He was my diary

‘My diary again. It’s sad to be going back to old habits I gave up since I got married. I used to write when I felt depressed - now I suppose it’s for the same reason. Relations with my husband have been so simple these past two weeks and I felt so happy with him; he was my diary and I had nothing to hide from him.’ This is Sophia Tolstoy, born 170 years ago today, writing in her diary during the first weeks of her marriage to the famous Russian writer. She would go on to keep a diary for the rest of her life, often using it to vent her frustrations towards L. or Lev. Nik.

Sophia Behrs was born on 22 August 1844, one of a large family. Her father was a physician at the Russian court; her mother was nearly 20 years his junior. Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, already a well-known author in his 30s, became a regular visitor to the Behrs’ household, and, in September 1862 when Sofia was just 18, the couple married. They lived prosperously, on a large estate, at Yasnaya Polyana (200km from Moscow) with many serfs, and had 13 children, eight of whom survived childhood.

Sophia (Sofia, Sophie) was largely a devoted wife, managing her busy household and helping her husband with his manuscripts. The marriage lasted nearly 50 years, but a few days before his death, Tolstoy left the family home after an argument over a desire to give away his property. Sophia continued living on the estate, survived the Russian revolution in relative peace, and died in 1919. Further biographical information can be found at Internet Archive in The Autobiography of Sophie Tolstoi as published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf at The Hogarth Press, Paradise Road, Richmond in 1922. Otherwise, see Wikipedia, or Alexandra Popoff’s Sophia Tolstoy: a biography (Free Press in 2010) on Googlebooks, or reviews of the same book (see The New York Times, for example, or The Huffington Post).

Sophia kept a diary all her life - writing half a million words. For long periods, however, she only made intermittent entries: the most complete, but edited, version in English contains no entry, or just one entry, for 16 of the 48 calendar years. The fact that Tolstoy gave his teenage fiancée his diaries to read so as to conceal nothing from her - even his liaisons with servant girls, and his child by a woman who lived on his estate - is one of the most well known of literary diary stories. He bid her to keep a diary, and, thereafter, they wrote their diaries in order that the other should read them. Sophia, indeed, would try and communicate her anger and anxieties about their relationship to him through her diary; when happy, though, she would often fail to record anything.

Extracts from Sophia’s diary were first published in English in 1928 by Gollancz as The Diary of Tolstoy’s wife, 1860-1891 (translated by A. Werth), with a sequel - The Countess Tolstoy’s Later Diary 1891-1897 - the following year. In 1936, Allen & Unwin, published The Final Struggle, being Countess Tolstoy’s diary for 1910: With extracts from Leo Tolstoy’s diary of the same period (translated by A. Maude). More recently, in 1985, Cape published The Diaries of Sofia Tolstaya, as translated by Cathy Porter and edited by O. A. Golinenko. It was re-published in 1989 by Alma Books with a foreword by Doris Lessing (an informative review can be read on The Guardian website, and a few extracts can be found on the National Public Radio website).

The publisher’s advertising blurb for this latter edition states: ‘Sofia’s life was not an easy one: she idealized her husband, but was tormented by him; even her many children were not an unmitigated blessing. In the background of her life was one of the most turbulent periods of Russian history: the transition from old feudal Russia to the three revolutions and three major international wars. Yet it is as Sofia Tolstoy’s own life story, the study of one woman’s private experience, that the diaries are most valuable and moving. They are a testament to a woman of tremendous vital energy and poetic sensibility who, in the face of provocation and suffering, continued to strive for the higher things in life and to remain indomitable. From the state of the great writer’s stomach and the progress of his work, to the fierce and painful arguments that would eventually divide the couple for ever, Sofia’s Diaries are both compelling and extraordinarily revealing.’

The following extracts are taken from the Alma Books edition. (NB: the dates correspond to the old (Julian) calendar, i.e. 12 days behind the Western (Gregorian) calendar in the 19th century, and 13 days behind it in the 20th century.)

8 October 1862
‘My diary again. It’s sad to be going back to old habits I gave up since I got married. I used to write when I felt depressed - now I suppose it’s for the same reason.

Relations with my husband have been so simple these past two weeks and I felt so happy with him; he was my diary and I had nothing to hide from him.

But ever since yesterday, when he told me he didn’t trust my love, I have been feeling terrible. I know why he doesn’t trust me, but I don’t think I shall ever be able to say or write what I really think. I always dreamt of the man I would love as a completely whole, new, pure person. In these childish dreams, which I find hard to give up, I imagined that this man would always be with me, that I would know his slightest thought and feeling, that he would love nobody but me as long as he lived, and that he, like me and unlike others, would not have to sow his wild oats before becoming a respectable person.

Since I married I have had to recognize how foolish these dreams were, yet I cannot renounce them. The whole of my husband’s past is so ghastly that I don’t think I shall ever be able to accept it.’ [Before their marriage, Tolstoy had given Sophia all his old diaries to read because he did not want to conceal anything of his past. The diaries, apparently, made a terrible impression on the 18 year old.]

31 July 1868 [this is the only entry for 1868 in the published diaries]
‘It makes me laugh to read my diary. What a lot of contradictions - as though I were the unhappiest of women!. But who could be happier? Could any marriage be more happy and harmonious than ours? When I am alone in my room I sometimes laugh for joy and cross myself and pray to God for many, many more years of happiness. I always write my diary when we quarrel. There are still days when we quarrel, but this is because of various subtle emotional reasons, and we wouldn’t quarrel if we didn’t love each other. I have been married six years now, but I love him more and more. He often says it isn’t really love, but we have grown so used to each other we cannot be separated. But I still love him with the same poetic, fevered, jealous love, and his composure occasionally irritates me.’

4 June 1910
‘Too many visitors. Lev Nikolaevich is distraught because the Circassian guard has brought Prokofy in for stealing a beam, and he is an old man who once worked for him. Oh, I’ve had enough of the estate!’

28 October 1910
‘Lev Nik. has left! My God! He left a letter telling me not to look for him as he had gone for good, to live out his old age in peace. The moment I read those words I rushed outside in a frenzy of despair and jumped into the pond, where I swallowed a lot of water, Sasha and Bulgakov dragged me out with the help of Vanya Shuraev. Utter despair. Why did they save me?’

29 October 1910
‘All the children have come, apart from Lyova, who is abroad. They are so kind and attentive, but they can’t help or comfort me. Mitasha Obolensky has come. Seryozha, Ilya and Misha have left. Vanya discovered that L. Nik. had gone to Belev - maybe to see his sister Maria Nikolaevna.’

30 October 1910
‘I cry day and night and suffer dreadfully. It’s more painful and terrible than anything I could have imagined. Lev Nik. did visit his sister in Shamordino, then travelled beyond Gorbachevo - who knows where. What unspeakable cruelty.’

31 October 1910
‘I haven’t eaten or drunk anything for four days, I ache all over, my heart is bad. Why? What is happening? Nothing to write about - nothing but groans and tears. Berkenheim came with some stupid doctor called Rastorguev, and a young lady fresh from medical school. These outsiders make it much more difficult, but the children don’t want to take responsibility. What for? My life? I want to leave the dreadful agony of this life . . . I can see no hope, even if L. N. does at some point return. Things will never be as they were, after all he has made me suffer. We can never be straightforward with each other again, we can never love each other, we shall always fear each other. And I fear for his health and strength too.’

4 November 1910
‘Lev Nik. is worse. I wait in agony outside the little house where he is lying. We are sleeping in the train.’

5 November 1910
‘There is evidently little hope. I am tormented by remorse, the painful anticipation of his end, and the impossibility of seeing my beloved husband.’

7 November 1910
‘At 6 o’clock in the morning Lev Nikol. died. I was allowed in only as he drew his last breath. They wouldn’t let me take leave of my husband. Cruel people.’

22 August 1914
‘My sister Tanya arrived this morning, and her husband came for dinner. Today is my birthday; I am 70.’

7 September 1914
‘I wandered about aimlessly; I can’t do anything with this frightful war on, and my grief and worry for Tanya, my sons and Dora, who is due to give birth any day. I raked up piles of leaves for cattle bedding, gave the day-labourers their receipts and spent the evening doing accounts with Nina.’

27 September 1914
‘My sister is distraught because he son Mitya has also volunteered for the war, as an orderly. Incomprehensible hypnotism! We read aloud Matovitsky’s memoirs.’

30 September 1914
‘I did some typing for my sister. This evening Bulgakov read us his article protesting against the war. It is very good.’

2 October 1914
‘My sister Tanya has left. A beautiful still bright day. I went out and wandered around the estate. People have planted apple trees, gathered up brushwood, raked the dead leaves and swept them into four piles. We read papers. There were six visitors today - some officers and army doctors and two women. They looked round the drawing room and Lev Nik.’s rooms.’

18 October 1914
‘The American consulate has informed me that my grandson Misha has been taken prisoner in Milevic, in Bohemia.’

See also I have been indolent

Upper Slaughter’s squire

Francis Edward Witts, rector and squire of Upper Slaughter, in the Cotswolds, died 160 years ago today. Though not an especially remarkable character, he kept a diary for much of his life in which he recorded many details about the natural world, the people he met, the fast-changing society around him, and his own life. When it was first published in the 1970s, the publisher claimed it shed ‘new light on a fascinating period of social history’.

Witts was born in 1783, in Cheltenham, the eldest son of the high sheriff of Oxfordshire. His parents moved to Edinburgh in 1795; and between 1798 and 1800, the family spent their winters at the court of the grand duke of Saxe-Weimar, where Witts attended a school for foreign students. After returning to England, he studied at Wadham College, Oxford, and was ordained deacon in 1806 and priest in 1807. The following year, he married Margaret Backhouse, and they had one child.

Witts was rector of Upper Slaughter, Gloucestershire, from 1808 until his death, and was vicar of Stanway, about 10 miles away, from 1814 to 1854. He was also squire of Upper Slaughter, and became a long-serving justice of the peace. In 1852, he was appointed deputy lieutenant of Gloucestershire. He died on 18 August 1854. There is further biographical information available through the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (although this requires a library card log-in or a fee). The manor house he occupied is now a hotel called Lords of the Manor.

Most biographical information about Witts comes from his diaries, and it is unlikely he would be remembered but for those. He left some 90 notebooks which were first edited by David Verey and published in 1978 by Alan Sutton as The Diary of a Cotswold Parson. Verey acquired access to the notebooks through Francis Witts, a great-great-grandson of the diarist. In 2008, Amberley began publishing a fuller edition - The Complete Diary of a Cotswold Parson - as edited by Sutton, owner, at the time, of Amberley. Subsequently, two more volumes were published - a good summary of the full set of volumes can be found at the website of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society.

Verey writes in his introduction to the original edition: ‘. . . Maybe [Witts] confided his daily activities to his diary rather than to his wife. It must have occupied quite a considerable time in his busy life, as he wrote at unnecessary length to our way of thinking. To make every point twice may be good practice in a sermon, but not in a diary. In making my extracts therefore I have had to reduce his verbosity - though not I hope his wit - for the sake of our readers. I have also endeavoured to use only those passages which illuminate the history of the city and county of Gloucester, paying special attention to the people Witts met, for they were the breath of life and Witts was a social being. Particulars of his day-to-day work, which take up the greater par of what he wrote, have, therefore, to some extent been excluded from these pages, owing to a certain dryness and greater suitability for the serious social historian, as have also the descriptions of his travels in other parts of England which do not have any direct application to Gloucestershire.’

The ONDB says this of the diary’s contents: ‘[It] exhibits his full participation in local social and cultural life. Witts enjoyed dining out, and travelled in all weathers and by every means of conveyance - horse, phaeton, carriage, stagecoach, and steam train. He recorded new roads, buildings, and the spread of towns. Witts and his son both became keen botanists and conservationists, and he also helped organise the musical life of Cheltenham and Gloucester, attending many concerts. Quietly religious, Witts disapproved of hunting parsons and was generous to his parishioners. He records that he relied upon ‘three checks to the frailty of our nature; self-examination, prayer and professional study’.’

3 January 1820
‘Left Upper Slaughter for Bath in the hope that another course of the waters may essentially strengthen my dear wife’s constitution. Having sent forward my manservant and horse we travelled post with Edward and a maid. The weather very cold, frost and snow; more of the latter between home and Cirencester and between Petty France and Bath, than between Cirencester and Petty France. The road very slippery and though a horse fell in the chaise in the streets of Tetbury, we providentially escaped any accident.’

27 April 1821
‘The overseer of Halling brought up two gipsies, casual poor in their parish in order to their being examined to their settlement. Merach Lock the husband swore that he was born under an oak on Halling down as he had heard from his mother, being an illegitimate child and knowing nothing of his father; also that he was recently married to his wife Mary which whom he had cohabited twenty years, having by her six children. It seems that the Parish of Halling has little or no chance of proving him settled elsewhere. On examining the woman, she swore all the children to be Merach Lock’s - Lucas and Adam being born like their father in the Paris of Halling - Eve at Cold Ashton - Sarah at Brimpsfield - Temperance at Hawkesbury - Joanna at Cranham. The law was strictly interpreted and removal orders were made in respect of the last four children, sending them to their respective birth places.’

5 September 1826
‘The Stratford and Moreton railway was opened this day for the conveyance of goods from the former to the latter place, and a vast concourse of persons assembled at Moreton-in-Marsh. The market of this town, disused for a very long period, has on this occasion been revived with great spirit and will in some respects be injurious to the market at Stow-on-the-Wold. At an early hour in the evening all the provisions of the town were exhausted, the roasted ox demolished and neither bread nor beer to be had for love or money. The committee preceded the coal waggons with a band of music, and all was joyous. Behind the scenes, however, the proprietors have reason to mourn over mismanagement, exhausted means, and scant hopes even of distant remuneration; but the public will doubt be considerable gainers.’

29 September 1826
‘They say the march of intellect is wonderful these days. Men navigate by steam, tram carts travel by steam; but this is nothing to the present fashion of travelling by paper kites. To-day we witnessed the experiment made at Gloucester. For some days I had noticed two large paper kites hovering over the town. They were hoisted by a school master who amused himself with mechanical pursuits, letting off balloons etc. The wind being westerly, was favourable for an excursion to Cheltenham so he orders out his gig, or rather I think it was a four wheeled chair, attaches it to two paper kites, mounts with two or three companies and away they go, not very rapidly, not at a very regular pace, but progressing.’

2 April 1826
‘We walked to Over Bridge to view the site of the new bridge over the Severn, building under the direction of Mr. Telford, by the County. The work is in progress; many labourers, excavators, etc. were employed. On one side the masonry of an abutment is in a forward state, on the other they are driving the piles. There were collected great heaps of fine stone ready squared in large blocks, of different sorts, for the foundation and superstructure. A steam engine was erecting, and several cranes were in operation, lifting masses of stone from the barges in which they were conveyed.’

Sunset of rosy juices

Gerard Manley Hopkins, a Jesuit priest remembered largely for his innovative approach to writing poetry, was born 170 years ago today. He sometimes kept note-books, which, later in his life, became more like diaries. His diary entries are often dull (a few of them simply contain the one word, ‘Dull’!), though his daily obsession with describing the sky and the weather does lead him to wax rather lyrical. One sunset he describes, for example, as ‘of rosy juices and creams and combs.’

Hopkins, the oldest of nine children, was born on 28 July 1844, at Stratford near London into a high Anglican family. He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, during the time of the Oxford Movement, and chose to enter the Roman Catholic church in 1866. Two years later, he became a Jesuit priest, and, famously, destroyed all the poems he had written up to that point. He spent the next years training at various Jesuit houses. It was not until 1875 that he began writing poetry again, inspired by a German ship - with nuns aboard - that sank in a storm. The Wreck of the Deutschland would become one of his most famous poems.

After being ordained in 1877, Hopkins worked with the poor in Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow, then studied some more in London, before teaching classics at Stonyhurst College, Lancashire. In 1884, he was elected fellow of the Royal University of Ireland, and lectured in Greek and Latin at University College, Dublin. He died, aged only 44, from typhoid fever in 1889, by which time he had not published any of his poems. It was only in 1918, that a first volume of Hopkins’s poems appeared, thanks to a friend, another poet, Robert Bridges. ‘His experimental explorations,’ Wikipedia summarises, ‘in prosody (especially sprung rhythm) and his use of imagery established him as a daring innovator in a period of largely traditional verse.’ Further information is also available from The Poetry Foundation, The Victorian Web, a New York Times book review, or The London Review of Books.

Hopkins’s papers were first edited by Humphrey House in 1937, and published by Oxford University Press in one volume - The Notebooks and Papers of Gerard Manley Hopkins. It contained a journal and selections from diaries and other writings. In 1947, three more journal note-books came to light; and, in 1952, after the death of Hopkins’s last surviving brother, further papers were found, all of which led Oxford University Press to consider a new and more comprehensive edition. Humphrey House was called on to put the new edition together, but then he died, and so the task of completing the book  - The Journals and Papers of Gerard Manley Hopkins - was given to Graham Storey. It was published in 1959, and contains one chapter of about 70 pages called ‘Early Diaries (1862-6)’, and another of about 130 pages called ‘Journal (1866-75)’. Other chapters contain Hopkins’s essays and lecture notes, as well as his drawings and music.

In the early note-books, Hopkins sketches out poems, shows a playful interest in words, and often describes the clouds and sky. Most of the entries are just notes, and few of them are dated. In the later years, his journal does become more diary-like, but his interest in the sky continues unabated with many a poetical turn of phrase about the weather.

2 August 1867
‘Dull and cold; before sunset the west opened in yellow from the earth-line upwards, with a sharp edge to the blanket of clouds; then bright sunlight scattered on the trees.’

17 August 1867
‘West wind, which I heard someone describe as ‘lumpy and rolling heavy’, with a little rain on it; otherwise fine; near sunset drifts of small graceful white-rose and scaly clouds.’

17 August 1868
‘Dark, soft, and wet.’

7 January 1868
‘Fine and freezing; snow at night.’

23 January 1868
‘Dull.’

23 December 1869
‘Yesterday morning I was dreaming I was with George Simcox and was considering how to get away in time to ring the bells here which as porter I had to ring (I was made porter on the 12th of the month, I think, and had the office for a little more than two months). I knew that I was dreaming and made this odd dilemma in my dream; either I am not really with Simcox and then it does not matter what I do, or if I am, waking will carry me off without my needing to do anything - and with this I was satisfied.’

24 September 1874
‘Very bright and clear. I was with Mr. Rickaby on the hill above the house. All the landscape had a beautiful liquid cast of blue. Many-coloured smokes in the valley, grey from the Denbigh lime-kiln, yellow and lurid from two kilns perhaps on the shoulders of a hill, blue from a bonfire, and so on.

Afterwards a lovely sunset of rosy juices and creams and combs; the combs I mean scattered floating bats or rafts or racks above, the creams, the strew and bed of the sunset, passing north and south or rather north only into grey marestail and brush along the horizon to the hills. Afterwards the rosy field of the sundown turned gold and the slips and creamings in it stood out like brands, with jots of purple. A sodden twilight over the valley and foreground all below, holding the corner-hung maroon-grey diamonds of ploughfields to one keeping but allowing a certain glare in the green of the near tufts of grass.’

The Diary Junction

The Archduke’s travels

The Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated a century ago today by Serbian extremists. It was one of the most infamous acts in history since it led directly to the start of the First World War. What is much less well known, however, is that some years earlier the Archduke had undertaken a 10 month-long journey round the world, and kept a fascinating - if sometimes verbose - diary of his travels, expressing delight, for example, at seeing flying fish at sea, or moaning about uncomfortable London cabs in Sydney.

Franz Ferdinand was born in Graz, Austria, in 1863, the oldest son of Archduke Karl Ludwig, the younger brother of Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph. He was given the title Archduke of Austria-Este from birth. He began his military career at 12 years of age, rising quickly through the ranks, to be appointed a major general aged 31. Later, as heir-presumptive to the elderly emperor, he was inspector general of all Austria-Hungary’s armed forces.

In 1889, Crown Prince Rudolf (Emperor Franz Joseph’s son, and cousin to Franz Ferdinand) committed suicide, leaving Ludwig in line to inherit the throne. Ludwig immediately renounced the throne in favour of his son, Franz Ferdinand, and died soon after. Franz Ferdinand, however, had fallen in love with a woman, Countess Sophie Chotek, who was not considered eligible to marry a member of the Imperial House of Habsburg. After much negotiation and petitioning, the marriage, which took place in 1900, was allowed, but only under certain conditions: their descendants (they had three children) would have no succession rights to the throne; nor would Sophie share her husband’s rank, title, or privileges.

In this period of European history, Austria-Hungary was an empire full of tensions not only between the regions and their Hapsburg rulers, but between various ethnic groups at odds over religion and politics. Franz Ferdinand is known to have worried about these tensions, and the prospect of the empire disintegrating, and to have considered ideas for allowing the regions more say in government, and more autonomy. But he was not much liked by the people - his public persona is said to have been cold, sharped-tongued and short-tempered - and his political plans were no more popular among the ruling elites.

According to Wikipedia’s biography, Franz Ferdinand advocated a careful approach towards Serbia - repeatedly opposing hardliners in Vienna - warning that harsh treatment of the Serbs would bring Austria-Hungary into open conflict with Russia, to the ruin of both Empires. On Sunday, 28 June 1914, on a visit to Sarajevo, the capital of the Austro-Hungarian province of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Franz Ferdinand and Sophie were shot dead by Gavrilo Princip, one of a group of Serbian assassins. Another of the group had tried, earlier in the day, to bomb the Archduke’s motorcade, but that assassination attempt had failed. The group had been coordinated by Danilo Ilić, a Bosnian Serb, whose political objective was to break off Austria-Hungary’s south-Slav provinces so they could be combined into a Yugoslavia.

The assassination gave the Vienna hardliners an opportunity to move against Serbia and its fight for independence: Austria-Hungary demanded impossible reparations, and, failing to receive them, declared war on Serbia. The complex web of alliances in Europe, then, was activated as Russia declared war on Austria-Hungary, Germany declared war on Russia, and France and Britain declared war on Germany and Austria-Hungary. Thus did begin - on 28 July 1914 - World War I.

More information on the Archduke can be found at Wikipedia, and Bio. Wikipedia has a long entry about the assassination itself, and First World War has video footage of the Archduke arriving at the town hall in Sarajevo. See also media articles today: The Guardian, Washington Post, The Telegraph, BBC.

In late 1892 and 1893, Franz Ferdinand traveled around the world, partly, it is recorded, for medical reasons: the journey served both as a cover and as a means to recover. Science was the journey’s official purpose and Franz Ferdinand traveled under the alias of Count of Hohenberg on the torpedo ram cruiser Kaiserin Elisabeth. He was accompanied by over 400 people, ranging from a navy chaplain to a royal treasurer. Throughout the ten months of the journey, he kept a daily diary - often in considerable detail - and wrote more than 2,000 pages. The diary was published in two volumes in 1896 as Tagebuch Meiner Reise Um Die Erde, 1892-1893. It was reprinted in 2012 (copies available through Amazon, for example). The original 19th century volumes, though, can also be bought on Abebooks, at a price.

Franz Ferdinand’s diary was never translated into English. However, in 2013, Der Spiegel ran an informative article on the newly reprinted two volumes, and an English version of the article is available online. Much information about the Antipodean part of the Archduke’s journey and diary is also available thanks to Weekend Australian Magazine. In Vienna, the Welt Museum is celebrating the centenary of Franz Ferdinand’s death with a major exhibition on the Archduke’s journey based on his diaries.

Most significantly, the full text of Franz Ferdinand’s diary is being made freely available online and in English thanks to an unknown translator and editor (although he/she does provide an email address for contact). The editor states: ‘I invite you, Dear Reader, to follow Franz Ferdinand’s world tour of 1893, day by day, in a new translation into English. This is a work in progress and help is welcome.’

The Franz Ferdinand’s World Tour website is simple and easy to use, with information on the people who accompanied the Archduke, the ship he travelled in, and a chronological list of days with the date, the place, and a link to the diary’s entry for that day.

In the Archduke’s own preface to the 1896 publication, he wrote: ‘To collect all the thousands of impressions that assailed me and to remember in old age what I cherished as a young man, I wrote daily notes from its beginning of the voyage on. In this, I was also thinking about those who had remained at home. They who could not experience directly the incomparable allures were - if only in weak form - to find a means to participate indirectly in this journey across the world by my offer of my recollections. Thus, I offer my beloved ones and my friends my diary. It contains sights, experiences, thoughts, lessons and hopes to find a level of interest among those for whom it is intended to the extent that it induces affection and friendship.’

Here are a few extracts, the first a shorter entry characteristic of those made at sea, and the second, a longer entry from Franz Ferdinand’s first day in Sydney, which is more typical of the lengthy notes he made when visiting places on land.

3 April 1893
‘The sky was very cloudy and a rainsquall was pouring down in heavy drops, drumming against the deck but quickly evaporate in the heat. Church service was therefore held in the battery.

Still during the morning appeared the Sayer islands, Salang island off the Panga peninsula, in the afternoon the Brothers islands became visible. All these small islands seem to be of volcanic origin, viewed through a spyglass, and thickly covered with tropical vegetation.

During the day we observed tide rips or stream currents that are very common in the Strait of Malacca; these are wave movements that are caused by counter-currents that move in stripes across the otherwise quiet sea and make the steering much more difficult as they cause the ship to drift from its course. I might compare these currents to a quickly flowing watercourse in a sea that flings out foaming, dancing waves at the surface.

An outstanding number of flying fishes, large schools of dolphins as well as fish similar to tuna were mingling. The latter ones pursued, jumping out of the water, smaller fish while these in turn were followed by large birds similar to common dabs that I could not determine more precisely.

The evening was tepid and mild, so that I whiled away an hour on the bridge before I went to sleep, fanned by the the cool evening air, lost in the view of the southern starry sky which I consider by the way inferior in diversity, beauty and splendor of the zodiacs to the northern sky.’

16 May 1893
‘The youngest continent would not receive the sons of the old world in bad weather. As I arrived on deck at half past 6 o’clock, I found the sky clear and serene. The sun was just rising. The sea had calmed down to some degree. Various seagulls and sea swallows as well as large guillemots or penguins were swarming around our ship which was approaching the entrance to Sydney, Port Jackson. The day was gorgeous but the temperature was so low that we were well advised to wear warm coats. From afar we could see the two white shining capes or peninsulas - Outer North and South Head - through which the approach to the harbor leads. These peninsulas descend steeply into the sea with sharp rocky faces and cliffs. Splashing, the waves break against the shore. Hundreds of crag martins and common swifts were tweeting and circling above their nesting places. On Outer South Head is a light house. The entrance is rich in flashy direction obelisks. On a small steamboat the pilot was approaching toward us to take the position of our our old captain from Port Kennedy.

All the harbors that I have yet seen are surpassed in the beauty of its scenery by Sydney - a view shared also by the other gentlemen who saw it for the first time.

Despite many enthusiastic descriptions of Port Jackson we have received, the scenery that opened up before our eyes still surprised us and our astonishment and admiration grew minute by minute.

Having passed through the outlying mountains the ship enters into a narrow channel turns hard towards Southwest - and now there lies a delightful sound in front of us. In the distance the sea of houses of Sydney are glittering, to the right and left small bays are open, surrounded by green hills covered with trees and countless villas and country homes whose gardens were filled with splendid flowers in the calendar autumnal colors. Overall it creates an extremely lively and serene view. The bays are populated with steam boats, yachts and boats of all kinds whose passengers wave greetings to the entering “Elisabeth”. Truly, Australia could not have offered us a more welcoming reception! We saw this as a good sign for our stay which we were looking forward to in a very good mood.

The fine clear cool air that refreshed us contributed in no small part to the great first impression - doubly welcome after the sweltering humid heat of Java that flags both mind and body.

Our joyful mood was even more increased by the German consul general Pelldram, who also represented Austria-Hungary here at the moment and had come to greet us and handed us three messages at the same time.

The whole force of the sanitary police regulations which is applied especially against ships coming from Batavia we had to endure too. First we had to anchor in Watson Bay for the health assessment - a stay we did not have to regret due to the delightful surrounding landscape.

After we had been given permission to proceed, “Elisabeth” continued the journey alongside the picturesque bay shore whose ledges were crowned by small forts and batteries - which seemed to me of subordinate fortification value. We then passed Garden Island with its arsenal and the navy yard of the Australian war fleet as well as Woolloomooloo Bay and then moored at a buoy amidst the warships of the Australian squadron at Farm Cove between Lady Macquarie’s Chair and Fort Macquarie.

The coastal defense is undertaken by the ships of the British navy stationed in Australian waters, the Australian Auxiliary Squadron and of warships in the service of the colony. According to the Australasian Naval Force Act of 1887 the Australian colonies pay an annual contribution of 1,092,000 fl. in Austrian currency to the British government for it to provide the Australian Auxiliary Squadron. Furthermore the construction costs borne by the British government for the ships of this squadron carries an interest of 5 percent paid by the colonies but the overall annual interest is not allowed to surpass 420.000 fl. in Austrian currency. This Auxiliary Squadron consists of 5 fast cruisers and 2 torpedo cannon boats and is commanded by a British Rear Admiral who also is in command of the squadron of the ships of the British navy stationed in Australian waters. This squadron consists of 1 armored ship, 3 cruisers, 3 cannon boats and 1 steam yacht; its main station is Sydney. The war fleet owned by the Australian colonies consists in total of 1 armored ship, 2 cruisers, 4 cannon boats, 13 torpedo boats, 2 torpedo barges and 7 steam boats; the majority of theses ships belongs to Victoria and Queensland, while New Zealand does not own any warship.

Next to us was moored the proud British ship of the admiral, the armored cruiser “Orlando“, with 5600 t; next to it followed the cruiser “Royalist” and the cruiser “Mildura” of the Australian Auxiliary Squadron besides the cannon boat “Boomerang” and the cannon boat “Paluma” owned by the colony of Queensland which is used at shared cost by the colony and the British government to map the coast. On these ships our anthem rang out accompanied by the sound of the guns.

In a short time appeared Lieutenant Governor Sir F. M. Darley, accompanied by his adjutant and cabinet secretary, and soon afterward the commander of the royal squadron, Rear Admiral Bowden-Smith, as well as the mayor of Sydney, Mr. Manning, came on board to greet me. The governor himself had been recalled to England after only two years of service. His successor is bound to arrive soon. Numerous compatriots namely Istrians and Dalmatians who are doing business in Sydney came on board of “Elisabeth” to look for and find friends and acquaintances.

Dispositions for the next few days were quickly made. Then a boat brought me on land to set foot on the soil of the colony of New South Wales and visit its capital, the oldest city of Australia.

Sydney, which lies on the South coast of Jackson Bay that cuts deeply into the land, is situated on a couple of hills - imposing by the number and size of its buildings - and then by and by blends into villa settlements and the green of the landscape. Founded in 1788 as the seat of the penal colony of New South Wales, Sydney - originally Port Jackson, then named in honor of the secretary of state Viscount Sydney - has grown tremendously namely during the last few years. The population increase of Sydney is best illustrated by the following numbers: In 1800 Sydney had barely 2600 inhabitants, in 1861 95.596, in 1881 already 237.300, on 31 December 1892 including the suburbs already 411.710 inhabitants.

As an important trading and industrial center Sydney owes its rise mostly to the safety and size of its harbor which handles more than three quarters of the total imports and more than half the exports of the colony of New South Wales. In the year 1892 2960 ships with 2,804.549 t entered here and 3067 ships with 2,842.635 t departed; the imports of the colony represented in this year a total value of 249,318.312 fl. in Austrian currency, the exports one of 263,666.964 fl. in Austrian currency.

The boat landed below Government House at Fort Macquarie where the road led along a quay to the city. On this quay there was a very busy life as the large steamers of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company as well as those of the Messageries maritimes are moored and are next to the warehouses of many floors in which wool bales and hides were loaded in and out without interruption. Viewed from the quay the two main streets and main traffic veins of Sydney, George Street und Pitt Street, cross the center of the city running parallel from North to South. Even though many streets are arranged in a grid, this monotonous regularity of modern city design is not much noticed as Sydney is situated on hills which continuously changes the scenery of the streets.

Among the many public buildings of Sydney all built in stone I mention the most remarkable: the university, a colossal building with a grandiose hall in Gothic style which rises at the North end of the beautiful Victoria Park, the cathedral and the newly built Catholic Church of Maria, the splendid Town Hall, the palatial post office with its colonnades and a large tower, the museum next to Hyde Park and finally the parliament.

Pretty houses, many with balconies and verandas, and shops on the ground floor where European goods are sold, line the macadamized streets where a busy crowd is going here and there. The streets are highly urban and still very cozy and friendly. Not the least because the visitor thinks to be in a European city as he sees but white faces, among them especially beautiful women and girls - an agreeable view after the colored and in our opinion not very attractive physiognomy of the natives of the countries we had recently visited.

The streets are very busy which is easy to understand in the case of Sydney as an important trading place. The only thing I find fault with is that they have introduced London cabs that are very uncomfortable for its passengers.

The acquisitions we had to do were fully made in the European manner. The transactions went smoothly and quickly and we appreciated not having to search and haggle for hours as in Bombay, Calcutta, Singapore and Batavia.

Then I paid a visit to the Lieutenant Governor in Government House built in Tudor style and distinguished in its interior by its noble calm elegance of its furnishings. Sir F. M. Darley speaks German fairly well which eased the conversation very much. He showed me the garden of the palace which offers a delicious view of the harbor and Mossmans Bay opposite it with its villa quater of St. Leonard. The garden is well kept and contains a rich collection of Australian tree and bush species.

The next visit was devoted to - I suffer from museum addiction - the museum housed in an imposing building and distinguished by the richness, correct arrangement and good conservation of its objects. As I was first interested in the especially Australian species, I turned towards the mammals to study namely the strange class of marsupials. Among the well stuffed animals were represented various kangaroo and wallaby species, from the giant kangaroo to the lovely rock wallaby (Petrogale penicillata), oppossums, the flying squirrels, various species of quoll and possums, the Australian koala, wombat, dugong, the wild dog dingo or warragal and the platypus.

The bird world of Australia is completely represented. Noteworthy are: the New Dutch cassowary or emu; the rare lyrebird; the numerous species of intensely colored cockatoo and parrots, as well as the group of swamp and water fowl which included many species of which I was unaware. Australia seems to be poor in predator birds and chicken species according to the survey presented in the museum while the order of the pigeons has beautiful specimens. One well stuffed specimen of every bird species is presented in a glass cabinet. Thousands of bird bodies, however, are kept in chests to serve as exchange objects from time to time.

The museum possesses too a rich collection of corals and shells, of beetles and butterflies and finally an ethnographic one of objects from the continent and the islands of Australia which I intended to see during a second visit.

In the mean time, the clock struck five, a time where the streets of Sydney are filled with the vivid traffic as the inhabitants of this city tend to go out into the open air at that time.

Following this example we ambled in Hyde Park and in George Street until it was time for the table d’hôte at the Australian Hotel which I intended to attend.

This giant building six floors high resembles in construction, dimensions and installations the English and American hotels but with the agreeably appreciated difference that one did not have to rely only upon English cooking of roast beef and anodyne vegetables but was well supplied with food and drink. The table d’hôte reunited in a large hall a large company. The gentlemen were, according to English custom, wearing dress coats, the ladies even in mostly low-cut festive dresses. Not much laudable can be said about the dinner music performed by some artists who elicited awful sounds out of their instruments.

As the operetta theater that it was said offered good performances was closed and a circus had just left Sydney the day before, there were only two entertainment locations for us who had been deprived of “artistic” divertissement for a long time - the two music halls “Tivoli” and “Alhambra” in which popular singers, among them also Negroes, and female dancers produced themselves in front of the audience that applauded in the manner of the land by shrill whistling and was not particularly distinguished. The audience consisted mostly of workers, sailors and small business men.’

23 August 1893
‘In the morning I again tried my luck to do some shopping in Yokohama and in fact this time guided by the kind Baron Siebold who was completely familiar with Japan and all its aspects thanks to his stay of many years here and also speaking the Japanese language. Unfortunately my efforts were unsuccessful as I tried in vain to find silk and brocade like I bought in Kyoto. I everywhere received the answer that the cloth would have to be ordered first from Kyoto. In contrast I managed to enlarge the board menagerie with lovely white bantams - a full aviary - and enlarge it with one of the already rare cock with their tails of multiple meters in length. I also sent two very cute bears on board that soon became the darlings of the crew and learned in the shortest time to wait in place. Hopefully they arrive at our home healthy as they are intended to be the grace and live in the castle moat at Konopiste.

In the afternoon I wanted to be back in Tokyo and, to evade the lurking eyes of the police, sent Clam and Pronay directly to the capital where they too were festively received by a crowd of over a thousand people and a corresponding contingent of policemen, while I with Siebold exited at the next to last stop and entered Tokyo in rickshaws. The maneuver succeded too so that we could spend a few hours fully unrestricted and eat a dinner in a restaurant of the beautiful Ueno park.’

Russian cavalry and jams

Sir Robert Laird Borden, the eighth Canadian prime minister who played a key role in overseeing his country’s status from colony to nation, was born 160 years ago today. He wrote daily diary entries during the war years which, though brief and often skittish - jumping, for example, from the state of Russian Cavalry to his liking of jam - provide plenty of insight into Borden the man as well as Borden the politician.

Borden was born on 26 June 1854, and educated in the farming community of Grand-Pré, Nova Scotia, Canada. He worked first as a teacher, but then was articled for four years to a Halifax law firm, being called to the Nova Scotia Bar in 1878. He moved to Kentville to join a law firm, and a few years later, to Halifax, to join another one, becoming senior partner in 1889. That same year, he marred Laura Bond, but they would have no children.

Increasingly successful, Borden represented many of the important Halifax businesses, and sat on the boards of various financial companies. In 1896, he helped found the Canadian Bar Association in Montreal; and, by the time he entered politics, he was a wealthy man - his legal practice was considered by some to be the largest in the so-called Maritime Provinces (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island).

Borden first entered parliament as a Conservative in 1896; and in 1901 he assumed the leadership of the Conservative Party. For a decade or so he worked to reform the party, but he failed to win power in the 1908 election. He did, however, succeed in 1911 with an appeal for loyalty to the British Empire rather than closer ties to the US. In 1914, Borden was knighted by King George V, and, in fact, was the last Canadian prime minister to receive the honour.

Borden’s leadership skills though were tested with the onset of the First World War. His wartime government was responsible for the Emergency War Measures Act, the nationalisation of the Canadian Northern Railway, and, after a general election and the forming of a unity government, the Military Service Act in 1917 for conscription. Internationally, he also had a significant impact. He could see how Canada was able to assert itself as an independent power; and thus, in the post-war negotiations, he demanded a separate seat at the Paris Peace Conference. This idea was initially opposed by Britain and the US, but Borden stuck to his position, which led to all the dominions - not just Canada - being able to sign the Treaty of Versailles, and receiving separate membership in the League of Nations.

Borden was Chancellor of McGill University from 1918 to 1920, and, after his retirement from politics in 1920, he was appointed Chancellor of Queen’s University (1924 to 1930). He continued with his business interests, and some statesmanship activities (he represented Canada, for example, at the Washington Naval Conference in 1922 and signed the resulting arms reduction treaty on Canada’s behalf). He died in 1937. Further biographical information is available online at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, The Canadian Encyclopaedia or Wikipedia

Library and Archives Canada (LAC) holds an original set of diaries written by Borden while he was prime minister, covering the years 1912 to 1918. Recently, the Memorial University of Foundland has digitised a transcribed copy of the diaries, also held by LAC, and made it freely available online.

In her introduction to the online diaries, Dr Kathryn Rose explains: ‘Borden’s diaries are not nearly as personal as historians might wish for, but they highlight themes and issues that he addressed on a regular basis, and provide insight to his approach. Borden, despite his years as a practicing lawyer, was not comfortable with debate or public speaking. He regularly documents the praise received for his addresses, and was quick to comment on the skills of others. His appreciation for the men who served was constant - he enjoyed displays of strength and patriotism of regular parade. More interesting, however, was Borden’s handling of his caucus, particularly the members from Quebec. He constantly dealt with battling members, a situation that often ended in tears, and not from Borden.’

6 August 1912
‘Motored back to London with Laura. Aitken and Bonar Law who smoked all the way. Worked at correspondence all afternoon. Called on Lloyd George by appointment. Had interesting conversation. He talked like a strong Imperialist. Thinks Great Britain will never accept protection. Believes Canada can get a preference in transportation but has no very clear ideas as to mode.’

7 August 1912
‘Parliament expected to prorogue today. Played golf on Combe Hill links with Bonar Law and Aitken. Very good links. Bonar Law good steady player. In Afternoon discussed several questions with Churchill and told him everything depended on strength of his statement. He promised to give it personal attention. Told him I was going to Scotland.’

8 August 1912
‘This morning saw Asquith by appointment. He took me all over official residence. Portrait of every Cabinet Minister. One in office only three days. Discussed visit to Germany. He thinks idle to go there with hope of doing any good. Told him that oar action on naval question depended on Churchill’s statement. He said Churchill was good at such work.’

9 August 1912
‘Delegation as to selection of an Irish port as an ocean terminus. Large number present. Arranged to go to Barrow in Furness, Newcastle and Glasgow next week. Am to receive freedom of City of Glasgow.’

10 August 1912
‘Motored to Lord Roberts. Charming place near Ascot. Met Sir Arthur Wilson and others. Delightful luncheon party. Afterwards motored to Cliveden. Discovered that Mrs. Astor had invited the King on Sunday to meet us. He could not come.’

25 June 1914
‘Returned this morning to find that yesterday afternoon there was a tremendous electrical storm and cloudburst in Ottawa. Our new paths on bank of Rideau almost completely demolished. Hindoo question again to the fore and after consultation with White and Burrell drafted a telegram of instructions. Afterwards White talked earnestly to me of his desire to retire. I told him I wished to do the same. Congratulations still pouring in. Played golf with White 5 to 6:30.’

26 June 1914
‘Further confce with White as to Canadian Northern and GTP mortgages. Discussed with Ackland the situation respecting GTP machinists and sent strong telegram to Chamberlain. Answered many telegrams of congratulations as to my birthday. Wrote to Farquar as to departure of Duke and arrival of new GG. In afternoon laid cornerstone of Perley Home for Incurables.’

1 January 1916
‘A rather melancholy New Year with both of us confined to bed under charge of Doctor and trained nurse. Pain still very severe at times. The nurse, Miss McCurdy, seems very faithful and competent. If I make the slightest movement in the night she is at the door at once. My message to the Canadian people published today seems to be very well received. Many telegrams of congratulation, one especially fervent from Dr. Chown, one also from Hon. Edw. Brown, a member of the Manitoba Gov’t. News from front unimportant but Russians seem to be fathering way. Asquith evidently having great difficulty with his conscription measure which threatens to disrupt his Gov’t.’

24 May 1916
‘Waked very early. Delightful water in lake for bathe if one could plunge in quickly. Glorious air. Read and walked around grounds during forenoon. Late in afternoon Rhodes and I started for Left Blower. I caught one grey on fly but no success either there or at Right Bower or Cedar Bay. Mail arrived during forenoon. Nothing very eventful reported. Russian Cavalry had joined British in Mesopotamia. Rhodes says Tiptrees jams &c much better than Cross and Blackwells. Apricot Brandy and Cherry Whisky liqueurs very good. Mrs Yank broils trout very excellently. Splits them, removed backbone and broils in olive oil. Weather very cool and breezy.’

26 June 1918
‘Attended at Imp. War Confce for half an hour in effort to expedite proceedings. Interview with Lord Mayor of York who desires to confer freedom of city. [. . .] Then Confce with Capt. Straight, Capt. Morrison and Lieut. Gunn, repatriated prisoners from Germany who gave thrilling accounts of their experiences. Saxons decent and even kind, Hanoverians cruel and brutal, even more so than Bavarians; Prussians worst of all. Then interview with Long and told him of our conclusions as to means of communication and status of Dominions; direct sam’n to Prime Minister, He admitted need of change but doubted P.M.s time. Then to War Com. where we discussed memo to be submitted to Grand Allied Council respecting Russia, labour men abolished political truce today. Dined at Lord Curzon’s.’

21 December 1918
‘Fine in morning. Early at office. Several callers. Jones came with draft tlgm as to purchase of 800,000 standards of lumber by British Govt and I approved of sending it to White. Dafoe came with draft tlgm. as to naval matters which I also approved. It gave particulars of my action on behalf of Dominions last summer. Hankey brought for my consideration draft of minutes of last Imp. War Cabinet and I gave him suggestions as to revision. [. . .] Worked at documents for Cabinets on Monday and Tuesday, especially Smuts interesting paper on League of Nations. Walked 4 to 5:30. In evening went to Wyndham’s Theatre to see “The Law Divine”; very interesting and remarkably well acted.’

Astronautics is my life

Archie Edmiston Roy, a Scottish astronomer, was born 90 years ago today. Although successful and widely published as an astronomer, he was better known to the public for his investigations of psychic phenomena, being dubbed the ‘Glasgow Ghostbuster’. He died less than two years ago; and at a memorial service, one of his sons chose to read extracts from a diary showing his father was already obsessed by ‘astronautics’ as a teenager.

Roy was born on 24 June 1924, the son of a draughtsman at a shipyard in Clyde, Scotland. He was educated locally, and at Glasgow University. He became a teacher before joining the university’s astronomy department in 1958, rising to a professorship in 1977. He married Frances and they had three sons.

In the 1960s and 1970s, as a consultant to Nasa, Roy was involved with the moon-landing project. He was the author of several world-renowned textbooks and over 70 scientific papers on astronomy, as well as on neural networks and models of the brain. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Royal Astronomical Society, and the British Interplanetary Society; and he was honoured with having an asteroid - (5806) Archieroy - named after him.

However, Roy became better known for his psychical research, especially after the release of the Hollywood film Ghostbusters which led to the media labelling him ‘the Glasgow Ghostbuster’. He was often invited to investigate supposed haunted houses in Scotland and sometimes to banish ghosts or poltergeists. He became president of the Society for Psychical Research and Founding President of The Scottish Society for Psychical Research. In 2004 he was awarded the Myers Memorial Medal by the Society for Psychical Research. One of his last books, The Eager Dead - A Study in Haunting with a foreword by Colin Wilson, was published in 2008.

In addition to his two main professional interests, Roy also tried his hand at fiction, and published several novels during the 1970s. He died in December 2012. Further biographical information is available from Wikipedia, The Scotsman, The Guardian, The Telegraph, or the Association for Evaluation and Communication of Evidence for Survival.

In March last year (2013), a memorial service was held for Roy at the Glasgow University Chapel. A full report was published in Frontiers magazine. The Astronomer Royal for Scotland, Professor John C Brown, spoke on Roy’s achievements, not least that he had remained a university tutor for nearly 60 years. ‘He had an ability to focus - to penetrate deeply into something he was fascinated by,’ Brown said, whether an astronomical problem or issues in psychic research and the paranormal. His investigations convinced him that existence did not end with death, and he used to enjoy summing it up by saying: ‘If I die and I find out I have not survived, I will be very surprised!’

One of Roy’s sons, Ian, also spoke, and he referred to a diary kept by his father when still a teenager. Ian explained that, at the age of 17, his father had contracted tuberculosis and was subsequently interned at Bridge of Weir sanatorium. It was there that he started to keep a journal: ‘What was most striking from his writing at this time - aged only 19 - was his complete commitment to his chosen science and his determination to return, against all odds, to Glasgow University to pursue his passion, at a time when TB was more than likely to claim the life of sufferers and when his primary interest in ‘astronautics’ was considered little more than fantastical by the mainstream. So, I’d like to share a couple of entries from this diary which I feel best illustrate this part of his life and which I have found both fascinating and humbling.’

10 August 1944
‘On Saturday, Mother, when we were walking along the Bottom Avenue, asked me whether I would not like to enter business, and certainly I feel myself that I have a business mind, although I am simultaneously so romantic in temperament. Mother’s idea was that, as the possessor of a shop or two, I would be my own employer and, if I felt at any time, not entirely fit, I could take a rest from work. It appears to me that there are several flaws in Mother’s argument but at the same time, the prospect of building up a successful business has its appeal.

My mother, of course, has no idea as yet, of my own plans and it with these ambitions before me that I have been debating the usefulness of taking her advice. I have come to the conclusion after some thought, that the course of returning to the university, and studying maths, physics, chemistry and astronomy, is the more certain way of furthering my astronautical career. If I entered business, I might in that way, run the lower risk of breaking down in health again, but I cannot see how it helps my plans. I might find spare time enough to make astronautics my hobby, but the idea has no appeal. Astronautics is my life, and returning to my studies being the best way of serving that science, I shall go back to the University.’

16 January 1945
‘I am home. I arrived here yesterday at five, and even now, on Tuesday evening, I find it hard to believe that I am awake. Bridge of Weir seems to be a dream, though I shall never forget it or the people I met there.

Before I left, I had a long talk with the Chief. He was very kind, wanting to know my plans for the future. I told him I wanted to go back to study Maths, Science and kindred subjects. I did not tell him I meant to devote my life to astronautics. I wanted him to let me home, not send for a mental specialist.’

2 September 1945
‘Father paid the bills but only after the telephone was cut off. He was asking me about my fees for the Varsity. He didn’t seem too happy about them.

I had a letter from the Registrar saying that a place has been kept for me so if all goes well, I start in October. Strewth! How unsettled I feel at times. At others I think of the goal I have set myself and decide that nothing will stop me.’

And so made significant

Sir John Cheke, an English classical scholar and statesman, was born exactly 500 years ago today. He left behind no diaries, but he is credited with influencing Edward VI - the Boy King who died aged only 15 - to keep a diary. King Edward’s diary is one of earliest surviving English diaries, and is all the more remarkable for having been written by a teenager who was also a reigning monarch. Remarkable, too, is the fact that we have some idea of why Cheke advised the young man to keep a diary. 

John Cheke was born on 16 June 1514 in Cambridge, the son of Peter Cheke an administrator at the university. He was educated at St John’s College, where he excelled at Latin and Greek, became a fellow, and became a protestant. Dr William Butts, a friend of his father, was also a great friend and counsellor to John. He spoke highly of the young man to King Henry VIII, who gave him an exhibition [grant] in 1538 to aid his studies. Two years later, on Henry VIII’s foundation of the regius professorships, Cheke was elected to the chair of Greek.

In 1544, Cheke was confirmed as tutor to the young Prince Edward to teach him, according to documents in the famous Cotton Library (part of the British Library), ‘of toungues, of the scripture, of philosophie and all liberal sciences’. He left Cambridge to live in the prince’s household, and continued as Edward’s tutor after he became king in 1547, until 1549. Also, in 1547, Cheke married Mary Hill, and they would have three sons.

Cheke increasingly became more active in public life: he sat as member for Bletchingley for two short parliaments; he was made provost of King’s College, Cambridge; he was one of the commissioners for visiting Cambridge and Oxford universities and Eton College; and he was appointed to help with draw up a body of laws for the governance of the church. He was knighted in 1551, and in 1553 the new and protestant queen, Lady Jane Grey, made him one of her secretaries of state, and he joined the privy council.

On the accession of Mary, a Catholic, however, just days later, Cheke lost his positions and was, briefly, imprisoned in the Tower of London. On his release, he fled abroad, living mostly in Strasbourg. He published further papers on Greek pronunciation, but was beset with debts and concerns over the lack of provision for his family. He continued, however, to oppose Mary’s Catholic regime, and was arrested again, in Belgium, and imprisoned in the Tower. There, faced with the prospect of death by burning, he publicly and humiliatingly recanted his Protestant faith - providing Mary with a propaganda coup. He died of shame - or so it is said - soon after, in 1557. Further information can be found at Wikipedia, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (log-in required), or from John Strype’s 1821 biography, The Life of the Learned Sir John Cheke, freely available at Internet Archive.

More about Edward VI’s historically valuable diary - some extracts and links to online texts - can be found in another Diary Review article. Here, though, is a passage from Strype’s biography explaining Cheke’s advice to the young King Edward VI to keep a diary:

‘And that all King Edward’s transactions, and the emergencies of his kingdom, whether public or private, might be the better remembered by him, (whereby his experience might be the greater,) Cheke directed him to keep a diary of all occurrences of weight; and to write down briefly, under each day of every month, debates in Council, despatch of Ambassadors, honours conferred, and other remarks, as he thought good: and this, we may conclude, produced that excellent Journal of this King preserved in the Cotton library, and printed thence by Bishop Burnet. And, to set forth the benefit of keeping of such a day’s book, Cheke is said to use this aphorism, “That a dark and imperfect reflection upon affairs floating in the memory, was like words dispersed and insignificant; whereas a view of them in a book, was like the same words digested and disposed in good order, and so made significant.” ’

The Diary Junction

Senior’s conversations

Nassau William Senior, a London lawyer better remembered as a pioneer of political economic thinking, died 150 years ago today. He had a great liking for travel in his later years, and kept detailed journals of his trips. However, these diaries are very unusual for being less a tourist narrative of what he saw, than a record of the informed and intelligent conversations he had with people everywhere he went.

Senior was born in 1790 at Compton, Berkshire, the eldest son of a vicar, and educated at Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford. After achieving a first in classics, he  focused on a career in the law. As pupil to Edward Sugden, later lord chancellor, he became a certificated conveyancer, and then, in 1817, once Sugden had become master of chancery, he took over the practice. He was called to the bar in 1819. Two years later, he married Mary Charlotte Mair. They set up home in Kensington Square, and then, a few years later, built a larger house at Hyde Park Gate.

In the late 1810s, Senior began writing articles for the Quarterly Review on legal and literary subjects, but then, in 1821, he published one on the state of agriculture. This drew favourable attention from economists, and led on to him becoming a member of the recently-formed Political Economy Club. In 1825, he was appointed to the newly-created Drummond professorship of political economy at Oxford. He explained, in his introductory professorial lecture, that his interest in political economy was largely motivated by humanitarian concern for the poor, and by a conviction that understanding the causes of poverty was an essential preliminary to relieving it. He held the chair till 1830, and then again from 1847 to 1852. Many of his lectures were published as pamphlets, or included in his first book, Outline of the Science of Political Economy (1836). He was also an examiner in political economy at London University, which elected him to a fellowship in 1836.

In parallel to his legal practice and academic work, Senior was a regular adviser to the Whig party, and he was called upon by the government, as early as 1830, to sit on various commissions and undertake various reports, the first of which was on the laws relating to strikes and trade combinations. He also worked on a major report concerning the condition of the handloom weavers.

Senior refused various of offers - a knighthood, a Canadian governorship, and a place on the new poor-law board - but he did accept an appointment in 1836 as one of the twelve masters of chancery, a post that gave him an annual lifetime salary of £2,500. He was friends with many influential European intellectuals and statesmen of the time, and travelled often abroad. One of his last services to government, in 1857, was to serve on a royal commission concerning popular education. He died on 4 June 1864. Further information is freely available from Wikipedia, the Dictionary of National Biography (out-of-copyright version), or the Economic Theories website.

Later in his life, as mentioned above, Senior often went on European tours, during which he kept detailed diaries. During these tours, Senior went out of his way to meet and talk with as many people as he could, often those in positions of power or influence, or with some special knowledge/experience, but not always; and he made a particular note of recording these conversations in his diaries. Indeed, the published diaries contain far more transcribed conversations than they do texts of his own personal narrative.

Senior published one book of his diaries during his own lifetime: A Journal kept in Turkey and Greece in the Autumn of 1857 and the Beginning of 1858 (Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts, 1859). This is freely available at Internet Archive. In his own preface, Senior says: ‘The following pages contain extracts from a Journal which I kept in Therapia, The Troad, Smyrna, and Athens, in the autumn and winter of 1857-1858, It was written with no view to publication; but, as it throws light on questions of political importance, I think that I ought not, under present circumstances, to withhold it.’

Three further books of Senior’s diaries were edited after his death by his daughter (M. C. M. Simpson), and each one published in two volumes: Journals, Conversations and Essays relating to Ireland (Longmans, Green and Co., 1868); Journals kept in France and Italy from 1848 to 1852, with a Sketch of the Revolution of 1848 (Henry S. King and Co., 1871); and Conversations and Journals in Egypt and Malta (Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington, 1882). Whereas the transcribed conversations, as recorded by Senior, in the early published book flow within the daily diary entries, this is not true of the diaries edited by his daughter, in which the conversation texts have been published with titles (i.e. the subjects of the conversations) and as if they were a printed interview.

Here are several extracts from A Journal kept in Turkey and Greece, (generally, the entries which include conversations are too long to include here).

13 September 1852
‘We took the omnibus to Kilrush, and the steamer from thence to Tarbert, where we were forced to sleep, there being no means of getting on to Killarney the same day. The inn, however, though simple and unpretending, is excellent. The town is poor, but beautifully situated on an eminence overlooking the Shannon, and surrounded by woods.

When Bonaparte was at Elba, a Captain Flynn, of the Royal Navy, was presented to him. He asked Flynn (as was his custom) where he was born.

“On the banks of the Shannon,” answered Flynn. “Ay,” said Bonaparte, “the Shannon is a grand river, one of the finest in Europe, though you make little use of it. During the Peninsular War, all the grain-ships for the supply of your army in Spain used to rendezvous and lie at a little port in the Shannon, called Tarbert. Below the anchorage you have a 14-gun fort, well-built and strong. But a little lower down on the river is a hill, which overlooks and commands it. A small force might easily land in the night and occupy that hill, and then your fort would be useless.”

I verified these facts to-day. There is the anchorage, the small fort, beautifully placed on a little green conical eminence, and the unoccupied hill behind it, within musket-shot, from which you can look down into the fort, and could pick off every man at the guns.

The young women at Tarbert have the usual beauty of the South of Ireland. I met two girls this evening, bare-foot, ragged, but with the figures and walk of princesses - at least of the princesses of fairy-tales - regular features, and bright ruddy complexions. Simple food, an open-air life, and the absence of stimulants, of hard labour, of stays, and of superfluous clothing, are great beautifiers.’

15 September 1852
‘The Muckross Hotel is ill-situated. The woods of Mr. Herbert’s beautiful place, Muckross Abbey, cut off the view of the lakes. [. . .] We dined with Mr. Herbert. I spoke of the waste state of the greater part of the land between Tarbert and Killarney.

“It is much worse than waste,” said Mr. Herbert. “All that man has done there is mischief. Much of the land which you saw yesterday is good land. Ragweed, indeed, does not flourish on any other. But in order to make it worth cultivating, the first thing to be done is to level the innumerable mounds with which the misdirected industry of its occupiers has intersected it; and the next is to relieve it from the exhaustion to which the alternation of oats and potatoes, and the permanence of weeds, unaccompanied by manure, have reduced it.”

We talked of the squalid appearance of Killarney its ragged half-starved population, and ruinous houses. I said that it reminded me of Fondi or Itri, or the other desolate dilapidated towns between Gaeta and Rome. He thought that I did injustice to Fondi. Wretched as it is, it seemed to him less wretched than Killarney.

“To what,” I said, “do you attribute the peculiar misery of Killarney?”

“I do not think,” answered Mr. Herbert, “that it is peculiarly miserable for an agricultural town in the South of Ireland without trade or manufactures. The deserted houses are the results of death or emigration. The half-starved and quarter-clothed loungers about the streets are attracted thither from the neighbouring country by the hope of casual employment from visitors. What may be called the middle classes - that is, those above the labourers and cottiers - spent the greater part of their little capital during the famine, the successive potato failures have diminished what remained, and the low prices of agricultural produce prevent their recovering their losses.

I will give you a proof of the poverty of this neighbourhood. Kerry and Clare are both bare of wood: the people at Listowel are forced to go fifteen miles off - to Tarbert, or to Tralee - to get even handles for their flails. I was able, therefore, before the famine to sell the thinnings of my woods for rather more than 1,000l a year. Now they do not pay for the cutting.” ’

19 November 1857
‘We started at six yesterday evening, and after a rough passage reached the Piraeus at five this morning. We landed at eight, found carriages and custom-house officers waiting on the beach, had our baggage examined and loaded in less than half an hour, and reached Athens before ten. The day is dark and stormy; the Acropolis and Lycabettus looked down upon us during the whole road, from a background of black clouds charged with snow, none of which, however, fell in Athens. Hymettus to the east, Parnes and Pentelicus to the north and west, attracted it.

We are lodged in cold splendour, in large bedrooms and a salon thirty feet square, looking north-west, with a Lilliputian stove.

The scenery of Athens wants nothing but trees and a river. The Cephisus is a brook, and can be traced only by the long strip of olives which it waters. The Ilissus is a rill. Though we are now towards the end of the rainy season, I stepped across it three or four times to-day. Parnes, Hymettus, and Pentelicus, once waving with forests, do not seem to bear a tree. A garden has been planted round the palace, which 100 years hence, if the trees, now as close as those of a nursery garden, are properly thinned, will be beautiful. It is not more than pretty as yet. Every other tree in and near Athens, except one noble palm in a convent garden, was destroyed during the war, and those which have been planted in their room are still saplings.

When Wordsworth visited Athens in 1832, it did not contain half a dozen inhabited houses. Its present population amounts to 36,000 persons, which supposes about 5000 houses. These are scattered irregularly over about a square mile, to the north of the Acropolis. Those nearest to it, which mount about half way up its side, are fortunately the worst. I say fortunately, because it is supposed that they cover valuable remains, which cannot be recovered until they have been demolished. The better houses are those of an English watering-place, but lower and more scattered; each good one has its little garden. The calcareous soil, and the dryness of the climate, render the streets clean but dusty. Their comparative smoothness is a delicious contrast to the rocky pointed pavements which tormented us during the whole of our residence in Turkey.’

28 November 1857
‘We have now inhabited Athens for ten days, but the weather has been so inclement, that I have not ventured on any excursions beyond walking distances. The thermometer has seldom fallen below 44° out of doors, or below 54° within, and there has been scarcely any rain, but the winds, generally from the north, have been violent. The air out of the house, has been full of dust, and within of smoke; for there are few open fireplaces, none in any sitting room in this inn, and the Greeks have not skill enough to manage a stove. I am told that this is a most unusual season. The Wyses say that they do not recollect so cold a one, that generally the December weather of Athens is charming; and certainly the one calm sunny day which we have had was delightful. As is usually the case in southern countries, the precautions are all against heat. The rooms look north or north-west, and are large and lofty, with numerous doors, and ill fitting casements reaching to the ground.

In summer, when for four months no one ventures out between seven in the morning and seven in the evening, they may be pleasant, they are comfortless now. Nothing but my anxiety to know something of a country and a people which have occupied my thoughts from boyhood would induce me to remain here.

The most interesting ruins in the world are those of Egyptian Thebes and of Athens; I own that I was most struck by those of Thebes. [. . .] I have seldom seen the Acropolis except darkened by a cloudy sky, and a biting north wind. The mountains among which it rises are much higher, and more varied in outline and disposition than those of Thebes, but they are grey, and reflect the grey sky. The sea is beautifully broken by promontories, bays, and islands, and bounded by the fine coasts of the Isthmus and the Morea, but it is three miles off, and is a far less glorious object than the Nile flowing below your feet at Luxor. I have great reverence for Salamis, and for the Academy, but the real civiliser of mankind was not Greece, but Egypt. It was from Egypt, then, and for many centuries, perhaps for many thousand years, before, a powerful empire, great in arms, in art, and in learning, that Danaus and Cecrops brought civilisation to the barbarians of Attica and Argolis.

But, next to Thebes, the place best worth visiting is Athens. The five points that attract me most are the Pnyx, the Areopagus, the Temple of Theseus, the Temple of Jupiter Olympius, and the Acropolis.’

20 November 1857
‘The northerly winds have given Mrs. Senior a cough. She has called in Dr. Macas, a Greek, who appears to treat her exceedingly well. There are several good physicians in Athens. Her cough prevented her from accompanying me this evening to a hall at the palace. We were invited at a quarter before nine. Sir Thomas Wyse took me. We found, in the first of three large rooms, about one hundred and fifty ladies, sitting on one side, and about two hundred men standing on the other. The women were dressed, some in an ordinary European costume, some wore the red velvet cap, long tassel, and short jacket of Greece; and some had their heads and necks wrapped in a large handkerchief, which showed only the face. This is the head-dress of Hydra. Of the men, some were in uniform, some in plain black suits, and some wore the Albanian dress, which the Hellenes have adopted as national: a jacket, either of red and then embroidered with gold, or grey and then embroidered with silver, an open collar, a white petticoat called a fustanelle, plaited like a ruff, reaching from the waist to the knees, and long gaiters, red or blue. Several of the older men looked, what I was told that they had been, robbers. They had risen from that profession to be partisan soldiers, and had been made aristocrats partly by plunder, and partly by gifts from the crown of the national domains.

At about half-past nine, the king and queen came in. A circle was formed of men, and they walked round it, not together, but with a considerable interval. He is a gentlemanlike man, with quiet, easy manners. He wore the Albanian dress. The queen wore a Parisian dress, with an enormous crinoline or cage. She talked much and gaily, particularly to the Prussian minister. The circle lasted long, perhaps three quarters of an hour. During that time the women kept their seats, and the men stood in the other part of the room, the circle being between them.

At last the queen took Sir Thomas Wyse’s hand, the king that of the Russian ambassadress, and walked a polonaise, to which a waltz succeeded, and it being about half-past ten I went away.’

13 January 1858
‘This is the Greek New Year’s Day. A great ball was given at the Palace. I went at about nine, and found the rooms, which are very large, full. [. . .] I was introduced to Mr. Rangaby, the minister of foreign affairs. He asked me “what were the improvements of which Greece seemed to me to be most in want?” I said roads; that if I could appoint a prime minister for Greece, it should be one of the Macadam family.

“It is true,” he answered, “that the absence of roads is a barbarism which we have inherited from the Turks. In this country, intersected by torrents, bridges are wanted every two or three miles. The government by law ought to make the bridges, the demoi [people] the roads. The government has totally neglected its duty. The demoi have sometimes performed theirs, but their roads, having become useless from the want of bridges, have gone to ruin. But we are now seriously at work. We have passed a law, requiring every man to contribute from six to twelve days’ work on the roads every year, and the minister of the interior promises us bridges. As we know nothing of roads, we have sent to France for a road-maker.

The Ponts-et-Chaussée have given us M. Galiani. We pay him three times as much as we pay to any of our ministers. But he says that he can do nothing with Greek workmen. So some cantonniers are to be sent from France to help them. In the mean time he is repairing the Piraeus road.”

“He is repairing it,” I answered, “by throwing on it a bed, about a foot thick, of unbroken shingle taken from the beach, which will never bind, through which it is difficult to force the wheels of a carriage. I fear that you have made a bad beginning. Another subject of complaint, “I continued, “is the collection of your land revenue.”

“The collection of it in kind,” he answered, “is a serious evil, but we cannot substitute a money payment until we have a cadaster - a general valuation of all the lands in the country.”

“At least,” I said, “you might require the farmers of the revenue to send and take their tithe, instead of requiring all the grain of every district to be sent to the areas at an enormous expense of labour and time.”

“I fear,” he answered, “that to require the farmer of the land revenue to send for his tithe would involve so much expense, and so thorough a change of system, that I despair of its being attempted. We must wait for a cadaster, and then take payment in money.”

***

Here is Senior’s daughter’s preface to Conversations and Journals in Egypt and Malta, dated September 1881; and one extract.

‘In publishing my father’s Conversations I have always endeavoured to seize the moment when the countries whose politics and habits they record were objects of especial interest. There surely will never be a more opportune occasion than the present for the appearance of his Journals in Egypt and Malta. When, in 1859, Mr. Senior brought out his Journal in Turkey and Greece, much that was valuable and interesting had to be omitted, and the names of nearly all the speakers suppressed. The lapse of a quarter of a century has relieved me almost entirely from the necessity of omitting either names, facts, or opinions; and yet the present volumes cannot be considered out of date; for, as my father says in one of his conversations, “The East does not change.” ’

25 November 1855
‘We started at six this morning for the Pyramids. We left our boat and mounted asses at the dirty town of Geezeh, As the inundation has not sufficiently subsided to enable us to take the direct road, we had to travel along a dike, whose windings made the distance amount to 12 miles instead of 6. On one side of us was a green plain of young crops, on the other side was water, or land, just left by it, and covered with black mud. We saw the process of cultivation: one man was throwing sand upon the mud; another, with a flat piece of wood at the end of a pole, was beating it down into the mud, and so mixing it with the soil: as far as the inundation extends this supplies the place of sowing, ploughing and harrowing.

About a mile from the end of the inundation the dike had given way, and the water was flowing in two or three black-looking streams. Forty or fifty half-naked men collected round us, hoisted us, two to each person, by putting their arms round our legs, carried us over, and, what was more difficult, pushed and pulled over our asses.

After a ride of two hours and a half we reached the sandy slope, about a mile within the desert, leading to the rocky plateau on which the Pyramids stand, that of Cheops, the largest, being nearest to the Nile. We had brought no lights with us, and the Bedouins, who had collected on our arrival, had only about an inch of taper. We were unable, therefore, to enter. Some of the party, each assisted by two Bedouins, scrambled to the top. I was not one of them. The day was hot and hazy, and I was not inclined to take half an hour’s violent exercise in the sun, to be rewarded by a prospect much inferior to that from the terrace of the Citadel.

The Pyramids do not gain by a near approach. Seen from Cairo, or even from the distance of a mile or two, their noble proportions appear; when you are under them, they look like fantastically formed rocky hills.’

The Diary Junction