Art but no artists

René Maria Rilke, one of the most intense of German-language poets and considered by some to be a founder of modernist poetry, was born 150 years ago today. During a two year period - when he was in love with the married Russian-born Lou Andreas-Salomé and then meeting his future wife Clara Westhoff - he kept a series of diaries. The editors of the English edition of these diaries claim they span a crucial period in the artistic growth of the young poet.

Rilke was born in Prague, then part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, on 4 December 1875. His father worked as a railway official having retired from the military, and his mother was considered socially ambitious. René’s childhood was not especially happy, and he was sent to military academy for five years until 1891. He left on account of ill health, only to find his parents had separated. He was tutored for university entrance, and then began studying philosophy at Charles-Ferdinand University. But, by this time, he had already published a first volume of poetry, Leben und Lieder, and was intent on a literary career. Disenchanted with his academic studies, he left, travelling to Munich to study art. There he mixed with artistic types, managed to get some of his plays produced, and published more poetry.

In 1897, Rilke fell in love with the much-travelled Lou Andreas-Salomé, a married woman many years his senior. She appears to have had a major influence over the still-young Rilke, persuading him to change his first name to Rainer, and introducing him to the ideas of psychoanalysis (she had studied with Freud). After a brief stay in Florence, he twice travelled to Russia with Salomé in 1899 and 1900, meeting Leo Tolstoy in 1898, and Leonid Pasternak (the painter and father of Boris Pasternak) and Spiridon Drozhzhin, a peasant poet, in 1899. The following year, Rilke stayed at the artists’ colony at Worpswede, where he met Clara Westhoff. They married early in 1900, and had one daughter, Ruth, in late 1901.

In 1902, Rilke travelled to Paris, where he would stay for much of the rest of the decade. Clara left Ruth with her parents and joined him there. He became fascinated by Rodin, writing and lecturing on the sculptor, and even acting as his secretary for a period, and later by Cezanne. Apart from two or three more collections of poetry, he also completed his only novel The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. In the early 1910s he visited Ronda in Spain and Duino/Trieste in Italy, but the outbreak of WWI found him in Germany and unable to return to Paris. He managed to avoid active service, with the help of influential friends, by being assigned to the War Records Office.

AIn Switzerland he completed the Duino Elegies and, in a burst of 1922 inspiration, wrote the Sonnets to Orpheus. He died of leukemia late in 1926, highly respected in literary and artistic spheres but barely known by the general public. The Poetry Foundation provides this modern assessment: ‘Widely recognized as one of the most lyrically intense German-language poets, Rainer Maria Rilke was unique in his efforts to expand the realm of poetry through new uses of syntax and imagery and in the philosophy that his poems explored.’ While Encyclopaedia Britannica (1979 edition) calls him ‘a major Austro-German poet regarded as one of the founders and giants of modern literature.’ Further information can be found at Wikipedia, the Academy of American Poets, The Atlantic, or Picture Poems. For samples of Rilke’s poems see All Poetry.

Between April 1898 and December 1900, Rilke kept three diaries. The first of these, while in Florence, was probably written for or inspired by Salomé, since it is known that her own mental regimen included keeping a diary, and she is said to have asked Rilke to bring her back a diary. Biographers suggest the second diary, kept after his return to Schmargendorf, might also have been written with her in mind. The third diary was written during his sojourn at Worpswede. (However, it is worth noting that despite the diary names, Rilke visited Worpswede during the time of the Schmargendorf diary, and stayed at Schmargendorf during the time of the Worpswede diary.) They were first edited and published in German in 1942 by Ruth and her husband Carl Sieber.

A first English edition, translated and annotated by Edward Snow and Michael Winkler, was published by W. W. Norton & Co in 1997 - Rainer Maria Rilke - Diaries of a Young Poet. In their introduction, Snow and Winkler explain: ‘Rilke’s diaries do maintain a certain chronological flow, albeit one with breaks and longer interruptions, but they are not directly the immediate account of a specific time; it is not their intent to record the minutiae of day-to-day life. For this reason they have not become identified by their chronology. Rather, they are usually titled after three places where Rilke lived and, at least for a time, felt at home: Florence (and the Tuscan countryside), the village of Schmargendorf just outside Berlin, and Worpswede, an artists’ colony in the moors near Bremen.’

The editors claim that the diary period spans a crucial period in Rilke’s artistic growth: ‘At the beginning of this phase the young poet had perfected, if not yet exhausted the rhetorical techniques and mannerisms of his early, impressionistic style. His verse was still prone to the gossamer and was given more to a flirtation than a sustained artistic engagement with the exquisite and the delicate. [. . . He] had come to realise only too well that he needed to constrain his busy games of make-believe and learn how to control his ingenious lyricism. This made it necessary, most of all, to free himself from the rapturous self-indulgence that could spin mellifluous lines and intricate rhymes with prolific ease. He had to submit himself to the kind of self-discipline that comes with the ascetic solitude of regular, arduous work. Rilke’s three early diaries reflect this search for a language that might capture the specificity of things natural and crafted and at the same time convey their intrinsic spirituality. They chronicle, in other words, the emergence of the “sachliche Sagen,” the objective and visually precise language that will come to characterise his “poetry of things.” ’

Although diary entries - many dated but not all - do predominate in Diaries of a Young Poet, there is also a good deal of poetry as well as some letters. The book can be previewed online at Google Books. Here, though, is one extract from each diary.

17 May 1898 [Florence diary]
‘No human being can raise so much beauty out of himself that it will cover him over completely. A part of himself will always gaze out from behind it. But in the peak times of art a few have erected before themselves, in addition to their own beauty, so much noble heritage, that the work no longer needs them. The curiosity and custom of the public will seek and of course find their personality; but that misses the point. In such times there is an art, but there are no artists.

There is an ever-recurring cycle of three generations. One finds the god, the second arches the narrow temple over him and in doing so fetters him, while the third slides into poverty and takes stone after stone from the sanctuary in order to build meagre and makeshift huts. And then comes one which must seek god again; and to such a generation these belonged: Dante and Botticelli and Fra Bartolommeo.

The element of reconciliation and loveliness that one treasures in the works of Raphael is a triumph that only seldom occurs; it signifies a high point of art, but not a high point of the artist.

Pre-Raphaelites: simply a caprice. Tired of smooth beauty, one seeks the effortful - not so? How facile a proposition! Tired of art, one seeks the artist, and in each work looks for the deed that elevated the man, the triumph over something within him, and the longing for himself.

In notes jotted down day after day vis-à-vis the paintings of the quattrocento, I could have offered nothing more than the tourists’ handbooks do. For they have formulated with unsurpassable cogency the measure of abstract beauty that inheres in the things. So much so that in fleeting consideration one employs quite unconsciously those infamous half-scientific terms that, once sharp and pregnant, have through so many mindless uses become dull and vacuous.

A handbook on Italy, if it wanted to teach pleasure, would have in it but one single word and one single piece of advice. Look! Whoever has a certain culture in him must make do with this guidance. He will not acquire pearls of knowledge and it will scarcely occur to him to ask whether this work is from the late period of an artist or whether in that work “the broad manner of the master” holds sway. But he will recognize an abundance of will and power that came from longing and from apprehension, and this revelation will make him better, greater, more thankful.’

11 September 1900 [Schmargendorf diary]
‘A fine evening at the Overbecks’. The blond painter was with me for the length of the twilight; I showed her some Russian books, the pictures of Nadson and Garshin, Droshin’s portraits, and other mementos. In the evening she sat next to me, and there was much conversation between us. The table was nicely set; small chamomiles slanted to one side framed the simple white runner, which was accented by blue-and-red-embroidered signatures of guests who had preceded us. Dr. Hauptmann and I added our names to this roll. Hauptmann was in rare form, made many cutting remarks regarding the temper of our time, always in the most charmingly ingenuous way. [. . .]

Clara Westhoff had come on her bicycle, But she walked almost the whole way back to Westerwede, since while we were talking I had passed by my gate and continued on at her side. It was about two hours past midnight. The skies were gray, quiet, and the landscape could be seen, completely without color, stretching far in the distance . . . The birch trees stood like candles beside long trails. The only thing white was a white cat, which would appear from behind the bushes in silent leaps, then vanish in the mistless meadows. It was a melancholy cat that staged a solitary dance. In the garden everything green was a shade darker. Almost black, the full bushes leaned against the white railing of the forecourt. Around the urns there was depth and air.’

14 December 1900 [Worpswede diary]
‘Sometimes I remember in exact detail things and epochs that never existed. I see every gesture of people who never lived a life and feel the swaying cadence of their never-spoken works. And a never-smiled smiling shines. Those who were never born die. And those who never died lie with their hands folded, repeated in beautiful stone, on long level sarcophagi in the halflight of churches no one built. Bells that never rang, that are still uncast metal and undiscovered ore in mountains, ring. Will ring: for what never existed is what is on its way, on its way over to us, something in the future, new. And perhaps I’m remembering distant futures when what never existed rises up in me and speaks.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 4 December 2015.

The father of neurology

‘The floor is made of tile mosaics as are the walls - no seat - only a hole which seems narrow to me at ground level. One has to be agile - but the Arabs certainly are in this respect. They do everything squatting. It is perfect, a paradise for the sense of sight and smell.’ This is Jean-Martin Charcot, born two centuries ago today, the great physician of France’s early Belle Epoque, the so-called ‘father of neurology’ and/or the ‘Napoleon of the neuroses’, writing about a Moroccan toilet in his one and only significant diary.

Charcot was born in Paris on 29 November 1825 into a modest artisan family. He seems to have been a gifted school child, mastering several languages, and was selected by his father as the one child to receive a higher education and enter medical school. He received his M.D. from the University of Paris in 1853 with a dissertation on arthritis. In 1860, he was named associate professor in medicine, and two years later, he was appointed head of a hospital service at Salpêtrière, a complex in the 13th arrondissement near the Seine. Aged 39, he married Augustine-Victoire Durvis, a young widow, with whom he had two children.

Charcot began to publish many books and articles on infectious illnesses, geriatrics, diseases of the internal organs. And, in 1872, he was elected to the Paris Medical Faculty as professor of pathological anatomy. During the 1870s, he turned increasingly to the new discipline of neurology, becoming one of the world’s foremost experts on the subject, publishing on a wide range of neurological conditions, MS, Parkinson’s disease, Tourette’s, aphasia etc. He was the first to describe several conditions, including multiple sclerosis and the disintegration of ligaments and joint surfaces (Charcot’s disease, or Charcot’s joint) caused by locomotor ataxia and related diseases or injuries. In particular, he was known for his work on hysteria, and he developed the practice of using hypnosis as a means to study his patients, often using the technique in public demonstrations.

This - the early years of the Belle Epoque - was a heyday for the medical profession in France, as a group  progressive physician-scientists - among whom Charcot was the most famous - sought to modernise medicine more in line with scientific understanding. Apart from his medical discoveries, he also pioneered the art and science of medical photography. Charcot’s second-to-none reputation as a teacher attracted students from all over the world, not least, in 1885, Sigmund Freud.

Meanwhile, in their grand home on the boulevard Saint-Germain, the Charcots would give lavish parties, attracting the cream of Parisian society, politicians, artists, writers and, of course, other physicians. In 1882, Charcot was named Chair for the diseases of the nervous system, the first such professorial post in the world. Financing followed his fame, with the government resourcing a new neuropathological institute at Salpêtrière. Charcot died, relatively young, in 1893. Further information is available at Wikipedia, National Center for Biotechnology Information, Science Museum, and inside Medical Muses: Hysteria in 19th-Century Paris by Asti Hustvedt (some pages of which about Charcot are viewable at Googlebooks).

Charcot was not a diarist, though he did occasionally keep note-books when on holiday or travelling. One such note-book so stood out from the rest for Toby Gelfland (Department of History, University of Ottawa) that he decided to translate, edit and publish it - as Charcot in Morocco (University of Ottawa Press, 2012). In July 1887, Charcot went south to Spain for his annual summer holiday, but, on this occasion, concluded the voyage with a week in Morocco, and while there kept a detailed personal diary, amounting to 14,000 words, 95 manuscript pages, and various sketches, maps and watercolours.

The journal is a unique document, says Gelfand, because of its sheer length and detail but also because of ‘the intimate, relaxed, colorful, at times frankly exuberant quality of a first-person narrative written primarily for oneself, even if it were later to be shared with family and friends’. Furthermore: ‘The journal offers rare access to an otherwise elusive figure who said little of a spontaneous nature in public. [. . .] Historians, following most contemporary accounts, tend to portray Charcot as an authoritarian and rather austere medical leader, a “grand patron” who was at once intimidating and shy, if not secretive. The Moroccan journals reveals a less pretentious figure possessed of a rough and ready sense of humor, someone who did not always take himself or others so seriously.’

10 August 1887
‘Soon we reach the 1st Moroccan doorway, a square house, which sits atop a high hill. Two Moors of the Emperor who are to accompany us emerge; one carries a gun, the other a bag. These 2 do not join in with our group. Sometimes they approach, then at other times they disappear - only to reappear a little afterwards at a turn in the way . . . they are definitely strange; as well they have a rather unhealthy look about them with their caped robes that seem to be soaked with sweat.

We have been walking perhaps 2 hours when suddenly the plain widens out. In the middle we see a castle in ruins covered with ivy - not far off, some stones are piled up in a way that marks off an oval shape of earth. It is a tomb. There are many others. On a few of the tombs, red rags hang from sticks planted in the ground, rags now faded which must have formerly had a beautiful red color. They mark the tomb of a chieftain, more or less canonized and elevated to the level of a saint. It was here that the battle against the Moroccans took place which led to the march on Tetuan. More than 20 years ago, all that. The name Prim returns to mind. We walk on and keep on walking. From time to time I look at my watch. We’re going to get to the Moor’s place soon, no doubt! By this time hunger and thirst have set in. But where is this the devil of a house of the Moor? We don’t see it. Here are a few trees and rocks. We have lost sight of the sea. Anxiously, we walk on for nearly an hour; devil of a house gone astray. We begin to berate the Moors of the Emperor who led us down this wrong path. At last, there it is, a hut scarcely above the ground, hidden among the underbrush and tall cactus. [. . .]

I get up and rejoin the group drinking water, who are sharing a watermelon. On the mound where they are sitting, there is no more space. One of the Moors of the King noticed; he goes up to my son and, tapping him gently on the shoulder, says to him, in Spanish, “Your father is not seated.” My son gets up and I sit down in his place. An example of Arab manners that is in sum very edifying and which demonstrates that, even if we are among the people of Barbary, we are not with barbarians.’

11 August 1887
‘Soon we arrive at one of our “wealthy Moors”. [. . .] The young ladies go into the women’s quarters. Employing a searching gaze, we look into everything open to us. I think they were expecting us; most certainly, they were waiting for us. However a flurry of emotion, doubtless feigned, a pretended surprise, took place when we entered. A lady of mature years, who appeared beautiful to me, quickly fled, but not before showing us her face. That left 4 or 5 negresses, who shamelessly stayed where they were. Moreover, they were very beautiful, their arms and legs nude, their bodies lightly clothed in a clear fabric. They certainly do not belong to the religion whose acolytes cover up. As always, the first floor with balcony is just about the same as the lower floor. But it seems we cannot visit since the private living quarters are there. I look everywhere for a certain spot which interests me from a hygienic perspective. Instinct guides me. Here water flows on the ground - one certainly cannot go in without clogs. The floor is made of tile mosaics as are the walls - no seat - only a hole which seems narrow to me at ground level. One has to be agile - but the Arabs certainly are in this respect. They do everything squatting. It is perfect, a paradise for the sense of sight and smell.’

12 August 1887
‘It is agreed that I will give a few medical consultations; they implored me to do so. A few people have been referred by the consul, or by M. Alvans, the military envoy, who never tires of being helpful.

Here come the patients, 5 or 6 of them, all Jews. They file into the patio. I sketch one who presents a beautiful case of Parkinson’s. Nothing very interesting from the point of view of diagnosis. But all are nervous cases. Yesterday, on the square, they showed me a Jew who remained mute, so they say, during his entire childhood but who eventually began to speak. Was he a case of hysteria?

The consultation is over. I must see the town some more so as to take with me an indelible visual impression. Along the way, on one of the most densely inhabited streets, we hear in the distance a sort of chanting, mixed and monotonous at the same time: the voices of men. They appear in a cortege of about a hundred persons; they are walking quickly, they seem to be in a hurry. “The dead go quickly.” In fact it is a burial. The deceased is carried on a kind of cot, nude in a white shroud which hides him completely, the head too. It seems to me that no one stirs nor extends greetings. We don’t either: that is not the custom here. We let the cortege pass, we will meet it again momentarily, in the cemetery.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 29 November 2015.

We hope for better times

‘Our Co for the first time have the sad duty to perform of burying one of their number. Jane is also quite sick of a Diareah but we hope not dangerous. [. . .] many are complaining & the dust is the greatest hardship to endure we have found on our whole journey. But we hope for better times.’ This is the heartfelt diary writing of Polly Lavinia Crandall Coon - born two centuries ago today - travelling with others on the long and arduous trail across the North American continent, from Wisconsin to Oregon, in search of a better life.

Polly Lavinia was born on 24 November 1825 in Alfred, Allegheny, New York, the eldest child of Paul and Sally Crandall. In 1838, the family moved west to Lima, Rock County, Wisconsin where they settled. Paul became one of the members of the Wisconsin constitutional convention in 1847, and was dubbed a ‘Father of Wisconsin’. But, in 1952, they set off, west again, overland in wagons to Oregon, with most of their several children, including Polly and her daughter. Polly’s husband, Thomas, and her brother had already made the journey a year or two earlier.

Once settled in the new land, Thomas died, in early 1854, and two months later Polly gave birth to their second child. Soon after, Polly had her claim of land surveyed. She sold it off in lots to form a new town, called Silverton - on the banks of Silver Creek. She taught at a school in Silverton, and also in Salem and other nearby communities. In 1855, she married Stephen Price, a carpenter and millwright, who built them a new home. They had one son, before moving, in 1856, to Salem; and much later they lived in Hood River, on the south bank of the Columbia River. Both Stephen and Polly died in 1898. Not much is known of Polly, though a little more information can be found at the Liberal University of Oregon website.

A daily diary kept by Polly on her journey was published by A. H. Clark, in 1983, within Covered Wagon Women - Diaries & Letters from the Western Trails, 1852: The Oregon Trail, as edited and compiled by Kenneth L. Holmes and David C. Duniway. This was the fifth volume of an eleven-volume series: Covered Wagon Women - Diaries & Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1890. Some pages of Polly’s diary - Journal of a Journey Over the Rocky Mountains - can be read at Googlebooks. Here are a few extracts (they are as originally published except for a few full stops).

29 March 1852
‘Started from the town of Lima Rock Co. Wis. on our long contemplated journey to seek a home on the Pacific coast, in the territory of Oregon. Passed through Janesville to the town of Plymouth where we struck our camp for the first time, & found that we had truly left all comfort behind at least as far as the weather is concerned. But all are in health & spirits seeming determined to manufacture as much comfort as possible from what material we have.’

8 April 1852
‘All are well & in excellent spirits. We traveled yesterday 16 miles and camped on a vast prairie in Lafayette Co where nothing but land & sky were to be seen save one little log house. But to make up the absence of other interesting matter we found a wedding party assembled in the aforesaid “log house”. The “old Man” came up and gave us all an invite to attend the dance in the evening. We all went down but none of us joined in the exercises but Ray & Stallman. They reported to have had a very fine time and staid till morning the others returned at 9 o’clock. We have tonight a beautiful camping ground near the line between G[r]ant and Lafayette pleasant weather but still wet under foot.’

9 April 1852
‘Rained all day consequently we have laid by - improving the time in doing some baking. At night the ground being very wet we were obliged to take shelter in the house.’

10 April 1852
‘Reached the Mississippi at Eagle Ferry 2 miles above Dubuque found a number of teams in wait to go over.’

11 April 1852
‘After being delayed all day in getting all crossed over we at length reach Dubuque. We made a few purchases & excited not a little curiosity nor a few remarks from the good people of the city by our “Bloomer Dresses.” Left this town about 3 o’clock passing out some 2 miles through the deepest mud & worst roads I ever saw. Camped in a field & got about half enough poor hay for which the Man charges 30 cts per yoke. I record this as a demonstration of the depth of the heartlessness to which the human heart is capable of arriving.’

12 April 1852
‘Our brother Ray left us this morning - It was with deep regret and tearful eyes we left him to plod on alone towards his home. We feel sad that we leave him behind but hope another year will bring him to Oregon. This after noon it is quite pleasant except the chilling winds which sweep furiously across the endless praries of the state of Iowa. All well and judging from the talking and laughing we hear from the adjoining tent all are in good spirits. The roads continue very bad otherwise we get along very finely.’

11 May 1852
‘Traveled near about 16 miles & camped again on a large Prarie near a beautiful spring which we consider a great treat. After getting our tents pitched & supper nearly in readiness a heavy thunder shower struck us & we were nearly drenched but succeeded in keeping our beds tolerable dry.’

28 May 1852
‘We have all felt much distressed today at witnessing a scene truly heartrending. About noon we came by a Camp where yesterday all were well & today one man was buried - another dying & still another sick. The disease was Diareah which which they had not medicine to check & the result from death. The man that was buried left a young wife to either return through a savage country or go on alone and heartbroken. Many of our Company are complaining but none very sick.’

13 August 1852
‘Dr Weber grew worse after stoping, medicine had no effect & about 1 o’clock at night he died. Our Co for the first time have the sad duty to perform of burying one of their number. Jane is also quite sick of a Diareah but we hope not dangerous. Samuel does not not improve much. The weather is so very hot & dusty that very many are complaining & the dust is the greatest hardship to endure we have found on our whole journey. But we hope for better times.’

17 August 1852
‘Our Co commenced crossing - having stretched a rope across the river & coupled two wagon boxes together, towed over the cattle first & then carried our wagons, luggage & people. We got over quite early with the sick ones in order to make them as comfortable as possible.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 24 November 2015.

The bishop in Buganda

James Hannington, Bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa, was shot dead 140 years ago today, with his own rifle, executed - along with 50 or so expedition porters - by the order of the king of Buganda. Remarkably, one of the native Bugandans held on to Hannington’s diary - with entries right up to the day of his murder - and this found its way back to Britain, to be published just a year later, helping establish Hannington as a missionary hero.

James Hannington was born at Hurstpierpoint, near Brighton, in 1847. His father was a fabric merchant, and part of the family that ran a department store of the same name in Brighton. James left school young to join his father’s counting house, but was often abroad on family holidays. In his spare time, he obtained a commission in the 1st Sussex Artillery Volunteers, and rose to the rank of major. Aged 21, he decided to enter the clergy, and went to study at St Mary Hall, Oxford, but was not ordained deacon until 1874. After a short period in Devon, he became curate for St George’s, a chapel his father had built on his own land in Hurstpierpont, and was ordained priest soon after. He married Blanche Hankin-Turvin in 1877, and they had three children.

In 1882, Hannington offered his services to the Christian Missionary Society (CMS). He set out for Buganda, part of Uganda, heading a team of six missionaries, but he had to return early due to illness. Subsequently, in 1884, having been ordained Bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa, he again set off for the CMS missions in Buganda, visiting Palestine on the way. Once on the coast of Africa, he decided to pioneer a shorter route inland from the coast near Mombasa. The Bugandan king, however, had become suspicious of European missionaries by this time. He imprisoned Hannington and some 50 porters, killing most of them eight days later - Hannington was shot with his own gun on 29 October 1885. Widespread persecution of Christians followed. Further information can be found at Wikipedia, the Bishop Hannington Memorial Church, or Anglican History.

Hannington appears to have kept a journal, and, remarkably, his last pocket diary was saved by a native Ugandan, and sold to a later expedition. It found its way back to Britain where it was edited by Rev E. C. Dawson and published by the CMS in 1886 as The Last Journals of Bishop Hannington being narratives of A Journey through Palestine in 1884 and A Journey through Masai-Land and U-Soga in 1885. This is freely available online at Internet Archive. The Last Journals, and another book written by Dawson about Hannington, were very popular, and must have helped establish Hannington’s reputation as a missionary hero. Incidentally, without Hannington’s journal there would have been no record of what happened to him and his expedition. Here are several extracts from the journal, including the very last entry.

21 June 1883
‘Went to town with Sam. Visited Kew; poor reception. Went to British Museum; warm reception. Slept at C.M. College. Gave address to the students.’

22 June 1883
‘Gave another address at morning prayers. Brighton 11 a.m. Gave address at the C.M.S. meeting in the Pavilion.’

23 June 1883
‘Rather tired with the week.’

1 October 1884
‘During the past nine months I have travelled 9,292 miles, or thereabouts. I have preached during the same time one hundred and eleven times, and spoken at one hundred and eighty-seven meetings, besides being present at thirty-four others.’

5 November 1884
‘What a bustle there is at the Liverpool Street Station! What an unusual amount of leave-taking! Even as the train moves out of the station many run alongside well-nigh the length of the platform to give one last look, one more parting blessing.

What does it all mean? Why that we are in the special train that is conveying P. and O. passengers to Tilbury, thence to embark for their several destinations.

It was but eighteen months ago that I was hurried along that same line in exactly the opposite direction. And with what different feelings! Each beat of the engine was then conveying me nearer home, and now it is tearing me away - but I must not soliloquise, for I have many things yet to say to those who have so kindly determined to see the last of us; nor can we refrain from enquiring who that queer old gentleman is in the corner. We learn that he is uncle to a noble earl, and is to occupy a berth in the same cabin as ourselves, so more of him by-and-by.

Wedged in on the steamer that is running up alongside the P. and O. boat we hear a voice at our elbow, “Hulloa! there is to be a bishop on board, won’t you get dosed with –!” with what I never heard, for just at that moment the speaker’s eye was raised from the list of passengers to the strings on my hat, thence it wandered to my gaiters, and finally stole a furtive peep at my face - where, to judge from the confusion that followed, it read in my enquiring glance, “Dosed with what, sir?”

What a motley crowd there was on deck! Officers in uniform (we learn with horror that there are three hundred troops on board), Lascars, British tars, Chinese, Indian ayahs, agents, and passengers, and nobody knowing exactly what to do or say next, until at length the bell rings, and relatives who have come to say farewell must do so now as best they can. The final wrench, the most agonising of all, because it breaks the last link with England and home.

There may be but little time for a man to get his cabin shipshape before he finds himself battling with the billows, so I take the initiative and slip below, put a week’s supply close at hand, and arrange a few little mysteries, as O. D. C, toilet vinegar, Eno, matches, and plenty of spare pocket-handkerchiefs. You expect, then, to catch a cold? No, but it might be rough for a few days!

Having completed my arrangements to my own thorough satisfaction, I was not sorry to hear the unmistakable peal of the dinner-bell; we congratulate ourselves that we are still in the Thames.’

21 December 1884
‘I am not going to say very much about Jerusalem, Jerusalem society, or Jerusalem work. The prophets always found that they got stoned when they sojourned there. Had I found that things had been made pleasant and comfortable for me, I might have been led seriously to consider whether I was not one of the false prophets, and whether my mission was not rather for ill than for good; but in the midst of the party distractions, we found shelter in the dear Preparandi School under Wilson’s wing. Perhaps if the baby - but never mind. We found ourselves revelling in a hundred recollections of the past, and had much to say about the present - and future, too, all unknown. I had but a light Sunday, preaching at the Jews’ Church in the morning and the C.M.S. in the afternoon, being present at the Jews’ Church again in the evening. Saddened by the sight of the tombs of the three bishops; - but why should I be sad? Charmed to an intense degree by a stroll down the valley of Hinnom and Jehoshaphat, past the beautiful tombs of Zechariah, James, and Absolom; and I still think, of all spots within and without the city, this is the one that charms me most - viz., to stand opposite these tombs, gazing across the Brook Kedron, on the Mount of Olives. And near the same spot to grub amongst the ash-heaps that fill the valley of Hinnom, and secure little treasures of ancient pottery, was my most delightful employment. My good friends, when we had spare time, would ask me, “Where will you go? What do you want to see?” My answer invariably would be, “The ash-heaps!” They were exceedingly cruel to me, for it was very seldom I was allowed the treat; there was almost always on such occasions some particular sight I must see.’

12 September 1885
‘Flies and mosquitos swarmed, and so did Masai. As soon as ever the sun showed, a fresh and powerful band of warriors came at once and demanded hongo. A very covetous and wicked-looking old medicine-man came with them. After some delay we settled their claims, but, before doing so, a fresh band had arrived, and far more insolent; and then a third; and then a fourth; and now the elders began to be even more troublesome than the rest; at length matters reached a pitch, and the women were ordered from camp, and fighting seemed imminent. Jones and I rushed hither and thither, and got matters straight again somehow, but I was nearly torn to pieces by the warriors pulling my hair and beard, examining my boots, toes, etc.; at last, nearly demented, I went to hide myself from them amid the trees. After three ineffectual attempts I at last succeeded, when Jones, who knew where I was, came rushing to call me. The warriors were attacking the loads. I dashed back and found them in a most dangerous mood, and backed by the elders, who were worse than all. By dint of the keenest policy I amused the warriors while Jones gave presents to the elders. Then a fresh and yet more exacting band of warriors arrived, and had to be satisfied. How often I looked at the sun! It stood still in the heavens, nor would go down. I agonised in prayer, and each time trouble seemed to be averted; and, after all, we came out of it far better than could be expected, and really paid very little - not two loads altogether, and bought six goats to boot. About sunset things grew quiet, so I went out and bagged three geese. All the men, elders, Jones, and myself agree that we must try and escape tomorrow.’

28 October 1885
‘(Seventh day’s prison.) A terrible night, first with noisy, drunken guard, and secondly with vermin, which have found out my tent and swarm. I don’t think I got one hour’s sound sleep, and woke with fever fast developing. O Lord, do have mercy upon me and release me. I am quite broken down and brought low. Comforted by reading Psalm xxvii.

In an hour or two fever developed rapidly. My tent was so stuffy that I was obliged to go inside the filthy hut, and soon was delirious.

Evening: fever passed away. Word came that Mwanga had sent three soldiers, but what news they bring they will not vet let me know.

Much comforted bv Psalm xxviii.’

29 October 1885 ‘(Eighth day’s prison.) I can hear no news, but was held up by Psalm xxx., which came with great power. A hyena howled near me last night, smelling a sick man, but I hope it is not to have me yet.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 29 October 2015.

Crusell the clarinettist

Today marks 250 years since the birth of Bernhard Henrik Crusell, the Finnish-Swedish clarinettist and composer whose travel journals and autobiographical fragments give a rare glimpse into the life of a Scandinavian musician moving through Europe at the dawn of the Romantic era. Although best remembered for his three clarinet concertos and chamber works, Crusell also left behind a small but valuable body of personal writings.

Crusell was born on 15 October 1775 in the coastal town of Uusikaupunki, then part of the Swedish kingdom. Aged 8, the family moved to Perttula, a village in the Nurmijärvi region some 20 miles north of Helsinki. In 1788, when he was 13, a family friend, aware of the his natural musical ability, took him to see Major O. Wallenstjerna at Sveaborg, a Swedish fortress. Wallenstjerna, impressed with Crusell’s playing, recruited him as a volunteer member of the Sveaborg military band and gave him a place to live with his own family. Crusell received an education at Sveaborg and excelled in music and languages. In 1791, when Wallenstjerna transferred to Stockholm, Crusell went with him. There, he became a professional musician and eventually principal clarinettist of the Royal Court Orchestra.

In 1801 Crusell married Anna Krougius, the daughter of a Stockholm merchant. They had one son, Adolf. Crusell travelled widely, studying in Berlin, Leipzig and Paris, and built a reputation as the leading clarinet virtuoso of northern Europe. He also worked as a translator, adapting French opera libretti into Swedish for the Royal Theatre. His reputation rests above all on his compositions for the clarinet: three concertos and several chamber works. As a performer he was admired throughout northern Europe, not only for the elegance of his tone but also for his command of the instrument at a time when clarinet design was still evolving. In later life his health declined, though he continued to compose and perform until the mid-1830s. He died in Stockholm in 1838. Further information is available from Wikipedia, Swedish Musical Heritage, and Interlude.

Crusell is known to have kept travel diaries during his journeys in 1798-1799, 1803, and 1822. They combine everyday notes of journeys with reflections on the music and society he encountered, providing an unusually personal commentary from a professional instrumentalist of the period. These writings remained in manuscript until 1977, when the Royal Swedish Academy of Music published Bernhard Crusell: Dagböcker, studier, verkförteckning m.m. as part of its scholarly series. More than thirty years later, in 2010, the Finnish Literature Society issued the first Finnish translation of the travel diaries under the title Keski-Euroopan matkapäiväkirjat 1803-1822. No English edition has ever appeared, and references in English-language studies rely on these Swedish and Finnish publications. Here are just a couple of translated extracts I found embedded in the biographical links above.

1798, Berlin

‘The city [Berlin]astonishes me with its military precision and its glittering society. But it is the music which most excites me - here, clarinet playing is not a curiosity, it is a profession and an art.’ 

June-July 1822

‘Felix [Mendelssohn]is a most beautiful child, and he is also said to be very unassuming. In his compositions one immediately recognises the signs of genius and good training . . . People here think he may even become another Mozart.’

Encountering the natives

‘It appeared, that the natives entertained the idea, that our clothes were impervious to spears, and had therefore determined on a trial of strength by suddenly overpowering us, for which purpose they had “planted” (i. e. hidden) their spears and all encumbrances, and had told off for each of us, six or eight of their number, whose attack was to be sudden and simultaneous.’ This is Sir Thomas Mitchell, Surveyor-General in colonial Australia who died 170 years ago today, writing in his exploration diary about fears of native plots.

Mitchell was born at Grangemouth in Scotland in 1792, the son of a harbour-master, but he was brought up by his uncle. He joined the British Army as a volunteer, aged 16, and received his first commission as 2nd Lieutenant in the 1st Battalion 95th Rifles. During the Peninsular War in Spain, Mitchell was promoted to major. He had a recognised talent for draughtsmanship, and after the war he remained in Spain and Portugal to complete sketches of the battlefields. With cuts in government funding, he was not able to finish them for many years, and they weren’t published until the late 1830s (within Wyld’s atlas of the Peninsular War).

In 1818, Mitchell married Mary (daughter of General Blunt) with whom he had 12 children. In 1827, he was appointed deputy to the Surveyor-General of the Australian New South Wales colony, and soon became Surveyor-General himself. He set about exploring the colony and establishing a major road system. He made four expeditions between 1831 and 1846, discovering the course of the Darling river among others, and being first to penetrate that area which became known as Australia Felix. On a leave of absence, he visited England in the late 1830s, and is said to have brought specimens of gold and the first diamond found in Australia. During the same visit he published the diaries of his first three expeditions, and was knighted.

In 1841, Mitchell completed a new Gothic-style family home, Carthona, on the water’s edge in Darling Point, Sydney. Three years later, he was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Council. However, he was not able to combine the roles of a politician with that of a government officer, and he resigned after some months. Increasingly, his survey department came under criticism, and was investigated by a Royal Commission. The Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB) article on Mitchell provides this overview of his position at the time:

‘The report of the Royal Commission severely condemned the methods and results of Mitchell’s surveying and the administration of his department but it is not a fair summary of his life’s work. The criticism of his surveying technique is largely a priori and neglects both the substantial accuracy achieved, the inadequate and often primitive means at his disposal and the magnitude of the tasks he was required to perform. Mitchell was, however, a poor administrator. He had too many other interests and ambitions and was too often and too long away from his department either in England or exploring the interior. He had also a fatal inability to delegate responsibility to his subordinates with whom his relations were often very bad, and thus, despite enormous labours, he never got ahead of accumulating business. There was also insufficient supervision of surveyors in the field and consequently opportunities for the lazy and dishonest. But Mitchell was not responsible for the shortage of surveyors, the unrealistically large amount of work expected of them and, in particular, the division of the department into salaried and licensed surveyors which itself was a guarantee of inefficiency.’

Towards the end of his life, Mitchell investigated the Bathurst gold fields, visited England again, and patented a propeller system for steamers. Despite the scandal of delays at the survey department, he remained a popular figure in Australia until his death on 5 October 1855. Further information is available from Wikipedia and ADB.

In his lifetime, Mitchell published the diaries of his four expeditions: Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, with descriptions of the recently explored region of Australia Felix and of the present colony of New South Wales came out in two volumes in 1838; and Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia, in search of a route from Sydney to the Gulf of Carpentaria, came out in 1848. Both are freely available online through various websites, not least Internet Archive. Much of Mitchell’s daily narratives are concerned with describing the landscape, its topography, geography and flora/fauna, searches for food and water, and encounters with natives. Here are several extracts from Three Expeditions.

4 January 1832
‘Continuing due north, we just avoided some thick scrubs, which either on the right or left would have been very difficult to penetrate. The woods opened gradually however, into a thick copse of Acacia pendula, and at the end of three miles we reached the eastern skirts of an extensive open plain, the ground gently undulating. At 4 3/4 miles, on ascending a slight eminence, we suddenly overlooked a rather deep channel, containing abundance of water in ponds, the opposite banks being the highest ground visible. The vast plains thus watered consist chiefly of a rich dark-coloured earth, to the depth of 30 or 40 feet. Unabraded fragments of trap are not uncommon in the soil of these plains, and I imagined there was a want of symmetry in the hollows and slopes as compared with features more closely connected with hills elsewhere. At 8 1/2 miles, perceiving boundless plains to the northward, I changed the direction of our route 24 degrees east of north. The plains extended westward to the horizon, and opened to our view an extensive prospect towards the north-east, into the country north of the range of Nundewar, a region apparently champaign, but including a few isolated and picturesque hills. Patches of wood were scattered over the level parts, and we hastened towards a land of such promising aspect. Water however was the great object of our search, but I had no doubt that I should find enough in a long valley before us, which descended from the range on the east. In this I was nevertheless mistaken; for although the valley was well escarped, it did not contain even the trace of a watercourse.

Crossing the ridge beyond it, to a valley still deeper, which extended under a ridge of very remarkable hills, we met with no better success; nor yet when we had followed the valley to its union with another, under a hill which I named Mount Frazer, after the botanist of that name.

No other prospect of relief from this most distressing of all privations remained to us, and the day was one of extraordinary heat, for the thermometer, which had never before been above 101 degrees on this journey, now stood at 108 degrees in the shade. The party had travelled sixteen miles, and the cattle could not be driven further with any better prospect of finding water. We therefore encamped in this valley while I explored it upwards, but found all dry and desolate. Mr. White returned late, after a most laborious but equally fruitless search northward, and we consequently passed a most disagreeable afternoon. Unable to eat, the cattle lay groaning, and the men extended on their backs watched some heavy thunderclouds which at length stretched over the sky; the very crows sat on the trees with their mouths open.

The thunder roared and the cloud broke darkly over us, but its liquid contents seemed to evaporate in the middle air. At half-past seven a strong hot wind set in from the north-east and continued during the night. Thermometer 90 degrees. I was suddenly awoke from feverish sleep by a violent shaking of my tent, and I distinctly heard the flapping of very large wings, as if some bird, perhaps an owl, had perched upon it.’

31 May 1836
‘I now ventured to take a north-west course, in expectation of falling in with the supposed Darling. We crossed first a plain about two miles in breadth, when we came to a line of yarra trees which enveloped a dry creek from the north-east, and very like Clover-creek. We next travelled over ground chiefly open, and at four miles crossed a sand-hill, on which was a covered tomb, after the fashion of those on the Murray. On descending from the sand ridge, we approached a line of yarra trees, which overhang a reach of green and stagnant water. I had scarcely arrived at the bank, when my attention was drawn to a fire, about a hundred yards before us, and from beside which immediately sprung up a numerous tribe of blacks, who began to jump, wring their hands, and shriek as if in a state of utter madness or despair. These savages rapidly retired towards others who were at a fire on a further part of the bank, but Piper and his gin going boldly forward, succeeded, at length, in getting within hail, and in allaying their fears.

While he was with these natives, I had again leisure to examine the watercourse, upon which we had arrived. I could not consider it the Darling, as seen by me above, and so little did it seem “the sister stream” to the Murray, as described by Start, that I at first thought it nothing but an ana-branch of that river. Neither did these natives satisfy me about Oolawambiloa, by which I had supposed the Darling was meant, but respecting which they still pointed westward. They, however, told Piper that the channel we had reached contained all the waters of “Wambool,” (the Macquarie), and “Callewatta” (the upper Darling), and I accordingly determined to trace it up, at least far enough to identify it with the latter. But I thought it right that we should endeavour first to recognise the junction with the Murray as seen by Captain Start. The natives said, it was not far off; and I accordingly encamped at two o’clock, that I might measure back to that important point.

Thirteen natives set out, as if to accompany us, for they begged that we would not go so fast. Three of them, however, soon set off at full speed, as if on a message; and the remaining ten fell behind us. We had then passed the camp of their gins, and I supposed at the time, that their only object was to see us beyond these females, Piper being with us. I pursued the river through a tortuous course until sunset, when I was obliged to quit it, and return to the camp by moonlight, without having seen anything of the Murray. I had, however, ascertained that the channel increased very much in width lower down, and when it was filled with the clay-coloured water of the flood then in the Murray, it certainly had the appearance of a river of importance.’

1 June 1836
‘The country to the eastward seemed so dry and scrubby, that I could not hope in returning to join Mr. Stapylton’s party or reach the Murray, by any shorter route, than that of our present track; and I, therefore, postponed any further survey back towards the junction of the Darling and Murray, until I should be returning this way. We accordingly proceeded upwards, and were followed by the natives. They were late in coming near us however, which Piper and his gin accounted for as follows: As soon as it was known to them, the day before, that we were gone to the junction, the strong men of the tribe went by a shorter route; but they were thrown out and disappointed by our stopping short of that “promising” point. There, they had passed the night, and having been busy looking for our track in the morning, the earth’s surface being to them a book they always read, they were late in following our party.

Kangaroos were more numerous and larger here, than at any other part we had yet visited. This day one coming before me I fired at it with my rifle; and a man beside me, after asking my permission, fired also. The animal, nevertheless, ran amongst the party behind, some of whom hastily, and without permission, discharged their carabines also. At this four horses took fright, and ran back at full speed along our track. Several of the men, who went after these horses, fell in with two large bodies of natives coming along this track, and one or two men had nearly fallen into their hands twice. “Tantragee” (McLellan), when running at full speed, pursued by bands of savages, escaped, only by the opportune appearance of others of our men, who had caught the horses and happened to come up. The natives then closed on our carts, and accompanied them in single files on each side; but as they appeared to have got rid of all their spears, I saw no danger in allowing them to join us in that manner. Chancing to look back at them, however, when riding some way ahead, the close contact of such numbers induced me to halt and call loudly, cautioning the men, upon which I observed an old man and several others suddenly turn and run; and, on my going to the carts, the natives fell back, those in their rear setting off at full speed.

Soon after, I perceived the whole tribe running away, as if a plan had been suddenly frustrated. Piper and his gin who had been watching them attentively, now came up, and explained to me these movements. It appeared, that the natives entertained the idea, that our clothes were impervious to spears, and had therefore determined on a trial of strength by suddenly overpowering us, for which purpose they had “planted” (i. e. hidden) their spears and all encumbrances, and had told off for each of us, six or eight of their number, whose attack was to be sudden and simultaneous. A favourable moment had not occurred before they awoke my suspicions; and thus their motives for sudden retreat were to be understood. That party consisted of strong men, neither women nor boys being among them; and although we had little to fear from such an attack, having arms in our hands, the scheme was very audacious, and amounted to a proof, that these savages no sooner get rid of their apprehensions, than they think of aggression. I had, on several occasions, noticed and frustrated dispositions apparently intended for sudden attacks, for the natives seemed always inclined to await favourable opportunities, and were doubtless aware of the advantage of suddenness of attack to the assailants. Nothing seemed to excite the surprise of these natives, neither horses nor bullocks, although they had never before seen such animals, nor white men, carts, weapons, dress, or anything else we had. All were quite new to them, and equally strange, yet they looked at the cattle, as if they had been always amongst them, and they seemed to understand at once, the use of everything.

We continued our journey, and soon found all the usual features of the Darling; the hills of soft red sand near the river, covered with the same kind of shrubs seen so much higher up. The graves had no longer any resemblance to those on the Murrumbidgee and Murray, but were precisely similar to the places of interment we had seen on the Darling, being mounds surrounded by, and covered with, dead branches and pieces of wood. On these lay, the same singular casts of the head in white plaster, which we had before seen only at Fort Bourke. It is, indeed, curious to observe the different modes of burying, adopted by the natives on different rivers. For instance, on the Bogan, they bury in graves covered like our own, and surrounded with curved walks and ornamented ground. On the Lachlan, under lofty mounds of earth, seats being made around them. On the Murrumbidgee and Murray, the graves are covered with well thatched huts, containing dried grass for bedding, and enclosed by a parterre of a particular shape, like the inside of a whale-boat. On the Darling, as above stated, the graves are in mounds, covered with dead branches and limbs of trees, and are surrounded by a ditch, which here we found encircled by a fence of dead limbs and branches. [. . .]

The natives were heard by Piper several times during the day’s journey, in the woods beyond the river, as if moving along the right bank, in a route parallel with ours; but they did not appear near our camp, although their smoke was seen at a distance.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 5 October 2015.

An embarrassing incident

On a hot August afternoon in 1871, the Reverend Canon Arthur Charles Copeman and his brother-in-law trudged from Mont Dol to St Malo, their clerical coats ill-suited to the summer sun. Copeman, already known in Norwich as vicar of St Andrew’s and a meticulous keeper of journals, carried with him the habit of noting each day’s encounters. Three of his diaries have now entered the British Library, one of which is the focus of an Untold Tales blog - A Victorian holiday embarrassment.

Copeman was born in 1824 at Coltishall in Norfolk, the son of Edward Breese Copeman and his wife Elizabeth. He studied medicine before deciding on a career in the church. After ordination he served in Norfolk and was appointed vicar of St Andrew’s, Norwich, a position he retained for the rest of his life. He was made an honorary canon of Norwich Cathedral and acted for a time as rural dean. 

In his parish, Copeman was an active figure, overseeing improvements to the church and dedicating a stained glass window in 1869. He married and had children, the best known being Sydney Monckton Copeman, later a leading figure in public health and a fellow of the Royal Society. Arthur Copeman died at the St Andrew’s parsonage in Norwich in 1896. There is very little further information online about Copeman other than at Wikitree, and in three of his diaries, recently added to the British Library’s collections - see A Victorian holiday embarrassment in the British Library’s Untold Lives collection.

Two of the diaries describe the daily life of an English clergyman, recording the rhythm of parish work, family duties and social engagements in Norwich during the mid- and late-Victorian decades. The third is different in tone and scope, ‘a month-long tour around Brittany with his brother-in-law, seeing the sights.’

The holiday diary, written in the summer of 1871, gives a candid picture of middle-class travel in France just after the Franco-Prussian War. Copeman recorded the practicalities of inns, meals and transport alongside sharp observations of landscape and people. Two weeks into the trip the pair walked from Mont Dol to the town of St Malo. I will let the narrative in the Untold Lives piece take up the story (with direct quotes from Copeman’s diary embedded). 

‘ “We found a congeries of little wooden cells ranged on the sea-ward side of a gentle slope which was thronged with ye ladies & gentlemen of S. Malo with whom it appears the favourite and fashionable promenade - and an office for the issue of bathing tickets which was beset with applicants.”

Having secured a bathing ticket, the pair were pleasantly surprised to find it entitled them to temporary possession of two of the beach huts, together with towels and bathing costumes.

The Reverend was particularly taken with the available attire, enthusing it was “of the simplest construction but of imposing & indescribable effect”. Once within this pair of loose blue shorts and sleeved “gaberdine” top, he thought he would have been unrecognisable to even his closest friends.  However, Copeman believed he and his companion attracted “the admiring inspection of the promenade” as [they] made their way down to the sea.

And yet, their favoured bathing suits would prove to be their undoing.

“When emerging after a delightful bathe, we found our wondrous costume clinging everywhere tenaciously to the skin & bringing out in strong relief every irregularity of a development somewhat obtrusively bony.”

Shocked by the betrayal of their previously modest attire, the pair “took fright & with a leap & a run we regained our dressing houses whence were heard roars of convulsive laughter till we re-appeared in civilised attire”.’

Prodigious, wonderful - if true

‘Jeff Davis is to emancipate eight hundred thousand slaves - calls them to arms, and promises fifty acres of land to each. Prodigious, marvellous, wonderful - if true. . .  But it is impossible, as - after all - such a step of the rebel chiefs is as much or even more, a death-warrant of their political existence, as the eventual and definitive victory of the Union armies would be.’ This is from the diaries of Count Adam Gurowski, a Polish émigré aristocrat born 220 years ago today. During the Civil War he was employed by the State Department until, that is, he published a first volume of his indiscreet diaries.

Gurowski was born in 1805 into a noble family at Kalisz in Russian Poland. Educated first at home and then in Berlin and Heidelberg, he absorbed the currents of German philosophy, particularly Hegel. He married Theresa de Zbijewska in 1827, and they had two children, but the marriage broke down and his intellectual energies carried him into politics. Initially sympathetic to Polish national independence, he broke with many compatriots by advocating rapprochement with Russia as the only way to modernise Poland. This stance won him favour at the imperial court in St Petersburg. He served in the Ministry of Education and wrote on political economy, but his reformist zeal and his quarrelsome temperament made enemies. By the early 1840s he had left Russia in disfavour.

After a decade in Western Europe, where he wrote for French and German journals and cultivated radical causes, Gurowski emigrated to the United States in 1849. He struggled at first, teaching languages and living precariously, but gradually carved out a niche as a publicist. His America and Europe (1857) defended the democratic experiment of the United States and helped establish his reputation as a contrarian but incisive observer. During the 1850s he contributed to the New York Tribune and other outlets, his eccentric manners - thick accent, brusque speech, disdain for convention - were noted by contemporaries as much as his opinions.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Gurowski entered the State Department under William H. Seward. By the autumn of 1862 the war had reached a critical stage, Washington society was consumed with rumours, and readers were hungry for insider accounts. Gurowski had been keeping notes since the outbreak of hostilities and hastily arranged them into a publishable volume, grouping entries by month. The result was rushed into print in New York before the year was out, both to seize the public’s attention and to establish himself as a commentator - but the speed and candour of publication cost him his government position. He died suddenly in 1866. Further information is available from Wikipedia and History is Now.

Gurowski diaries remain his chief legacy. Issued in three volumes (all available at Internet Archive - vol. 1, vol. 2, vol 3), they cover the period from March 1861 to 1865. The first, printed in 1862, groups his observations month by month rather than by precise dates, reflecting a compilation of notes prepared for publication rather than a strict daily journal. The second (1864) and third (1866) volumes adopt a different format: entries are headed with exact days, presenting a closer record of events as they unfolded. Together the volumes offer an idiosyncratic, often caustic commentary on Washington politics, military affairs, and the personalities of the Union war effort. Here are a few extracts from the second volume.

2 February 1863

‘All the efforts of the worshippers of treason, of darkness, of barbarism, of cruelty, and of infamy - all their manœuvres and menaces could not prevail. The majority of the Congress has decided that the powerful element of Afro-Americans is to be used on behalf of justice, of freedom, and of human rights. The bill passed both the Houses. It is to be observed that the ‘big’ diplomats swallowed col gusto all the pro-slavery speeches, and snubbed off the patriotic ones. The noblest eulogy of the patriots!

The patriots may throb with joy! The President intends great changes in his policy, and has telegraphed for - Thurlow Weed, that prince of dregs, to get from him light about the condition of the country.

The conservative ‘Copperheads’ of Boston and of other places in New England press as a baby to their bosom, and lift to worship McClellan, the conservative, and all this out of deepest hatred towards all that is noble, humane, and lofty in the genuine American people. Well they may! If by his generalship McClellan butchered hundreds of thousands in the field, he was always very conservative of his precious little self.

Biting snow storm all over Virginia! Our soldiers! our soldiers in the camp! It is heart-rending to think of them. Conservative McClellan so conservatively campaigned until last November as to preserve - the rebel armies, and make a terrible winter campaign an inevitable necessity. O, Copperheads and Boston conservatives! When you bend your knees before McClellan, you dip them in the best and purest blood of the people!’

18 August 1863

‘A patriotic gentlewoman asked me why I write a diary? “To give conscientious evidence before the jury appointed by history.” ’

20 August 1863

‘On the first day of the draft, I had occasion to visit New York. All was quiet. In Broadway and around the City Hall I saw less soldiers than I expected. The people are quiet; the true conspirators are thunder-struck. Before long, the names will be known of the genuine instigators of arson and of murder in July last. The tools are in the hands of justice, but the main spirits are hidden. Smart and keen wretches as are the leading Copperheads, they successfully screen their names; nevertheless before long their names will be nailed to the gallows. The World - which, for weeks and weeks, so devotedly, so ardently poisoned the minds, and thus prepared the way for any riot - the World was and is a tool in the hands of the hidden traitors. The World is a hireling, and does the work by order.’

1 September 1863

‘Jeff Davis is to emancipate eight hundred thousand slaves - calls them to arms, and promises fifty acres of land to each. Prodigious, marvellous, wonderful - if true. Jeff Davis will become immortal! With eight hundred thousand Afro-Americans in arms, Secession becomes consolidated - and Emancipation a fixed fact, as the eight hundred thousand armed will emancipate themselves and their kindred. Lincoln emancipates by tenths of an inch, Jeff Davis by the wholesale. But it is impossible, as - after all - such a step of the rebel chiefs is as much or even more, a death-warrant of their political existence, as the eventual and definitive victory of the Union armies would be. If the above news has any foundation in truth, then the sacredness of the principle of right and of liberty is victoriously asserted in such a way as never before was any great principle. The most criminal and ignominious enterprise recorded in history, the attempt to make human bondage the corner-stone of an independent polity, this attempt ending in breaking the corner-stone to atoms, and by the hands of the architects and builders themselves. Satan’s revolt was virtuous, when compared with that of the Southern slavers, and Satan’s revolt ended not in transforming Hell into an Eden, as will be the South for the slaves when their emancipation is accomplished. Emancipation, n’importe par qui, must end in the reconstruction of the Union.’

The Symbolist, Zinaida Gippius

Today marks the 80th anniversary of Zinaida Gippius’s death. A leading Russian Symbolist poet and polemical critic, she chronicled revolution and exile with an unsparing, self-interrogating voice; her diaries are among the sharpest first-person records of Petrograd in 1917-1918, when the Russian capital (renamed from St Petersburg during the war) was convulsed first by the overthrow of the tsar in February and then by the Bolshevik seizure of power in October.

Gippius (also written as Hippius) was born in Belyov in 1869, the eldest of four sisters who only received a sporadic education as their father, a respected lawyer and a senior officer in the Russian Senate, moved residence often. She came of age in the Petersburg literary world of the 1890s. She married the writer-critic Dmitry Merezhkovsky in 1889, and together they became central to the city’s Symbolist circles - embracing mysticism, aesthetic experimentation, and the idea of art as a path to spiritual renewal. They launched the Religious-Philosophical Meetings, which tried to bring the intelligentsia and the Church into dialogue. Her most important works (beyond the diaries - see below) include several volumes of poetry that placed her at the centre of Russian Symbolism, the short story collections New People and The Devil’s Doll, the novel The Roman-Tsarevich. 

Gippius also cultivated a deliberately androgynous, confrontational persona and, under the male pseudonym ‘Anton Krainy’, wrote some of the era’s most incisive criticism. The 1905 Revolution radicalised Gippius’s politics while deepening her spiritual preoccupations. She welcomed the February 1917 revolution which overthrew the tsar and installed the Provisional Government, but judged October a cultural catastrophe, a judgment that drove the couple into emigration in 1919 - first to Poland, then France and Italy - where she kept writing poetry, prose, memoir. She died in Paris on 9 September 1945, four years after Merezhkovsky. Further information is available from Wikipedia; Encyclopaedia Britannica and the Library of Congress. 

Gippius began making diary entries in the 1890s, though only fragments from those years remain. The first substantial run of entries dates from the early 1900s. From then on she maintained diaries more or less steadily, though they became especially intense and historically important during the Revolutionary years, 1917-1918, when she wrote almost daily in Petrograd. After emigrating in 1919 she continued the habit in exile, sometimes combining poems and diary notes in the same volumes.

Her first major diary publication was Stikhi: dnevnik 1911-1921 (Berlin, 1922), a hybrid volume pairing late poems with diary entries; her best-known diary book, Sinyaya kniga. Peterburgskiy dnevnik 1914-1918 (The Blue Book), appeared in Belgrade in 1929. An English selection, Between Paris and St Petersburg: Selected Diaries of Zinaida Hippius, edited and translated by Temira Pachmuss, was issued by University of Illinois Press in 1975. This can be freely borrowed online at Internet Archive.

‘Hippius’s diaries are works of art,’ Pachmuss says in her preface. ‘Her skill as an artist is inevitably reflected in her diaries, even though they were not written for subsequent publication. They reveal aspects of her personality which are not expressed in her poetry or published prose works. They further illuminate her views on literature, religion, politics, freedom, ethics, love, marriage, life, death, God, the Holy Trinity - in fact, the entire evolution of her Weltanschauung may be reconstructed from her diaries. In them she defined her attitude toward other people, her concept of creative work, her criteria for imaginative literary criticism, and above all, her credo as a poet. Hippius’s diaries, written in her minute and graceful script, are a valuable, highly artistic personal confession. Their intrinsic value is justification for their publication in English in the present volume.

Hippius’s diaries have great historical and literary significance not only because they describe the views and attitudes of the poetess herself, but also because they re-create the spiritual atmosphere of St. Petersburg at the beginning of the twentieth century - with its emotional maximalism, metaphysical disposition, and religious aspirations. They further reveal the nature of life in Poland after the October Revolution, and the activities of ‘Russian Paris’ in the third and fourth decades of this century.’

Here is a sample extract from an early diary quoted in Between Paris and St Petersburg.

13 March 1901

‘I would like to know what attracts me to this diary - now? There is no more contes d’amour, no special amorousness . . . About what, then, to write? Yet I want to write precisely here. This means that there is within me some form of amorousness, or something resembling it.

Something resembling… yes, but at the same time something completely different. It is good that it does resemble, and it is also good that it is something different.

In spite of this absolutely shameless, personal pain of the old and human aspect of my soul (I am saying it calmly), there is a great deal of serene strength in me, active strength, and there is a great deal of my good and old amorousness for ‘something different.’ I have much strength now, but I do not wish to conceal from myself that there is a certain danger for me. An almost inevitable danger.

From now on I am destined to pursue the path of ascetism, complete as a closed circle. I know with the combined insight of both my body and my soul that this path is the wrong one for me. A deep knowledge that you are pursuing the wrong path will - without fail, quietly, but certainly - deprive me of my strength. I won’t be able to reach the end of the path; I won’t pour forth the whole volume of my strength. Even now, when I think about the future, it depresses me. At the present time there is so much of this lively strength in me. I will engross myself in the spirit - without fail - and my spirit will evaporate like light vapor. Oh, I do not suffer because of myself! I am not sorry for myself! I am sorry for That to Which I will not serve to the best of my abilities.

I would have selected another path - there isn’t any other, however. It is not even worthwhile talking about - it is immediately obvious that there isn’t any other path.

Sometimes it seems to me that there must be people who resemble me, who are neither satisfied with the existing forms of passion nor with the forms of life; that is, there must be people who want to go forward, who desire God not only in those phenomena which already exist, but also in those which will take place. So I think. But then I laugh. All right, there are such people. So what? Will I feel better from this knowledge? For I definitely won’t meet such a person. But if I do meet him? Then probably it will just be in order ‘to bless him while I descend into my grave.’ For in a few years I will become an old woman (a weak old woman who will be embittered by her past). And I will know that I have not lived righteously. And even if I meet him now, at this moment, will I believe it? And if I do fall in love with him, I will preserve my silence till the very end anyhow - from fear that he is not the ‘right’ one. And he, if he resembles me, will also be silent. No, it won’t be that way. It, this miracle, can take place only in the Third Person, but what He will tell me - I don’t know. I have not heard His voice as yet. But why do I ponder it? Why am I apprehensive? Why do I complain? Everything will be as it should be. This is not my will. It is not my volition that there is such strange, such lively blood in me. For something, for Somebody this blood is necessary. So let Him do with it whatever He wants. And also with that strength of mine which He has granted to me. I will only be sincere. Asceticism [the next page is missing] is stronger than what they think about themselves. Their sin is only their self-belittlement. I see how some people, who are able to save not only themselves but other people as well, perish from this sin. And my white flowers wither, wither away . . .

How can I tell them? How can I help them? Indeed I am not so strong, so long as I am alone.’

Polidori’s first ghost story

‘Began my ghost-story after tea. Twelve o’clock, really began to talk ghostly. L[ord] B[yron] repeated some verses of Coleridge’s Christabel, of the witch’s breast; when silence ensued, and Shelley, suddenly shrieking and putting his hands to his head, ran out of the room with a candle.’ This is from the diaries of John William Polidori, physician and writer, born 230 years ago today. He is best remembered today for his novella The Vampyre, often described as the first modern vampire story in English literature, but his surviving diaries also provide an unusually vivid portrait of a gifted young man caught between literary ambition and family expectation.

Born in London on 7 September 1795 to an Italian émigré scholar and an English mother, Polidori studied medicine at Edinburgh, graduating as a doctor at only nineteen. Restless and ambitious, he sought literary fame as much as medical distinction. In 1816 he entered the service of Lord Byron as his travelling physician and accompanied him to Geneva, where he found himself among an extraordinary circle that included Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (later Mary Shelley). The gathering at the Villa Diodati in June 1816 has since become legendary, for it was there that the company challenged one another to write ghost stories - an evening that led Mary Shelley to conceive Frankenstein and Polidori to begin what would become The Vampyre.

Dismissed by Byron, Polidori travelled in Italy and then returned to England. His story, The Vampyre, which featured the main character Lord Ruthven, was published in the April 1819 issue of New Monthly Magazine without his permission. Whilst in London he lived on Great Pulteney Street in Soho. Much to both his and Byron’s chagrin, The Vampyre was released as a new work by Byron. Byron’s own vampire story Fragment of a Novel was published in 1819 in an attempt to clear up the confusion, but, for better or worse, The Vampyre continued to be attributed to him. Polidori’s long, Byron-influenced theological poem The Fall of the Angels was published anonymously in 1821; but in August that year Polidoro died. The coroner gave a verdict of death by natural causes, but his family believed he committed suicide with prussic acid. Further biographical information is available from Wikipedia and The Millions.

Polidori’s diaries cover his youthful years in Edinburgh, his time with Byron, and the troubled period that followed. They reveal a man both enthralled and embittered by his proximity to greatness. He often complained of Byron’s arrogance and treatment of him as a mere servant, while at the same time recording his own bouts of melancholy, gambling losses, and quarrels with family. His diary for 1816-1817, edited by William Michael Rossetti in 1911, has become a key document for scholars studying the Villa Diodati circle.

After his death, Polidori’s sister Charlotte transcribed the diaries, but censored ‘peccant passages’ and destroyed the original. Based only on the transcription, The Diary of John Polidori was edited by William Michael Rossetti and first published in 1911 by Elkin Mathews (London) - this is freely available online at Internet Archive. Reprints followed in teh 1970s, and a new edition of The Diary of John William Polidori was issued by Cornell University in 2009.

Here is a flavour of Polidori’s diary, though I have omitted the annotations and explanations (about the genesis of The Vampyre for example), which take up many pages in the published editions.

17 June 1816

‘Went into the town; dined out with Lord and Madame etc. here. Went after dinner to a ball at Madame Odier’s; where I was introduced to Princess Something and Countess Potocka, Poles, and had with them a long confab. Attempted to dance, but felt such horrid pain was forced to stop. The ghost-stories are begun by all but me.’

18 June 1816

‘My leg much worse. Shelley and party here. Mrs. S[helley] called me her brother (younger). Began my ghost-story after tea. Twelve o’clock, really began to talk ghostly. L[ord] B[yron] repeated some verses of Coleridge’s Christabel, of the witch’s breast; when silence ensued, and Shelley, suddenly shrieking and putting his hands to his head, ran out of the room with a candle. Threw water in his face, and after gave him ether. He was looking at Mrs. S[helley], and suddenly thought of a woman he had heard of who had eyes instead of nipples, which, taking hold of his mind, horrified him. He married; and, a friend of his liking his wife, he tried all he could to induce her to love him in turn. He is surrounded by friends who feed upon him, and draw upon him as their banker. Once, having hired a house, a man wanted to make him pay more, and came trying to bully him, and at last challenged him. Shelley refused, and was knocked down; coolly said that would not gain him his object, and was knocked down again. Slaney called.’

19 June 1816

‘Leg worse; began my ghost-story. Mr. S[helley?] etc. forth here. Bonstetten and Rossi called. B[onstetten] told me a story of the religious feuds in Appenzel; a civil war between Catholics and Protestants. Battle arranged; chief and commander calls the other. Calls himself and other friends. One will not persuade of his being wrong. Other accepted, and persuaded them to take the boundary rivulet; and they did. Bed at 3 as usual.’

20 June 1816

‘My leg kept me at home. Shelley etc. here.’

5 September 1816

‘Not written my Journal till now through neglect and dissipation. Had a long explanation with S[helley] and L[ord] B[yron] about my conduct to L[ord] B[yron]; threatened to shoot S[helley] one day on the water. Horses been a subject of quarrel twice, Berger having accused me of laming one.’

17 September 1816

‘Left St. Gingoux at 6. Walked to __. Took bread and wine. Crossed to Chillon. Saw Bonivard’s prison for six years; whence a Frenchman had broken, and, passing through a window, swam to a boat. Instruments of torture, - the pulley. Three soldiers there now: the Roman arms already affixed. Large subterranean passes. Saw in passing the three treed islands. The Rhone enters by two mouths, and keeps its waters distinct for two stones’ throw.

From Chillon I went to Montreaux - breakfasted - leaving Charney on my left. I began to mount towards the Dent de Jamanu. Before beginning to mount Jamanu itself, one has a beautiful view, seeing only part of the lake, bound by Meillerie, Roches, and the Rhone. Higher up the view is more extensive, but not so beautiful - nothing being distinct; the water looking merely as an inlet of sky, but one could see the Jura as far as Genthoud.

I entered a chalet, where they expressed great astonishment at my drinking whey, which they give to their pigs only. Refused at first money.

Descended towards Mont Boyon. What owing to the fatigue and hardly meeting any one, sick with grief. At Mont Boyon dined, and, finding they would not dance, slept immediately after.’

30 September 1816

‘Up at 5. Off at 6 in a large barge, with yesterday’s English party and two carriages, by the Tessino and canal to Milan: at first through a fine hilly country, and rapidly by the Tessino flood. After, slower, and through a flat plain with trees and neat villas and hanging grapes, to Milan. Slept out of the town by the canal.’

2 October 1816

‘Got up at 8. Breakfasted on grapes, bread and butter, wine, and figs. Wrote to Lord Byron. Dressed. Went to Marchese Lapone - not at home; Monsignor Brema - not at home. Walked about looking at booksellers’ shops. Entered the Duomo - invisible almost, so black and dark. They were putting up drapery for Friday, which is the Emperor’s birthday (probably the same as for Napoleon). Returned home, arranged my papers. Took a walk on the Corso; then to the Teatro Rè. The same price for all the places. The piece Il Sogno di Ariosto [Dream of Ariosto], where Fortune, Merit, Orgoglio, with Mrs. Disinganno, were all personified. The dialogue abounded in truths, especially regarding women, which they applauded. The theatre is very small, like the Haymarket. Home to bed.’