig commanded the largest British Army ever assembled and, for his role in the war, has become arguably the most controversial general in the Army’s history. Haig kept a diary throughout the war, and this momentous document now forms part of Haig’s personal papers at the National Library of Scotland.

The diary is vital to understanding key battles such as the Somme and Passchendaele through Haig’s own words, recorded on an almost daily basis. It is of national importance because, although no one single document can tell the whole story, it is at the heart of the documentary evidence that has informed modern opinion on the First World War. Whilst research in more recent years has begun to move away from focusing on the successes or failures of a small number of generals, the diary has remained central to an understanding of not just the role played by Haig, but of the British Army, her generals and her allies. It offers an insight into how and why decisions were made as events unfolded in the fields of Belgium, France and beyond. Regardless of one’s viewpoint on Haig’s own character or abilities, the diary is an essential element of the documentary heritage of the First World War. Written in these circumstances, the diary offers an immediacy that few documentary sources can in the day-to-day record and analysis of this cataclysm.’

Haig was born in Edinburgh in 1861, and educated at Clifton School, Bristol, and Oxford University. He entered the army in 1885, serving as a cavalry officer in the Sudan and distinguishing himself in South Africa during the Boer War. He served under Lord Kitchener in India. From 1905 to 1909 he played an important role in reforming the British Army. At the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 Haig served as Commander of the First Army Corps of the British Expeditionary Force, and shortly after, in 1915, was promoted to Commander in Chief of the British Expeditionary Force.

Although greatly admired among his fellow officers, Haig was mistrusted by the Prime Minister, Lloyd George who considered he was wasting soldiers’ lives without any prospect of victory. During 1919, Haig served as Commander-in-Chief Home Forces in Great Britain; he retired in 1920, devoting much energy to improving the welfare of ex-servicemen; and he died in 1928. His role during the war remains controversial to this day, with some claiming he was a butcher, a class-based incompetent commander, unable to grasp modern tactics and technologies, and others maintaining that his role was crucial in defeating the German army through a war of attrition.

Further biographical information is available from Wikipedia and the National Library of Scotland website. Here is part of Haig’s diary entry for the day the war ended.

11 November 1918
‘Fine day but cold and dull. –

Reports from Foch’s H.Q. state that meeting with German delegates (which took place in train in the Forest of Compiègne, not in Château as previously reported) began at 2 a.m. and at 5 a.m. the Armistice was signed. The Germans pointed out that if the rolling stock & supplies of the Army (which have to be handed over by the terms of the Armistice) are given up, then Germans East of the Rhine will starve. Report says Foch was rather brutal to the German delegates, and replied that that was their affair!

The Armistice came into force at 11 a.m.

The state of the German Army is said to be very bad, and the discipline seems to have become so low that the orders of the officers are not obeyed. Capt[ai]n von Helldorf who tried to get back to Spa from Compiègne with the terms of the Armistice by night was fired at deliberately by the German troops [ ] and could not pass, while on another they broke up the bridges so that he could proceed.

At 11 a.m. I had a meeting in Cambrai with the 5 Army Com[mande]rs’ and Gen. Kavanagh Com[mandin]g Cavalry Corps. I explained that for the moment my orders are to advance onto a sector of the German frontier 32 miles wide extending from Verviers (exclusive) to Houffalize in the South. The Northern half of this sector would be held by the 2nd army; South[er]n half by 4th army. The other armies w[oul]d for the present either stand fast, or send back behind railheads such divisions as could not be easily supplied. Each army sent forward would consist of 4 Corps = 32 Div[isio]ns. The remaining 28 Div[isio]ns w[oul]d be under the command of the 1st, 3rd, & 5th Army Commanders. The selection of Div[isio]ns had been made for reasons of man-power & recruiting, but I sh[oul]d be glad of any suggestions from Army Com[mande]rs in the subject.

I then pointed out the importance of looking after the troops during the period following the cessation of hostilities – Very often the best fighters are the most difficult to deal with in periods of quiet! I suggested a number of ways in which men can be kept occupied. It is [as much] the duty of all officers to kept their men amused, as it is to train them for war. Staff officers must – If funds are wanted, G.H.Q. should be informed & I’ll arrange for money to be found.

After the Conference, we were all taken on the Cinema! Gen. Plumer, whom I told to ‘go off and be cinema’ed’ went off most obediently and stood before the camera, trying to look his best, while Byng, & others near him were chaffing the old man and trying to make him laugh.’

‘Dorothy Wordsworth’s Grasmere journal,’ the Unesco announcement said, ‘is a work of literature of international significance. It was also the inspiration for her brother William, one of the leading figures of British Romanticism. The journal gives readers today a unique insight into the lives of these two remarkable people.  William and Dorothy Wordsworth arrived at Dove Cottage, Grasmere, in 1799, when they were both in their late twenties. In May 1800, William left Grasmere for a short absence and Dorothy decided to write a journal for his ‘pleasure’ when he returned. So began a journal that she continued to write for the next thirty or so months.

Four notebooks survive; a fifth, covering most of 1801, is now missing. The journal was written largely within the Dove Cottage household and describes in Dorothy’s beautiful prose her observations of domestic life, her neighbourhood and the natural world. It also records one of the world’s greatest poets at work.  From the journal we can picture the scene of brother and sister walking, talking, reading and writing together. It is an intimate portrait of a life in a place which, to them, was an earthly paradise.’

Further information on Dorothy Wordsworth’s journal can be found at the Wordsworth Trust website, The Diary Junction and The Diary Review. Here is one extract from the diary considered particularly interesting for it is known to have inspired Wordsworth’s most famous poem I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.

15 April 1802
‘The wind was furious... the Lake was rough... When we were in the woods beyond Gowbarrow park we saw a few daffodils close to the water side, we fancied that the lake had floated the seeds ashore & that the little colony had so sprung up -- But as we went along there were more & yet more & at last under the boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt of them along the shore, about the breadth of a country turnpike road. I never saw daffodils so beautiful they grew among the mossy stones about & about them, some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness & the rest tossed & reeled & danced & seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the Lake, they looked so gay ever glancing ever changing. This wind blew directly over the lake to them. There was here & there a little knot & a few stragglers a few yards higher up but they were so few as not to disturb the simplicity & unity & life of that one busy highway... -- Rain came on, we were wet.’


The Diary Junction

I am entirely alone

‘When I say something it immediately and finally loses its importance, when I write it down it loses it too, but sometimes gains a new one.’ So wrote Franz Kafka in his diary, exactly 100 years ago - on his 30th birthday. His diaries, which were saved for posterity, thanks to his friend, Max Brod, provide far more insight into Kafka’s intense, often depressing and guilt-laden mental world, than they do more directly into his literary works. One entry ends with ‘saw only solution in jumping out of the window’, and another with ‘I am entirely alone’.

Kafka was born on 3 July 1883 into a Jewish German-speaking family in Prague, then part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. He had two brothers, both of whom died very young, and three sisters. He grew up fearing his father to the point of stuttering in his presence, but, nevertheless, continued to live at home for much of his adult life. He trained as a lawyer at the University of Prague and then was employed by the Worker’s Accident Insurance Institute, a job which he hated. Suffering from insomnia, he began writing at night. He was chronically ill with different complaints, including tuberculosis (diagnosed in 1917) which eventually killed him.

In 1902 Kafka met Max Brod and they would remain friends throughout Kafka’s life. He was engaged twice, to Felice Bauer and Julie Wohryzek, and, in the early 1920s, he fell in love with a married Czech writer Milena Jesenská Pollak. In the last year of his life, he met Dora Diamant, a Zionist and moved to Berlin to live with her. However, he returned to Prague, and then died in 1924, aged but 40, at a sanatorium near Vienna. Further biographical information is available from Wikipedia, The Kafka Project, or Kafka Online.

Though he was reluctant to publish his writing, and indeed published very little in his lifetime, Kafka is a giant in the literature world. His reputation stems largely from very few extraordinary novels - Der Process (The Trial), Das Schloss (The Castle), Amerika - which Brod published soon after his friend’s death. Kafka had left instructions for Brod to destroy all his written works, but Brod chose to ignore the request. Also among Kafka’s writings was a hoard of diaries. These were not translated and published in English until 1948-1949, when Secker & Warburg brought out two volumes (The Diaries of Franz Kafka 1910-1913, The Diaries of Franz Kafka 1914-1923) as translated by Joseph Kresh and Martin Greenberg. A one volume edition was published in 1964 by Peregrine Books.

Some information about Kafka’s diaries can be found at Wikipedia and the full texts in German can be read at The Kafka Project and at University of Vienna web pages created by Werner Haas. A few extracts in English can be read at the Word and Silence website. Here are a few extracts taken from the first published translation of the diaries. (Brod, too, kept a diary, and these have been the subject of some mystery - see The Diary Review article, Brod’s diaries in Kafkaesque story.)  [Addendum Nov 2023: see also Times of Israel article on a new unexpurgated version of Kafka's diaries.]

2 July 1913
‘Wept over the report of the trial of a twenty-three-year-old Marie Abraham who, because of poverty and hunger, strangled her not quite nine-month-old child, Barbara, with a man’s tie that she used as a garter. Very routine story.

The fire with which, in the bathroom, I described to my sister a funny motion picture. Why can I never do that in the presence of strangers?

I would never have married a girl with whom I had lived in the same city for a year.’

3 July 1913
‘The broadening and heightening of existence through marriage. Sermon text. But I almost sense it.

When I say something it immediately and finally loses its importance, when I write it down it loses it too, but sometimes gains a new one.

A band of little golden beads around a tanned throat.’

21 July 1913
‘Don’t despair, not even over the fact that you don’t despair. Just when everything seems over with, new forces come marching up, and precisely that means that you are alive. And if they don’t then everything is over with here, once and for all.

I cannot sleep. Only dreams, no sleep. Today, in my dream, I invented a new kind of vehicle for a park slope. You take a branch, it needn’t be very strong, prop it up on the ground at a slight angle, hold one end in your hand, sit down on it side-saddle, then the whole branch naturally rushes down the slope, since you are sitting on the bough you are carried along at full speed, rocking comfortably on the elastic wood. It is also possible to use the branch to ride up again. The chief advantage aside from the simplicity of the whole device, lies in the fact the branch, thin and flexible as it is, can be lowered or raised as necessary and gets through anywhere, even where a person by himself would get through only with difficulty.

To be pulled in through the ground-floor window of a house by a rope tied around one’s neck and to be yanked up, bloody and ragged, through all the ceilings, furniture, walls, and attics, without consideration, as if by a person who is paying no attention, until the empty noose, dropping the last fragments of me when it breaks through the roof tiles, is seen on the roof.’

13 August 1913
‘Perhaps everything is now ended and the letter I wrote yesterday was the last one. That would certainly be the best. What I shall suffer, what she will suffer - that cannot be compared with the common suffering that would result. I shall gradually pull myself together, she will marry, that is the only way out among the living. We cannot beat a path into the rock for the two of us, it is enough that we wept and tortured ourselves for a year. She will realize this from my last letters. If not, then I will certainly marry her, for I am too weak to resist her opinion about our common fortune and am unable not to carry out, as far as I can, something she considers possible.’

14 August 1913
‘The opposite has happened. There were three letters. The last letter I could not resist. I love her as far as I am capable of it, but the love lies buried to the point of suffocation under fear and self-reproaches.

Conclusion for my case from ‘The Judgement’. I am indirectly in her debt for the story. But Georg goes to pieces because of his fiancée.

Coitus as punishment for the happiness of being together. Live as ascetically as possible, more ascetically than a bachelor, that is the only possible way for me to endure marriage. But she?

And despite all this, if we, I and F, had equal rights, if we had the same prospects and possibilities, I would not marry. But this blind alley into which I have slowly pushed her life makes it an unavoidable duty for me, although its consequences are by no means unpredictable. Some secret law of human relationship is at work here.’

15 August 1913
‘Agonies in bed towards morning. Saw only solution in jumping out of the window.’

21 August 1914
‘Began with such hope and was then repulsed by all three stories; today more so than ever. It may be true that the Russian story ought to be worked on only after The Trial. In this ridiculous hope, which apparently has only some mechanical notion behind it of how things work, I start The Trial again - The effort wasn’t entirely without result.’

29 August 1914
‘The end of one chapter a failure; another chapter, which began beautifully, I shall hardly - or rather certainly not - be able to continue as beautifully while at the time, during the night, I should certainly have succeeded with it. But I must not forsake myself, I am entirely alone.’


The Diary Junction

A Hessian at West Point

‘I became totally lost in my meditations as I tried to imagine the American army in its wretched condition, such as we had often encountered it during the year 1776 and chased it from hill to hill. On the other side I tried to envisage the splendid and formidable army of the English, consisting mostly of veterans who despite all dangers had swum across nearly a half of the earth’s diameter. But they were put to such poor use that eight campaigns were lost, followed by the loss of thirteen provinces, which, in a word, had torn down the crown of England from its loftiest peak.’ This is the Kassel-born soldier, Johann Ewald, reflecting in his diary - now considered historically important - during a visit to West Point, New York, in the aftermath of the American War of Independence. He and his Hessian troops had served with the (losing) British forces, and were waiting to return to Europe. Today marks the 200th anniversary of his death.

Born in Kassel, Germany, in 1744, to a bookseller and a merchant’s daughter, Ewald entered military service at 16. He joined the infantry regiment, Gilsa, and fought in the Seven Years War, and then did 14 years garrison duty. He also studied military science. In 1774, he was promoted to captain and put in charge of the elite Jäger unit. In 1776, and thanks to an agreement between Frederick II and King George III, the unit sailed across the Atlantic to join British troops in the American War of Independence. During the Southern Campaign, in 1780, Ewald’s unit helped at the siege of Charleston. Following the British surrender, Ewald returned to New York on parole, and spent the end of 1782 and 1783 on Long Island before being released through a prisoner exchange.

On returning to Kassel in 1784, and after the death of Frederick II, Ewald was denied promotion, so he joined the Danish army which appointed him a lieutenant-colonel. Subsequently, he was ennobled to Johann Von Ewald and made commanding general of the Duchy of Holstein. Ewald also wrote several books on military issues, such as Treatise on Partisan Warfare and Treatise on the Service of Light Troops. He died on 25 June 1813. Further biographical information is available at Wikipedia or at the Battlefields website.

While on campaign in America, between 1776 and 1784, Ewald kept a detailed diary. It appears that three volumes were looked after by his family for generations until 1948, when a clerk in Vienna offered them for sale to Joseph P. Tustin, who was, at the time, a historian with the US Air Forces in Europe. Tustin tracked down the text of a fourth volume, though not the original, and then translated and edited the diary. This was published by Yale University Press in 1979 as Diary of the American War - A Hessian Journal. The full work can be freely borrowed from Internet Archive.

According to Tustin, Ewald’s diary ‘is an outstanding contribution to the literature of the American Revolution. Certainly it is the most important and comprehensive diary kept by a Hessian mercenary.’ Tustin’s text - and presumably Ewald’s - does not read like a diary with dated entries, but more like a narrative written in retrospect. Here is an excerpt from near the end of the diary, after the war, concerning 21-22 October 1784, when Ewald is intent on finding out more about the American fort at West Point.

‘At seven o’clock in the morning I left my quarters and arrived about noon in Tarrytown, which lies twenty-three miles from my quarters and thirty miles from New York. Since this place was a scene of action for both combatants during the entire war which sometimes we and sometimes the Americans had occupied, it frequently had happened that I occupied this town with a party. As the inhabitants of the place and the surrounding area were all on the side of the Congress, our people were not usually received in the friendliest manner.

The first fellow I met in town, in front of the door of the tavern where I desired to stop for lunch, was one of the most fiery ringleaders, whom I had caught on a patrol and who had been put in chains and fetters. As soon as I recognized him, I asked him in quite friendly fashion how he felt, whereupon he replied indifferently with a look distorted by spite. I asked him if I could have something to eat and fodder for my horses for money. He answered with a short “Yes!” but his face brightened somewhat, since he expected to gain some money from me.

While I was dismounting and walking into the house, a number of residents of the town assembled. At the mention of my name they whispered a “God damn!” in each other’s ears, whereby I noticed that they had not yet forgotten the punches in the ribs which they had received from the Jägers [Hessian riflemen] during their imprisonment. Why! The womenfolk inside the house could scarcely stand the sight of me! I certainly expected an unpleasant reception and finished my lunch as quickly as possible. But what can money not do? As soon as I asked what my bill came to, and paid seven piasters into the woman’s hand for a poor meal, without any argument and without showing that it was too expensive, all the faces in the entire house brightened. They wished me a pleasant journey and asked me not to pass up their house on my return trip.

Since we could not use the old bridge across the Croton River, we had to take our route over the new bridge and travel several miles along the new road toward Peekskill which the American army had built during the war. Because the road had to be constructed for miles on the slopes of a steep and rocky mountain range along the right bank of the Croton River, much honor is due the man who designed it.

Toward eight o’clock in the evening we arrived at Peekskill, a small town of about eighty houses, only average buildings among them, which lies close to a deep valley on the left bank of the Hudson River and is surrounded by rocky hills. Since there is not a single good tavern in this place, several private individuals are keeping public houses to accommodate strangers or travelers. My address was directed to Madam Bourges, who is one of the finest women in this town. However, the entire house was full of strangers, and we were refused with much politeness and referred to another house, where we did not fare any better. Hence we went to a third one. Here we at last found accommodations for ourselves and our horses. It was quite lucky for us that we were very tired and craved lodgings more than a good dinner, for the latter was so poor that none of it could be consumed. Meanwhile, our host, who had served with the Americans during the entire war, was very courteous. Since I was not recognized here, and we were taken for French officers, everyone was exceptionally polite, for I took great care not to show that I had ever been here before, and had burned the barracks and several magazines two miles away.

Early on the 22d we breakfasted as soon as possible, badly and filthy, and after I had paid a guinea for the blessings we received we continued our journey. In this area begins the mountain range called the Highlands by the inhabitants, which is some twenty miles deep and cuts across America. The roads across these mountains are so steep that one is compelled to ride foot by foot, with the greatest caution. Because of the rocky ground, the area is so sparsely inhabited that for a distance of nine miles we did not see over ten miserable cabins, whose occupants lived from the chase and who did not make the best company.

When one observes the narrow and unfinished roads which cross these mountains, it is amazing that the Americans permitted us to penetrate into this region without interference four or five years ago, when two or three determined officers with a hundred men could have stopped at each step the best and strongest armies for several days, and where each step of the attacking party would have had to have been bought with blood. Due to the bad roads there are few vehicles in this area, and all travelers of both sexes whom we met on the way were on horseback.

Toward midday we arrived at Nelson’s Ferry, where a well-built country house of medium size lies on a small plain on the left bank of the North River. This plain is commanded by two redoubts, called North and South redoubts, which are constructed on steep and rocky heights.

Even in this house, which is occupied by a well-to-do man named Nelson, is another residence where one finds lodging as a “favor” and for a stiff price. In front of the door we found a middle-aged woman whom I asked to accommodate us, and who quite politely consented, after making it clear to us that her house has no tavern.

Here in this house I soon found an American officer who related to me that his brother had been shot by the Jägers at Elizabethtown in the Jerseys. I regretted this and steered the conversation to the question of whom I should turn to for permission to see the fortifications at West Point. We were informed that a General McDougall resided scarcely a mile from here, but he did not have the command of the fortifications. Nevertheless, we considered it our duty to pay a visit to this gentleman. We were scarcely halfway to the general’s residence when he met us, and as soon as we had identified ourselves he offered us the hospitality of his house with all politeness for as long as we intended to stay. But since we could not accept this, out of courtesy, we asked him for a pass to cross the North River. He accompanied us to the plantation where we were to descend, furnished us with a pass, ordered his boat, and himself accompanied us to the opposite shore. When we thanked him, he invited us to his table the following day.

As soon as we arrived at West Point we found a battery of four guns which commanded the narrow channel of the river between this place and Point Constitution. This point is a complete peninsula, which is attached to the left bank of the North River by a marshy isthmus. It extends into the river so close to the opposite point that the river, which makes a sharp bend here, is only four hundred paces wide but fifty to sixty fathoms deep. This peninsula forms a steep cliff on all sides, on which three redoubts had been constructed to sweep the river and the side where it connects with the left bank by a marshy tongue of land. On this side there is a barracks for three hundred men, which, however, is not protected from the water side.

The duty officer of the battery at West Point received us very politely, and immediately provided us with a noncommissioned officer who led us to the quarters of the commandant, who is General Knox. As soon as we climbed up the steep bank several hundred fathoms from the battery situated at the end of the promontory, we found ourselves on a natural place d’armes about one and a half German miles long and a good half mile wide. It is surrounded by a chain of steep and rocky mountains six to seven German miles deep, which form a semicircle of which the North River is the diameter and across which only footpaths lead.

We were received very courteously by General Knox, whose figure is quite distinguished and venerable. He consented at once to our request to inspect the fortifications. Since I strengthened his conviction that it was a formidable and impregnable position, he asked us to his table and provided us with his adjutant, Captain Lillie, as an escort, who probably was instructed to what extent he should show us the fortifications.

We then went to Fort Clinton, which is situated on the point above the water battery mentioned. It is quadrangular, with broken flanks, and commands the river from all directions. Afterward, we inspected the barracks, which are secure against all armed vessels, since the right bank of the river is very high and the rocks at most places rise perpendicularly.

On this walk the captain took us to the artillery park, which consists of approximately eighty pieces, all of which had been captured from the English during the war, and on which the place and occasion of capture were engraved in big letters. What touched me most strongly and profoundly, and led me into deep reflection for several minutes, were three light 3-pounders which looked as simple as a Quaker. They had been cast at Philadelphia, were the first cannon in the American army, and had comprised their entire field artillery in the first and second campaigns.

I became totally lost in my meditations as I tried to imagine the American army in its wretched condition, such as we had often encountered it during the year 1776 and chased it from hill to hill. On the other side I tried to envisage the splendid and formidable army of the English, consisting mostly of veterans who despite all dangers had swum across nearly a half of the earth’s diameter. But they were put to such poor use that eight campaigns were lost, followed by the loss of thirteen provinces, which, in a word, had torn down the crown of England from its loftiest peak. How ashamed must a man like General Grant now feel, who at the outbreak of the war declared in Parliament that he could make America obedient again with six thousand men, since according to his reports most people were loyalists.

Since the hour of three had passed during the course of this walk, and it was time to return to the general, Captain Lillie offered to show us the rest of the fortifications after dinner or early in the morning. Once more we were courteously received by the general and by Madam Knox, and introduced to some twenty American staff and other officers, whose names I have completely forgotten except that of a Colonel Vose, a distinguished and talkative gentleman. After a short time we went to the table, where I had the good fortune of being seated between madam and the general. Madam Knox had a quite pleasant face and very lively brown eyes, but I heard no other sound from her than those words I could extract. The general, who had been a bookdealer in Boston before the war, appeared to be a reasonable and well-read man, considering all the books he had studied in his business, which he showed especially when the conversation turned to finance and accounting. One could see the fancied happiness of this company from the look in everyone’s eyes as soon as the conversation turned to free trade, with which they complimented themselves to a great extent. But when one talked to them as soldiers, they made it known at once that they would be happy to disband as soon as the order was issued for the remainder of the army, which still consisted of five thousand men. Then that object for which they had drawn their swords would have been obtained, and they considered themselves fortunate enough to be independent and at peace, and now able to reap their flax.

Toward half-past five we arose from the table and strolled to the parade ground, where the entire garrison, consisting of about 3,200 men, was drawn up in battalion formation and accounted for and inspected as usual. The shortest men formed the first rank, which was introduced by General Baron von Steuben, the Inspector General, who has his usefulness in the field but who makes a very poor figure on parade.

The men looked haggard and pallid and were poorly dressed. Indeed, very many stood quite proudly under arms without shoes and stockings. Although I shuddered at the distress of these men, it filled me with awe for them, for I did not think there was an army in the world which could be maintained as cheaply as the American army. It was not even permitted to requisition straw during the campaigns, since the country could not have borne the expense. The barracks at West Point as well as those at all permanent places had to be built by the soldiers with their own hands, without compensation. Shoemakers and tailors who are assigned to regiments must work for nothing for their officers and regiments; their only benefit being exemption from guard duty - What army could be maintained in this manner? None, certainly, for the whole army would gradually run away. - This, too, is a part of that “Liberty and Independence” for which these poor fellows had to have their arms and legs smashed.- But to what cannot enthusiasm lead a people!’

My father’s death

‘Today is my last chance to chase flies away from his sleeping body. Thus the day ended. From the basin of water by his pillow, all I could do was wet his lips without hope.’ This is Kobayashi Issa, the great Japanese haiku poet, writing in a diary about the death of his father in 1801. And today - the 250th anniversary of his birth - is a good one to remember him.

Issa was born in a farmhouse on 15 June 1763 in Shinano Province (present-day Nagano Prefecture, 120 miles or so northwest of Tokyo). His mother died when he was three, and he was brought up by his grandmother until she too died. His father remarried, and had another child, causing strained relations between Issa and the rest of the family. Aged only 14 he was sent to Edo (present-day Tokyo) to work. In time, he studied haiku, and travelled through Japan. By 1790, he had already established a reputation as a poet with several publications.

Issa’s father died in 1801, and he entered a bitter legal struggle with his step-brother over the inheritance which took more than a decade to resolve. In the early 1810s, he returned to his native village, married a young woman, named Kiku, and rose to a position of regional eminence as a poet. His wife and his young children all died young, and he married twice more before dying himself in 1827. He is said to have written 20,000 haiku (many of them on insects and small creatures), as well as other literary works. Further biographical information is available from Wikipedia, Haiku Guy, or the Kobayashi Issa Museum website.

One of Issa’s most enduring works is a diary describing the last days of his father’s life, Chichi no Shuen Nikki, published in English as Last Days of Issa’s Father (which has its own Wikipedia entry). It was written on the back of sheets of Saitancho, or New Year’s memorandum paper, and was passed down by generations of the descendants of Kubota Shunko, one of Issa’s disciples. It is held today by Issakan, a museum dedicated to Issa in Takayama-mura, Nagano Prefecture.

For a detailed analysis of the text, and several good extracts (including the one below) see The Death of Kobayashi Yagobei by Scot Hislop, National University of Singapore, in Early Modern Japan. Several extracts can also be found in the anthology Early Modern Japanese Literature, edited by Haruo Shirane, and partially viewable at Googlebooks.

The twentieth day, fifth month
‘Father’s fever continued to worsen. In the morning he ate just a bowl of gruel. Around noon his face became pale. Eyes half closed, his mouth moved as if he were trying to say something. With each breath phlegm rattled around as though it were attacking his life and so he became weaker and weaker. As the sun streaming through the window approached the hour of the sheep, father could no longer make out the faces of people. The situation was hopeless. I would have gladly traded my life for his if I could but once more see him alive, strong, and eating. It was so desperate that even the most famous doctors in the world such Kiba and Hen Jaku would not have had the skill to save him. Without the intervention of the gods there was nothing left but to invoke Amida.

Today is my last chance to chase flies away from his sleeping body.

Thus the day ended. From the basin of water by his pillow, all I could do was wet his lips without hope.

The moon of the twentieth night shone through the window. The neighbors had quieted down and gone to sleep. At about the time that the cock should start to crow, the sound of father’s breathing died down and the phlegm that rose from his heart sometimes blocked his throat. Even if I could not save his life, I should have at least liked to have cleared the phlegm. But since I am not as great a doctor as Ka Da, I have no extraordinary skill as a healer. There was nothing left to do but wait, with deep sadness and pain, for the hour of my father’s death. The gods did not take pity on us and as the dawn began to break, just after the hour of the rabbit, father stopped breathing and seemed as if he were asleep.

We surrounded the corpse. I prayed that this was but a dream from which I would soon awake. Be it dream or reality, it felt as though I were left without a candle in the darkness and that nothing remained in the world to rely on.

Beckoned by the wind, the fickle flowers of spring scatter. In this world of ceaseless change the autumn moon often hides behind clouds. Moreover, those who are born must certainly die and those who meet must assuredly part. It is the way of the world. It is the road that all must travel once. But not knowing whether my father would travel it today or tomorrow was foolish. Even though evening after evening I nursed my father in earnest, it all came to naught in an instant. Those who had been fighting with my father until yesterday surrounded the corpse and began to wail. The voices of those chanting the name of Amida were hoarse. Now they realized that the duties of those who grow old together and share the same grave had not been fulfilled.’

How storms rage ever

Today marks the bicentenary of Richard Wagner’s birth. One of the greatest of all composers, he lived a life of much movement and constant financial struggle to see his operas performed, all the while embroiled in several grand amours. He was not a natural diarist, but Cosima, who would become his second wife, encouraged him to keep a journal when they were apart so he could record his thoughts about her.

Wagner was born in Leipzig on 22 May 1813, ninth child of a police clerk who died six months later. His mother took up with Ludwig Geyer, an actor and playwright, and they moved to Dresden. He began learning the piano aged seven, but was drawn more towards theatre under Geyer’s influence. When Geyer died, Wagner was sent to board at an established choir school at the expense of Geyer’s brother. By 1827, the family had returned to Leipzig, where Wagner first heard several of Beethoven’s later symphonies. Wagner’s early piano sonatas and his first attempts at orchestral overtures are said to date from this period.

In the early 1830s, Wagner studied at the University of Leipzig, and in 1833, aged but 20, he was appointed choir master at the theatre in Würzburg. The same year he finished his first complete opera, Die Feen (The Fairies). Thereafter he flit through various appointments as musical director, in Magdeburg, Königsberg and Riga (Russian Empire), but kept getting into debt by staging his own works. His marriage to the actress Christine (Minna) Planer in 1836, though it lasted 30 years, was troubled from the beginning. From 1839, the couple lived in Paris where Wagner’s income depended on writing articles and staging other composers’ operas.

In 1842, Wagner’s first operatic success, Rienzi, brought him back to Dresden, where it was performed at the Court Theatre. He stayed for six years, during which time he composed Lohengrin; and he served as the Royal Saxon Court Conductor for a while. With the German revolution of 1848-1849, and, in particular, the May Uprising in Dresden, Wagner was implicated as a left-wing radical and forced to flee. He spent more than a decade in exile, first in Switzerland, then Venice and Paris. Love affairs left him further estranged from Minna, and debt troubles were never far away. During his time in Zurich, he published prose works such as The Artwork of the Future and Opera and Drama, he wrote Tristan und Isolde, and he began writing what would eventually become his famous Ring cycle of four operas, Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung).

Wagner returned to Germany in 1862, when the exile ban was lifted, and settled in Biebrich where he was visited by Minna for the last time. Efforts to produce Tristan und Isolde in Vienna failed, but, in 1864, when the young King Ludwig II succeeded to the throne of Bavaria, he brought Wagner to Munich and offered to pay for the staging of several of the composers operas. Tristan und Isolde finally premiered at the National Theatre in Munich in 1865, conducted by Hans von Bülow. Earlier that year his wife, Cosima, had given birth to a daughter, named Isolde, fathered by Wagner. The indiscreet affair scandalised Munich, and Wagner fell into such disfavour that Ludwig finally asked him to leave Munich. Nevertheless, Ludwig installed him at the Villa Tribschen, by Lake Lucerne, and there Wagner finished Die Meistersinger, and continued with the Ring cycle. Von Bülow eventually allowed Cosima a divorce after she had had two more children with Wagner. They married in 1870, and the year after moved together to Bayreuth.

Wagner’s ambitious plans to build a new opera house in Bayreuth were finally brought to fruition - after many financing delays - with the first festival in 1876, at which Wagner premiered the complete Ring cycle for the first time. It was to be another six years before he could put together a second festival, in 1882, and this one saw the premiere of Parsifal, Wagner’s final opera. He died the following year. For more biographical information see Wikipedia, Gramophone, Music Academy, or the comprehensive fan websites run by Vincent Vargas or Per-Erik Skramstad.

After Wagner had settled in Munich, in 1864, Cosima gave him a calf leather bound journal to write about his thoughts of her when they were separated, which, in the early years of their relationship, was often. He kept up the journal, somewhat intermittently, from 1865 until the year before his death, though after 1868 the couple were together permanently so Wagner wrote of other matters. It is worth noting that Cosima herself kept a diary which was largely meant to be a record of Wagner’s life - see The Diary Review: Music was sounding.

Wagner’s journal was scrupulously guarded after his death by Cosima on account of its confidential contents. However, in her 70th year she gave it into the care of her daughter, Eva, who later presented it to the town of Bayreuth. Its contents were only published fully for the first time in English in 1980 by Victor Gollancz as The Diary of Richard Wagner 1865-1882 - The Brown Book. The text was ‘presented and annotated’ by Joachim Bergfeld (and translated by George Bird).

10 August 1865 [Wagner went to stay in King Ludwig’s mountain hut on Hochkopf and was ill almost constantly.]
‘Late yesterday evening during the wearisome ascent, I was gazing - dog-tired - longingly upwards to discern at last the goal of our march, when, above the edge of the mountain, I caught sight of the first brightly twinkling star. Not bothering much about the direction, I took it for the evening star, and hailed it loudly - ‘Cosima’. That gave me heart. It was quite wonderful. The star got ever brighter - quite alone, no other star. It was completely dark by the time I go up there far ahead of all the men, with a big bunch of keys to open the lodge. Luckily I got the last one to fit, tried to find my way about in the dark, found the King’s sleeping place, and stretched out bathed in sweat, dog-tired. The men arrived. God, before Franz [manservant] produced a light! There was marvellous confusion. Now alone with Franz. Completely in the wilds. No water to be found. Where is there a spring? We hadn’t asked. Much groping about mountain and forest. In vain. Laborious changing of clothes - ah, what a muddle. Finally, bread, wine, sausage. But no water. So mineral water - brought for the cure - had to be unpacked. Arrival of good mood.’

18 August 1865
‘Sick and wretched. Bad cold: fever! Lonely here - Can’t so much as move. Franz lamenting. You know how quick I am to take the extreme view!

But I wanted to write at least one line in the book. It ought to help, complaining to you. Let’s see. Hope so - Ah, how wretched man is! - Even the sky is bleak.’

16 April 1867 [on being separated from Cosima, a separation that would last 15 months]
‘In my whole life I do not think I have ever been so sad as I am now!! - How easily that is said, and how unspeakable it is -

I walked home, and sank down from exhaustion. A brief, leaden sleep such as often drives out a cold fetched up all the misery of my life as if from the depths of my soul. I yearn for major illness and death. I have no inclination any more, no will!

Would there an end to it, an end!
Today she has left, - What this leaving has said!
What is the use of any seeing each other again?
The leaving remains. It is wretched!’

26 October 1865
‘Leafing through the Brown Book just now, I read a bit of Parzival. How that time lies once more like a sacred dream - once more like a lost paradise behind me - Oh Cosima! Will it ever come to my quietly completing my works and entering with you the promised land of peace? How storms rage ever and ever anew! I desire - so it seems - the most unnatural state of affairs which the world just will not accede to. My trouble is great. Always something new hounds and oppresses. From within and without.’

Philippine’s first prime minister

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the death of Apolinario Mabini, a Philippine revolutionary, who wrote the country’s first constitution and served as its first prime minister, if only for a few months. While imprisoned by the Americans on Guam, he kept a diary, and this was later published with other material relating to the revolution.

Mabini was born in 1864 in Tanauan, some 60km south of Manila, into a large, poor family, his father being a market seller. He was taught by his mother and a grandfather, a local teacher, and then was taken on at a private school to work as a houseboy. In 1881, he received a scholarship to go to the Colegio de San Juan de Letran in Manila. He supported himself through teaching and working as a copyist, and excelled academically. He moved on to study law at the University of Santo Tomas, where he received his degree in 1894. In 1896, he suffered a severe attack of polio which left him paralysed.

For some years, an armed nationalist revolution against the Spanish colonists had been growing in strength, and, though Mabini had worked for reform rather than revolution, he accepted a summons to join the revolutionary leader General Emilio Aguinaldo. He soon became one of the general’s chief advisers. When the Spanish-American war broke out in 1898, Mabini urged cooperation with the US as a means to gain freedom from Spain. That same year, he drew up Asia’s first democratic constitution, based on the US constitution, for an independent republic; and, from January 1899, Aguinaldo was its first president, and Mabini its first prime minister. When the US decided, however, to annex the Philippines, Mabini joined Aguinaldo in a renewed struggle for independence.

Mabini was captured by US troops at the end of 1899, and then again a year or two later. He was exiled to Guam because he refused to swear allegiance to the US, and only returned home in 1903, a few months before his death. According to Wikipedia, he is often referred to in Philippine history texts as ‘the Sublime Paralytic’ or ‘the Brains of the Revolution’. Further information is also available from Encyclopaedia Britannica, the Philippine National Council on Disability Affairs, and the Philippine Masonry website.

While in Guam, Mabina kept a diary in the form of notes. This was published as Memoirs of Guam within (I think) the second volume of a larger work called The Philippine Revolution by Teodoro Manguiat Kalaw (Manila Book Co., 1925). Some of the diary entries - which date from January 1901 to September 1902 - have been made available online thanks to the excellent Philippine Diary Project, which (like The Diary Review) has just celebrated its fifth birthday. (Back in 2009, a Diary Review article about the assassination of Aurora Quezon, wife of the president, drew on the Philippine Diary Project’s fund of diary texts - see Aurora Quezon’s bomb fuse.)

Here then, with thanks again to the Philippine Diary Project, are several extracts from Mabina’s diary.

31 December 1901
‘This month predicts a sad future for the prisoners in the prison house.

Ever since we arrved in the island, we have been fed with canned goods and it was very seldom that we were given fresh meat during the time of Commander Orwig. We had canned meat, canned salmon and bacon, potatoes, etc. Although in the last few days we were already satiated, we did not mind it too much since we were still able to buy from the Commissary sardines, shrimps in cans, ham and other things.

During the time of Captain Shaw, who manifested great concern for us, we were served salmon and given a supply of fresh meat twice a week. Besides, during this time, we could ask either though the guy with a shaven head or through our cook who also had a shaven head to buy for us vegetables, chicken and other goods.

Shaw finally left and Captain McKelvy assumed command. This time, we no longer had potatoes but beans; we could not buy from the Commissary other than cigarettes and they stopped giving us fresh meat. Besides, our head-shaven cook had left and was replaced by Agramon, another companion of ours, who was paid a salary of 30 pesos; however, we were still able to ask the milkman and the servants of those who transferred to Agaña, and who came to visit us often, to do this favor for us, since they were allowed to ride in a car-ambulance that plies through Agaña and Piti (round trip) three times a day.

Then the prisoners ran out of money and the milkman stopped coming, because only a few were able to buy milk. Later, our companions’ servants in Agaña were prohibited from riding in the ambulance, which was solely intended for the Americans and the government service. First we appealed to Captain McKelvy and then to Mr. Pressey, Judge of the Court of First Instance and Assistant to the Governor, that we be supplied fresh meat, as it used to be during the time of Captain Shaw. They promised to do so, but this was never fulfilled.

Lastly, at the start of this month, the prisoners could no longer eat canned meat, no matter how they forced themselves, because they felt nauseated and wanted to vomit. I found out later that the cook, in agreement with the prisoners, did not want to get the ration of canned meat from the Commissary, which supply was to last for ten days. Thinking Captain McKelvy would be offended, I talked to Mr. Llanero, who, being the President, represented the prisoners, so that he could write the captain telling him that the canned goods have not been claimed and that he was advising him about this so that the goods would not be wasted, since the prisoners would not take them.

Captain McKelvy got mad, saying that the prisoners have no right to refuse what is given them; nevertheless, he gave us a supply of fresh meat for a period of three weeks. Then, the cook was ordered to receive the usual supply of canned meat, and we were forbidden to ask the head-shaven guys to buy for us anything, since the Commissary takes care of buying what we need. Our companions ordered the purchase of twenty pounds of meat. It cost them a lot of money but the meat already smelled rotten when delivered to them. On the other hand, those who wish to live in Agaña were not granted a permit. We spent Christmas of 1901 with these painful thoughts. This is not surprising to me, because we were brought here precisely to make us suffer. Much as I am willing to suffer everything, I’m afraid my sick and weak body cannot withstand a prolonged self-deprivation. Be that as it may, I am convinced I will die all by myself, when my country shall no longer need my services.

Mr. Pressey invited me twice to live in Agaña, saying I must not worry about the money, since I would have enough. I have refused these offers, thinking it improper to leave our companions during these critical times.

Besides, I must add that in the past few days, when our companions had just transferred to Agaña, several times the community received from them gifts in kind, such as meat, fish and other things. I remember Mr. Dimayuga in particular, who has often sent me meat and vegetables, etc.

Lastly, I remember Captains Shaw and McKelvy, who took the trouble of teaching us (me and some companions) English, whenever their work allowed them to. Some weeks ago, I had given up studying the language, on account of my poor nourishment, which has deprived me of my high spirits, thinking it would be futile to continue, if, in the end I should die here or return to the Philippines, very sick and incapable of doing something good.

Goodbye to you, 1901! You are leaving us with a sad memory, yet a painful mark in my heart. I welcome you, 1902! Let this year be less severe, not with me anymore, but with my companions and friends.’

30 August 1902
‘I have been notified by the Captain about a letter from the Governor, saying that the latter had no authority to send us to Manila, without having taken our oath. He says he must transmit my wishes to the Commander General of the Philippine Division through the next ship and most likely, the response will be received here by the end of December. If the reply is favorable, we could embark in January. Be patient, this could be “a blessing in disguise” as the saying goes. It is worth knowing that a proclamation of the President of the United States, endorsed by the branch Secretary, cannot be interpreted nor implemented to the letter.

21 September 1902
‘At about nine o’clock this morning, all my companions in exile boarded the ship Warren from San Francisco to Manila. It was a sad farewell and there were many who wept. We all wished them a happy trip and we hoped everyone would find the happiness that their hearts were longing for. Only Mr. Ricarte, Aquilino Randeza, my brother and I remained.’

23 September 1902
‘Yesterday, at past eleven in the morning, there was a very strong earthquake, the strongest and longest that I have felt in my life. This was followed by others of lesser intensity, occurring at intervals of 15 to 20 until this morning.

They say the tremor destroyed the following:

The two stone houses of the Filipino proprietor, Don Eulogio de la Cruz, which were completely destroyed; the house occupied by Messrs. Gerona and Dimayuga; another one occupied by Messrs. Trías and Simón Tecson; the new civil hospital; two stone houses occupied by the club; and the tribunal-house presently occupied by the Court.

Also destroyed were a portion of the house occupied by the owner, Mr. Dungca; the walls of the stone house which served as a government-house; the house of the Fiscal (roofing and the garden fence); the big college and the public school which had cracks; one side of the house that was occupied by Don Pablo Ocampo and Mauricio; the roofing and walls of the convent; and the tower which was split from top to bottom.

It is said that of the total houses in the whole town, only three or four remain habitable.

Big holes were formed in front of the Protestant church and in various areas. A long crack on the ground, starting from the sea cuts through the different parts of the town. Water gushed forth from some of these holes, inundating a street. Fortunately, there were no personal casualties.’