Photos to surprise and amaze

‘I want to make photos such as I’ve never made before, ones that are life itself and the most genuine life, photos that are simple and complex at the same time, that will surprise and amaze . . .’ This is the Russian artist and Constructivist pioneer, Aleksander Mikhailovich Rodchenko who died 60 years ago today. Having turned from art to photography in his 20s, he was only a few years away from switching back to painting, though he would never enjoy the success of his early years again. According to the Museum of Modern Art, which put on the first major retrospective of his work in 1998, Rodchenko remained steadfastly committed to the ideals of the Revolution. However, his diaries - English translations of which MoMA has published - suggest he never understood the forces that eventually drove him from prominence.

Rodchenko was born in St Petersburg in 1891. On the death of his father, in 1907, his working class family moved to Kazan. His interest in art seems to have come about through magazines rather than any contact with the art world. He enrolled at the Kazan School of Fine Arts in 1910, where he met Varvara Stepanova, whom he later married. They had one child together, also Varvara, born in 1925. Rodchenko moved to Moscow to continue his art studies at the Stroganov Institute. He was much influenced by Kazimir Malevich, the pioneer of geometric abstract art and the originator of the avant-garde Suprematist movement. In 1915, Rodchenko participated in The Store exhibition organised by Vladimir Tatlin, a painter and architect, who was also an important influence on the young Rodchenko - especially towards Constructivism and the use of art for social purposes.

Rodchenko clearly thrived in the conditions following the Bolshevik Revolution. He worked at the People’s Commissariat for Education (or Narkompros), being appointed director of the Museum Bureau and Purchasing Fund in 1920, responsible for the reorganisation of art schools and museums. He was one of the organisers of RABIS (the trade union of art workers). He taught at the Higher Technical-Artistic Studios from 1920 to 1930, and he also helped found the Institute for Artistic Culture.

Culture Trip’s biography says this: ‘Featuring bright primary colors, aggressive geometric shapes and repeated bold lettering, Rodchenko successfully underpinned the stark dynamism of the Soviet regime. In rejecting passivity, the aim was to transform the submissive viewer into an active observer. With this in mind, he often worked with his wife Varvara Stepanova, providing graphic design for advertisements ranging from children’s dummies and cooking oil to beer and pharmaceuticals. In the 1920s, the regime had fully adopted Rodchenko as one of its tools for shaping the face of Soviet advertising.’ Indeed, together with the poet and playwright, Vladimir Mayakovsy, Rodchenko viewed himself as a crucial figure in the artistic representation of the regime. One of his best known images is the film poster for Sergei Eisenstein’s film Battleship Potemkin.

Increasingly, Rodchenko turned to photography, and impressed by the kind of photomontage being produced by the German Dadaists, he turned his own artistic endeavours to photomontage often incorporating text. In the 1930s, with the changing guidelines governing artistic practice, he concentrated on sports photography and images of parades and other choreographed movements. He had joined the October Group of artists in 1928 but was expelled after three years, charged with “formalism”. By the 1940s, he had returned to painting, producing abstract expressionist works, though he continued to organise photography exhibitions for the government. He died on 3 December 1956.

Culture Trip’s biography concludes with this assessment: ‘Rodchenko was both an upholder and a transgressor of the Communist regime. Throughout his life, he was a passionate believer in the new future of the Soviet Union, yet ultimately, his work failed to comply with the political and social values of Russia at the time. Nonetheless, his legacy continues to define modernist art, especially in the mediums of painting, graphic design and photography. The latter has, in many ways, contributed to the entire notion of modern European camerawork.’ Further information is available from Wikipedia, The Creators Project, The Culture Trip or an article in The Telegraph.

Rodchenko was an interesting diarist, intermittently documenting his professional and private thoughts alongside more philosophical musings. When MoMA put on a major retrospective of Rodchenko’s work in 1998, it also produced a major book on Rodchenko, which drew, to some extent, on his diaries. Aleksandr Rodchenko by Magdalena Dabrowski, Leah Dickerman and Peter Galassi, with essays by Aleksandr Lavrentiev and Varvara Rodchenko, is freely available as a pdf on the MoMA website.

Here is one paragraph from the introduction: ‘Rodchenko was an original theorist of art, but he was not a political thinker. He remained steadfastly committed to the ideals of the Revolution, and his diaries suggest that he never understood the forces that drove him from the prominence he had enjoyed in the decade after 1917, and eventually rendered him, as he put it, “an invisible man.” In the mid-1930s the artist who had boldly renounced painting in 1921 again began to paint - not abstract works but imaginary circus scenes. These paintings signal his alienation from the thrilling collective enterprise to which he had dedicated his life and from which he had drawn much of his unflagging inventiveness. In the 1940s he also painted abstract works of somewhat greater interest, but these too are omitted from the present exhibition. For as his diaries express, they are not products of a sustained creativity but of a painful and bewildering isolation, suffered by an artist whose work had been deeply rooted in collective goals. By the late 1930s Rodchenko and Stepanova were largely excluded from official culture, despite the design commissions they continued to receive from time to time. Like most Russians they suffered miserably during World War II, from which Rodchenko never fully recovered.’

And elsewhere in the book, there is a little more, including a diary extract, about this latter period in Rodchenko’s life: ‘Rodchenko’s diaries from the mid-1930s until his death in 1956 are saturated with suffering, especially during World War II, when like millions of other Russians he and Stepanova spent much of their time and energy simply on finding enough to eat. The entry for August 11, 1943, reads in part:

‘Can it be that someday a middle-aged Mulia [Rodchenko’s nickname for his only child, i.e. Varvara] and her children will sit here, and that she’ll look at my things and think: what a pity my father didn’t live to see this, he’s been recognized at last and there’s a demand for his things. . . . People are buying them. . . . They’re hanging in the museum. … [. . .] My future Mulia, your late father can honestly tell you: and what he can tell you is that he wasn’t certain, and even that he was totally uncertain, and that the uncertainty was like a disease. He didn’t know why he kept working. And that there were times like now when he thought all his work would be destroyed, thrown out and not a single piece would be left anywhere. [ ... ] Dear Mulia! Maybe you will be poisoned by all of this. . . . But I wish you no harm. Better to throw all of this away and live simply “like everybody else.” But I did have fame and a European reputation, I was known in France, Germany, America. And now I have nothing.’ ’

Several contributors to this book reference an English translation by James West, commissioned by MoMA, of a 1996 compilation of Rodchenko’s writings published in Russia. However, for whatever reason, West’s translation itself was never published, and it was not until 2005 that MoMA published an English version of the Russian book, as translated by Jamey Gambrell, with the title: Experiments for the Future: Diaries, Essays, Letters, and Other Writings. This book contains four sets of diary extracts - from 1911-1915; from 1934, 1936-1940; from 1941-1944; and from 1944-1954 - amounting to around 100 pages, a quarter of the total. Here are several of those extracts.

18 August 1912
‘In the evening Mam and I like to sit and talk over tea. I love it when she tells stories. The lamp. . . A little samovar . . . Her father was a sailor, served twenty-five years. He was a small, nimble man with a pointed beard and gray eyes. He married a girl from a rich peasant home. And left for the Turkish campaign . . . Their ship was destroyed, and he floated on the wreckage with other sailors, there were fifteen of them. They floated for a long time, three days, hungry and cold. They were taken on board a ship and brought home. Her papa was sick for a long time . . . He was given a job at a gunpowder factory, where he worked stuffing the cartridges with gunpowder. But he soon died . . . They had to go to Petersburg, where my Mama’s mama took up a position. Mama was given away for one chervonets, she was seven years old. . . She babysat the kids. And that’s how her life began . . .’

4 February 1934
‘How many interesting things have been missed that you can’t depict with either a Leica or a drawing. So I begin to write. . .
A certain loneliness from my private life being not quite in order forces me to write . . .
You don’t know what’s interesting: private life together with work, or just work alone.
Probably one should write what one lives and breathes by. And as to who will find it interesting, it doesn’t matter. Moreover, one has to write every day. It disciplines.
Twenty years ago I wrote a diary, and it seems to me that what I wrote had no meaning, either then or now . . .
A page is begun . . . My private life is over, my work isn’t moving.
Philosophy of diary writing: I read Varvara’s diary and I see that there are few concrete facts, it’s a lot of philosophy in general, probably one should write quite simply, like a log one keeps on a ship.
I’m drawing a caricature of Freberg and the publishing section of Politizdat. I want to do caricatures [. . .], and put together an evening exhibition in the studio - but why? I don’t know. A diary is a strange thing; everything looks dumb, somehow. It’s possible that when a person is completely opened up, the emptiness and silliness is terribly embarrassing.
I’m beginning to understand that one needs to record and not philosophize . . .
For example, in the Mostorg store, the price of electric plugs - one ruble - is twice what is in the VEO [Electrical Society] store on Miasnitskaia - fifty kopecks. True, this isn’t particularly interesting, but it’s a fact.
I’m writing like you take an exam, and this is my own exam, it’s stricter that way. Have to write to that, it will be interesting for me to read. Don’t feel like writing about love, you can’t exactly write the same way as writing letters to her . . .’

18 February 1934
‘Today I began to paint the circus tor myself, and thought: What if I painted the first painting, the circus, in black and pink, huge and complicated, 200 x 120cm, and then the Dinamo stadium: gray and green.
Zhenia called, wants me to come shoot something tomorrow. I feel like going off somewhere tomorrow. Alone. Neither with her nor without her. . .
I want to print all the “Leftorvo,” “Dinamo,” “Park of Culture and Leisure” [photos}. I’m forty-two, and it’s terrible . . .
I’m reading about Courbet, he worked like an ox.’

20 February 1934
‘Yesterday I was at the Press House with Zhenia . . .
The question is coming up bluntly, either live with her once and for all or say good-bye, PART. She’ll want to go visiting, to go to parties for the evening, and I need to work seriously; 26-43, it’s mathematics. Its reality.’

21 February 1934
‘I wrote a farewell letter to Zh. Drew a little. The feeling is like I just got home alter the hospital, and I’m not myself. I keep rifling around the shelves looking for something . . . And I’m looking for my certainty and calm . . . I look at magazines, read about painting  . . . I want to start everything from the beginning. . .’

14 March 1934
‘There’s a proposal to go to Kramatorka, to photograph the finished workshops of the factory and make ten albums for a report and for showing the government.
I’ve begun packing, I’m even taking the enlarger with me, and I decided to try to keep a diary of the trip. I’m leaving on March 17th. Tomorrow I go to the Trust to arrange the tickets. . . I don’t know what the weather will be like, recently it has been cold, snowing. I also have to fix the Leica tomorrow, to try out the film . . . I want to photograph not just the workshop and factory but make new photographs of everyday life and types, too. . .
I want to make photos such as I’ve never made before, ones that are life itself and the most genuine life, photos that are simple and complex at the same time, that will surprise and amaze . . .
Otherwise there’s nothing to do in photography, then it’s worth working and fighting for photography as art.’

25 August 1936
‘The most interesting books are those written not by writers but by people who have experienced and seen a great deal and who feel acutely. Moreover, they love, hate, and want a lot. . . Everyone who feels he thinks differently should definitely write. Write everything down and you will be better than the aristocrats of the spirit, who invent things in studies.
History will ask what you, “the non-honored” did and thought.
We don’t agree with the depicters, those like Gladkov, et al. Maybe it was all invented, spiced up with other people’s accomplishments from books, newspapers, and magazines.’

27 December 1944
‘I’m not working. We’re living bunched into one room, three or even four, also Mulia’s Kolya. It’s plus five degrees in the studio.
It’s cold. The gas isn’t on. Kerosene is 30 rub. a liter.
Electricity from six in the evening until six in the morning, that’s until January 1st. From January they’ll turn off the allocation on household necessities. I’m working as head artist in the House of Technology, I get 3,000 rub. a month. My student, Volodya Meshcherin, set it up, he’s a head engineer now, and a professor.
We wash ourselves now in parts in a cold kitchen.
I do my own laundry.
The war still isn’t over. . . There’s still another year left of it.
We are gallivanting across Europe with cannons. We’re taking Budapest. But there’s still no end.
And we ourselves don’t have firewood or fuel in Moscow.
We’re wearing rags, the bathhouses aren’t working. . .’

I know my own death

‘I feel that I know my own death, and have known it tor a long time. I feel that I died long ago, the same death I shall die later on. When I think of my own death, I do not think of something that has yet to happen, but of something that happened long ago but was forgotten. When I am of this mind, it seems to me that my death is what is most me. I think it is much more me than all the rest of my life.’ This is from the diaries of Seán Ó Ríordáin, born a 100 years ago today, who is one of most important of  Irish-language poets. Although he kept diaries for much of his life, few extracts have ever appeared in English.

Ó Ríordáin was born in Ballyvourney, County Cork, on 3 December 1916. When he was only 10, his father died of tuberculosis, a disease that he would also contract as a young man, and leave him with chronic poor health. His family moved to Cork city, where he and his brothers were sent to a Christian Brothers school. From 1936, he worked in the motor taxation office, remaining there until he took early retirement in 1965. During the latter years of his life, he wrote a column in The Irish Times, commenting strongly on national affairs, and lectured at University College Dublin. He died in 1977. Further biographical information can be found at Wikipedia, Transcript Review or Cork Institute of Technology.

But, it is for his poetry in the Irish language that Ó Ríordáin is remembered. He only published four collections in his lifetime, roughly one every decade. According to Transcript Review: ‘His writing is the product of patient distillation, and as a result is resonant and potent. [He] forged a personal idiom unlike that of any other Gaelic writer. It is an idiom made of key-words representing key-ideas, innovative compounds, and bombastic adjectives coined by the poet. His telling vocabulary is coupled with clarity of syntax.’

Ó Ríordáin was also a diarist for much of his life. A few excerpts from his journals have appeared in Irish-language publications - in the Irish-Language literary journal Comhar, and in Seán Ó Coileáin’s 2011 biography. More recently, the Irish-language publisher Cló Iar-Chonnacht has brought out Anamlón Bliana: Ó Dhialanna an Ríordánaigh, an anthology of 365 entries from Ó Ríordáin diaries, as collated by Tadhg Ó Dúshláine, one for each day of the year. ‘Together,’ the publisher says, ‘they provide a unique insight into the tortured mind of the poet, from 1940 when he first began to write in his diary.’

According to Róisín Ní Ghairbhí writing in The Irish Times, ‘The Ó Ríordáin of the diaries is precocious, erudite and articulate, and these excerpts are a fascinating insight into the troubled mind of a poet.’ She goes on: ‘The diary excerpts reveal a man with a mystic’s mind, a scholar’s passion and a generous cosmopolitan outlook. The raw intimacy of some of the writing is unsettling; elsewhere the reader will laugh out loud at Ó Ríordáin’s self-deprecation. His dim view of Irish bishops (he deems them Pharisees), his irreverent humour (he compares his suffering to that of Jesus, who at least, he says, had the consolation of wine and Mary Magdalene) and his repeated crises of faith remind us that he had a rebellious streak, which, although often overlooked since, was a great inspiration to the next generation of writers in Irish.’

The only extracts from Ó Ríordáin’s diaries that I have been able to find in English were published nearly 20 years go in The Diaries of Ireland: An Anthology 1590-1987 (The Lilliput Press, 1998) edited by Melosina Lenox-Conyngham. Here are several extracts.

11 August 1964
‘I have just returned from a funeral. A Protestant who died yesterday was being taken to the church at seven this evening. I went into this church for the first time and felt a strong sense of eeriness. I stood at the door and looked in. A small chapel was visible. The congregation was standing, its back to me, facing the altar. It was divided in two, a path in the middle. The altar and the minister could be seen at the end of the path. ‘Holy - Holy - Holy’ was written on the altar cloth. The place had the appearance of poverty, although the building seems ostentatious from the outside. The coffin was at the foot of the altar. I must confess that I was deeply moved, that is to say that every part of my mind was moved and renewed, and every moment of my life back to the days of my youth, and I might even say that I felt the hundreds of years between me and the Reformation slipping away when I looked into that holy place this evening. It was as though I had opened a door in my own soul that I had not had the courage to open until now. That was the strangest thing of all: that it seemed to me that I was looking at something which concerned me closely but that I had neglected, and I felt guilty. It was though I had visited relatives with whom my own family had long been at odds, people whom we had denied and avoided, and suddenly a hidden part of my own heritage was revealed to me. I found it difficult to satisfy my eyes. If allowed, I would have remained till midnight, peering about. There before me was Protestantism within which I hitherto had seen only from without. These are the people whose faith and way of life and destiny I had thought was to remain outside. This evening I saw them inside - inside though still outside. I felt that here was spiritual shelter. Although they had separated from the larger flock at the time of the Reformation, observe the heed they paid to the altar, to the altar cloth, to the priest’s vestments, to the rail, to the chapel itself, and observe how they had preserved these and other things. Who would claim that they did not preserve something of faith and sanctity and efficacy? Who would claim that their prayers are not heard?

I have long known a man of this congregation, but I never saw him pray to God until today. I looked on his back and on his grey hair and felt guilty. Why guilty? Because, I suppose, this thing has been happening among us for ages and we closed our eyes firmly to it. I felt also that I had been here before, although I had not. There is a part of Ireland and a part of the Church and a part of me here that exists nowhere else. Simple and not so simple people have been worshipping God, in this way, in this kind of church, for hundreds of years. Behind this worship is one great historical deed: the rejection of the Pope’s authority. It took great courage to risk damnation, but it required even greater faith to believe in the teaching of this severed Church. What a thing a great deed is, be it right or wrong! To do is to live! Think of the suffering, the love, the hate, the bloodshed, the philosophy, the history that followed this deed. All this activity must have contributed greatly to the light of truth.’

1 August 1963
‘I feel that I know my own death, and have known it tor a long time. I feel that I died long ago, the same death I shall die later on. When I think of my own death, I do not think of something that has yet to happen, but of something that happened long ago but was forgotten. When I am of this mind, it seems to me that my death is what is most me. I think it is much more me than all the rest of my life.

Like everyone else, I am a rich man for I have death in the bank. I cannot be drawn upon, however; death cannot he spent until it has matured. Death is land that cannot he sold or tied up in money, and we must live our life without it. We are often impoverished, without as much as a penny to spend, despite all this wealth we have stored up.’

2 June 1964
‘I saw a fat, ugly, middle-aged woman the other night. She is long married. Where is the snow that was so bright last year? I remember when she was a vision, when I thought I was in love with her. There was no beauty or contentment in the world then but what could he found in her. Now I wouldn’t care if she didn’t exist. She is a fat, ugly, old woman. Other, younger women, now hold the sway that she once held. This is an old story - the departure of youth and beauty. But it is even worse when they don’t depart but still remain, and we continue to crave them. People matter not a whit. They come and they go. But youth and beauty are eternal, and however old we may be they remain our constant goal. It was always people between twenty and twenty-five that Marcus Aurelius saw on the Appian Way. That is enough to break one’s heart.’

21 March 1974
‘I have been grasping for breath today and yesterday. Perhaps death is near. It doesn’t bother me in the least. I remember a fine, sunny day long ago in Clondrohid. I lived in Ballyvourney at the time, and cannot have been yet fifteen. I think my aunt Kathleen (now dead) was there. I don’t remember who else, but there were many. I got a spin in a large motor car that had no roof. The world was very airy. It is only a memory. Everyone is dead.’

The Diary Junction

McClellan’s war in Mexico

George Brinton McClellan, a soldier who played a key role in the American Civil War rising to the rank of major general before falling out with President Abraham Lincoln over military policy, was born 190 years ago today. During his first posting, to Mexico, he kept a journal of his experiences. This was not published until some 30 years after his death, and, according to its editor, the journal shows ‘striking contrasts in character between the youthful soldier, not yet twenty years of age, and the general or politician of fifteen or twenty years later.’ However, he says, one may also ‘discern many of the traits that stand out so prominently in his mature life’.

McClellan was born on 3 December 1826 in Philadelphia, the son of a prominent surgeon and founder of a medical college. Although schooled locally, he received private tuition in Greek and Latin, and was admitted to the University of Pennsylvania to study law in 1840. Two years later, though, he decided to switch to a military career, and with the help of his father was able to attend the US Military Academy at West Point. He remained there until graduating in 1846. He was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and ordered to sail for Mexico, where he took an active part in the Mexican-American War, being given brevet promotions to first lieutenant and captain.

McClellan returned to West Point as an instructor, training cadets in engineering activities. Among other activities, he served with a 1952 expedition to find the source of the Red River, translated a French manual on bayonet tactics, and was involved in surveying possible routes for a transcontinental railroad. In 1855, he was promoted to captain and assigned to the 1st U.S. Cavalry regiment. He served as an official observer of the European armies in the Crimean War, and subsequently wrote a manual on cavalry techniques. He also developed a new type of saddle. In 1857, however, he resigned from the military to take a position as a chief engineer with the newly constructed Illinois Central Railroad. By 1860, he had become president of the Ohio and Mississippi River Railroad, headquartered in Cincinnati. That same year, after a long courtship, he married Mary Ellen Marcy, and they would have two children.

At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, McClellan, despite being a Democrat, offered his services to Abraham Lincoln. He was given command of the volunteer army of the state of Ohio, but was soon promoted to the rank of major general in the regular army. A series of small battles won him the nickname of ‘The Young Napoleon’. He was put in charge of a large number of volunteer forces that he organised into the famous Army of the Potomac. By the end of 1861, he had succeeded Winfield Scott as general-in-chief of the Union Army. Despite his brilliant organising abilities and considerable military successes, he continually showed a reluctance to be more aggressive against the enemy, and failed to follow the demands of the strategy put in place by Lincoln and Edwin M. Stanton (Secretary of War), and was removed from high command of the army. He continued, though, to lead the Army of the Potomac, for a while, but was eventually ordered down from that command as well.

In 1864, McClellan was nominated by the Democratic Party to stand for election as president against Lincoln, but he couldn’t agree with the Party’s position that the war was a failure and should be brought to an end. He won only three states; and he resigned from the army on election day. Subsequently, he sailed for Europe with his family, where they remained until 1868. On his return to the US, he was appointed chief engineer of the New York City Department of Docks in 1870; two years later he became president of the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad. After another three year sojourn in Europe, he returned to be elected as Democratic governor of New Jersey (1978-1981). He spent the last years of his life travelling and writing, and died in 1885. Wikipedia has a long and detailed biography, but there are plenty of others sources of information about McClellan: The Civil War Trust, Home of the American Civil War, History Net, and History.Com.

McClellan wrote and published several books during his lifetime, including autobiographical works. However, a diary he kept as a young man during his Mexican posting was not published until 1917. William Starr Myers, a Princeton University professor and historian, was working on a biography of McClellan when he came across the diary among McClellan’s papers in the Library of Congress. He edited the short journal for publication by Princeton University Press as The Mexican War Diary of George B. McClellan. In his preface, Starr states: ‘It has seemed to me that this diary should prove to be of special value at the present time, for it throws additional light upon the failure of our time honoured “volunteer system” and forecasts its utter futility as an adequate defense in a time of national crisis or danger.’ The book, less than a 100 pages long, is freely available to read at Internet Archive.

Starr provides a brief introduction to the diary, which includes the following: ‘To the student of McClellan’s life this diary presents certain striking contrasts in character between the youthful soldier, not yet twenty years of age, and the general or politician of fifteen or twenty years later. At this time McClellan was by nature happy-go-lucky, joyous, carefree, and almost irresponsible. In after years he became extremely serious, deeply and sincerely religious, sometimes oppressed by a sense of duty. And yet at this early age we can plainly discern many of the traits that stand out so prominently in his mature life. He was in a way one of the worst subordinates and best superiors that ever lived. As a subordinate he was restless, critical, often ill at ease. He seemed to have the proverbial “chip” always on his shoulder and knew that his commanding officers would go out of their way to knock it off; or else he imagined it, which amounted to the same thing. As a commanding officer he always was thoughtful, considerate and deeply sympathetic with his men, and they knew this and loved him for it.

These same traits perhaps will explain much of the friction during the early years of the Civil War between McClellan and Lincoln and also the devotion that reached almost to adoration which the soldiers of the Army of the Potomac showed for their beloved commander. And McClellan had many intimate friends, friends of high character, who stood by him through thick and thin until the very day of his death. This relationship could not have continued strong to the last had he not in some measure deserved it. His integrity, his inherent truthfulness and sense of honor, stood out predominant.’

And here are several extracts from the diary itself.

26 December 1846
‘Marched 20 miles to San Fernando where we arrived a little after sunset. Road level until we arrived within about 5 miles of San Fernando, when it became rocky and hilly but always practicable. About 4 miles from San Fernando we reached the summit of a hill from which we beheld a basin of hills extending for miles and miles - not unlike the hills between the Hudson and Connecticut opposite West Point. About two miles from San Fernando are some wells of pretty good water - the men were very thirsty - Gerber offered a volunteer half a dollar for a canteen full of water. My little mare drank until I thought she would kill herself. The Alcalde and his escort met General Patterson at this place. He was all bows, smiles and politeness. Murphy of whom more anon had the honor of taking San Fernando by storm. He was the first to enter it, mounted on his gallant steed. We first saw San Fernando as we arrived at the summit of a high hill, the last rays of the sun shining on its white houses, and the dome of the “Cathedral” gave it a beautiful appearance. It was a jewel in the midst of these uninhabited and desert hills. We encamped in a hollow below the town had a small eggnog and dreamed of a hard piece of work we had to commence on the morrow. Mañana [tomorrow morning] por la mañana.’

27 December 1846
‘We had our horses saddled at reveille and before sunrise were upon the banks of El Rio de San Fernando - a clear, cold and rapid mountain stream, about 40 yards wide and two and a half feet deep - bottom of hard gravel. We crossed the stream and found ourselves the first American soldiers who had been on the further bank. The approaches to the stream from the town required some repairs, nothing very bad - it was horrible on the other side. As we again crossed the stream we halted to enjoy the beautiful view - the first rays of the sun gave an air of beauty and freshness to the scene that neither pen nor pencil can describe.

With a detail of 200 men and our own company we finished our work before dinner. Walked up into the town in the afternoon. On this day General Pillow overtook us. He had a difficulty with a volunteer officer who mutinied, drew a revolver on the General, etc., etc. The General put him in charge of the guard - his regiment remonstrated, mutinied, etc., and the matter was finally settled by the officer making an apology.’

28 December 1846
‘Crossed the stream before sunrise under orders to move on with the Tennessee horse one day in advance of the column in order to repair a very bad ford at the next watering place - Las Chomeras. Very tiresome and fatiguing march of about 22 miles. Road pretty good, requiring a few repairs here and there. Water rather brackish. Very pretty encampment. Stream about 20 yards wide and 18 inches deep. No bread and hardly any meat for supper.’

29 December 1846
‘Finished the necessary repairs about 12 noon. We partook of some kid and claret with Colonel Thomas. While there General Patterson arrived and crossed the stream, encamping on the other side. Waded over the stream to see the Generals - were ordered to move on in advance next morning with two companies of horse and 100 infantry.’

30 December 1846
‘Started soon after daybreak minus the infantry who were not ready. Joined advanced guard, where Selby raised a grand scare about some Indians who were lying in ambush at a ravine called “los tres palos” in order to attack us. When we reached the ravine the guard halted and I rode on to examine it and look for the Indians - I found a bad ravine but no Indians.

On this same day the Major commanding the rear guard (Waterhouse, of the Tennessee Cavalry) was told by a wagonmaster that the advanced guard was in action with the Mexicans. The men, in the rear guard, immediately imagined that they could distinguish the sound of cannon and musketry. The cavalry threw off their saddle bags and set off at a gallop - the infantry jerked off their knapsacks and put out - Major and all deserted their posts on the bare report of a wagonmaster that the advance was engaged. A beautiful commentary this on the “citizen soldiery.” Had we really been attacked by 500 resolute men we must inevitably have been defeated, although our column consisted of 1700 - for the road was narrow - some men would have rushed one way, some another - all would have been confusion and all, from the General down to the dirtiest rascal of the filthy crew, would have been scared out of their wits (if they ever had any).

Our 100 infantry dodged off before we had done much work, and our own men did everything. We reached Encinal about 4 P. M. after a march of about 17 miles, and almost incessant labor at repairs. It was on this day that General Patterson sent back Brigadier General Pillow to tell Second Lieutenant Smith to cut down a tree around which it was impossible to go!!’

23 March 1847
‘Firing continued from our mortars steadily - fire of enemy by no means so warm as when we opened on the day before. Our mortar platforms were much injured by the firing already. The 24 pounder battery had to be re-revetted entirely - terreplein levelled. During this day and night the magazine was excavated, and the frame put up. Two traverses made the positions of platforms and embrasures determined. Two platforms laid and the guns run in the embrasures for them being partly cut. One other gun was run to the rear of the battery.’

24 March 1847
‘On duty with Captain Saunders again - could get no directions so I had the two partly cut embrasures marked with sand bags and dirt, and set a party at work to cover the magazine with earth as soon as it was finished. During this day the traverses were finished, the platforms laid, the magazine entirely finished, and a large number of sand bags filled for the revetments of the embrasures. The “Naval Battery” opened today, their fire was fine music for us, but they did not keep it up very long. The crash of the eight inch shells as they broke their way through the houses and burst in them was very pretty. The “Greasers” had had it all in their own way - but we were gradually opening on them now. Remained out all night to take charge of two embrasures. The Alabama Volunteers, who formed the working party, did not come until it was rather late - we set them at work to cut down and level the top of parapet - thickening it opposite the third and fourth guns. Then laid out the embrasures and put seven men in each. Foster had charge of two, Coppée of two, and I of two. Mine were the only ones finished at daylight - the Volunteers gave out and could hardly be induced to work at all.’

From playboy to ascetic

Charles de Foucauld, a wealthy playboy who turned to god and then became a monk living like a hermit among the Tuareg people of the Sahara desert, died a century ago today. According to his biographer, René Bazin, he was killed by Arab raiders, the very people for whom ‘he had toiled so hard with body and mind.’ Bazin’s biography relies heavily on diaries kept by Foucauld, right up the weeks before his death, and includes many verbatim extracts.

Charles de Foucauld was born into an aristocratic family in 1858 in Strasbourg, France. He was orphaned as a child and raised by his maternal grandfather, and was destined to inherit the family wealth. He studied at Saint-Cyr Military Academy and Cavalry School of Saumur before joining, in 1880, the 4th Hussars as Sous-Lieutenant and being posted to Algeria. However, his wealth and position had led him to become an amoral young man, living a riotous life. He was also an indisciplined soldier which led him to being censured by his military superiors.

Foucauld was much affected by his experiences of the Sahara Desert, and, after leaving the army in 1882, he set about exploring Morocco disguised as a rabbi. On returning to Paris, he wrote up his travels, with drawings, and the resulting book, Reconnaissance au Maroc, inspired Societé Française de Géographie to award him a gold medal. Subsequently, he became increasingly interested in religion. He undertook a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and, in 1886, converted to Catholicism. A few years later, he joined the Cistercian Trappist order as a monk, first in France and then at Akbès on the Syrian-Turkish border.

But still Foucauld had not found fulfilment. In 1897, he left the monastery to work as gardener and sacristan for the Poor Clare nuns in Nazareth and later in Jerusalem. In 1901, he returned to France, was ordained a priest, and travelled to Béni Abbès, Algeria, near the border with Morocco, intending to found a monastic religious community that offered hospitality to all faiths as well as those with no faith. But he did not manage to attract any adherents, and he came to live a quiet, hermetic life with monastic routines. By the middle of the 1890s, he had moved further away from the French presence, into the mountains in southern Algeria to be with the Tuareg people, in Tamanrasset, where he built a small hermitage. For the next ten years or so he shared the life and hardships of the Tuareg, studying their culture and traditions, and writing a lengthy dictionary of their language (posthumously published in four volumes). He returned to France a couple of times, hoping, but failing, to recruit companions for his hermitage.

With the outbreak of WWI, Germany’s ally Turkey promoted attacks on French outposts in Africa, causing tension in Algeria and Morocco. Foucauld with Tuareg help built a fort to protect the surrounding population; it also served the French military as a stockpile for the arms and ammunition of their local allies. But, in one raid, Foucauld was taken hostage by stranger Arabs, apparently intent on holding him for ransom, but he was shot and died on 1 December 1916. The Hermitary concludes: ‘Charles de Foucauld is a complex historical figure within Catholicism, history, and eremitism. That is to say, he is uniquely modern, and his life was an unconscious striving to attain an ecumenical eremitism, a universal eremitism.’ While, Franciscan Media concludes: ‘The life of Charles de Foucauld was eventually centered on God and was animated by prayer and humble service, which he hoped would draw Muslims to Christ. Those who are inspired by his example, no matter where they live, seek to live their faith humbly yet with deep religious conviction.’ Further information is also available from Wikipedia, Jesus Caritas (biography, video), and Ignatius Insight.

Foucauld’s Reconnaissance au Maroc is largely based on diaries he kept while travelling around the country. This was used much later by Foucault’s friend, René Bazin, along with other diaries, for a biography Foucauld. The biography was subsequently translated into English by Peter Keelan and published as Charles de Foucauld: Hermit and Explorer (Benziger Brothers, 1923). This is freely available at Internet Archive. All the following extracts from Foucauld’s diary are taken from Bazin’s biography; and, after the last extract (16 November 1916) below, I have also included Bazin’s account of Foucauld’s death.

16-17 June 1883
‘In vain do we try to find a way of entering into the Rif: many of the Jews whom we consulted declare that one can only enter by Nemours with the protection of a certain Moroccan sheikh who will perhaps come here in a fortnight or a month, perhaps later; and even this means would be uncertain; they add that it is as difficult in starting from here to cross the Rif as it is easy in setting out from Tetuan, where men of influence can give efficacious recommendations. I do not wish to wait a fortnight or month at Nemours; much better reach Tetuan by sea and begin my journey from there.’

18 June 1883
‘A steamer appears in the roadstead. It is going to Tangier via Gibraltar. I embark on it with Mardochee. Being Jews, we take the lowest class and cross on deck in the company of Israelites and Musulmans. Start at 9 a.m.: pretty bad weather.’

19 June 1883
‘Wake up in the roadstead of Gibraltar. The packet-boat will lie at anchor all day. I land and visit the town; Mardochée remains on board. A young Jew of eighteen who knows Spanish accompanies me; as for me, I know nothing but Arabic. My excursion has a practical aim. On board, the water we are given is filthy; took a large iron pot and brought it back full of water. I walk about for five hours in Gibraltar, pot in hand; I push on to a Spanish village under a mile from the town. Cross the frontier and note the English and Spanish sentinels mount guard only 60 yards apart, the former as well as the latter badly dressed.’

20 June 1883
‘Left Gibraltar at midday; arrived at Tangier at 2.45.’

8 May 1914
‘Began to make a fair copy of the whole Tuareg-French dictionary.’

31 July 1914
‘This evening reached page 385 of the dictionary.’

31 August 1914
‘Reached page 550.’

3 September 1914
‘Express to hand from Fort Motylinski, telling me that Germany has declared war on France, invaded Belgium, attacked Liege. M. de La Roche (commander of the station) starts on the 4th or 5th for Adrar, with all his band. He orders Afegzag to muster a gum, and Musa to come with at least twenty men, into Ahaggar.’

Saw Afegzag; he orders 10 Dag-Rali, 10 Iklam, 10 Aguh-n-Tabli, 10 Ait-Lohen, 10 Kel-Tazulet, to muster immediately; personally, he sets out this evening for Motylinski, where he will be to-morrow morning.’

9 September 1914
‘Received 1,500 cartridges of 1874 for Musa.’

11 September 1914
‘Noon post to hand. Captain de Saint-Léger orders M. de La Roche to remain at Ahaggar with his whole force. I forward the order by express. Bad news; we are retreating all along the frontier, before superior forces. We cannot help Belgium. The Germans occupy Brussels.’

24 September 1914
‘Received news on September 11 from In-Salah and on 3rd from Paris. Always falling back; Government sits at Bordeaux.’

30 September 1914
‘This evening page 700 of the dictionary.’

21 October 1914
‘This is the war for Europe’s independence of Germany. And the way in which the war is carried on shows how necessary it was, how great was Germany’s power, and how it was time to break the yoke before she became still more formidable; it shows by what barbarians Europe was half enslaved, and near becoming completely so, and how necessary it is once for all to deprive of force a nation which uses it so badly and in such an immoral and dangerous way for others. It is Germany and Austria that wanted war, and it is they who deserved to have it made against them, and who, I hope, will receive a blow that will make them unable to do any harm for centuries.’

7 December 1914
‘The Tripoli disturbance has not crossed the frontier. We cannot thank God enough for the numberless favours that He has bestowed on the eldest daughter of His Church; not the least is the fidelity of our colonies. . . .

The confidence of the Tuaregs in me keeps on increasing. The work of the slow preparation for the Gospel is pursued. May the Almighty soon make the hour strike for you to send workers into this part of your field. . . .’

20 February 1915
‘The south of Tripoli is disturbed; Saint-Léger and 200 or 300 soldiers are on the frontier, to prevent bands in revolt against the Italians from breaking into our territory. Only one French adjutant and six or seven native soldiers remain at Fort Motylinski. This adjutant is a capital fellow. We often write to each other, but we rarely see one another; being alone, he cannot leave his post, and I, having a great deal to do, cannot move from here without serious reason. I have not been to Fort Motylinski for two years.’

12 March 1915
‘Like you, I hope that from the great evil of this war will go forth a great blessing to souls - a blessing in France, where the sight of death will inspire serious thoughts, and where the accomplishment of duty in the greatest sacrifices will uplift souls and purify them, bringing them nearer to Him who is the uncreated good, and make them more fit to see the truth and stronger to live in conformity with it; - a blessing to our Allies, who in coming nearer to us come nearer to Catholicism, and whose souls, like ours, are purified by sacrifice - a blessing to our infidel subjects, who, fighting in crowds on our soil, learn to know us and get nearer to us, and whose loyal devotion will stir up the French to work for them more than in the past, and govern them better than in the past.’

15 April 1915
‘Saint-Léger leaves In-Salah, and takes command of another Saharan company, that of Twat. . . . He is replaced by another friend, also very much liked, Captain Duclos, whom I knew there as lieutenant, an officer of great worth and fine character. . . . I constantly see Uksem. Marie asks me if he knits: he knits wonderfully, and all the young people in his encampment and village have begun to knit and crochet under his directions; knitted socks, and crocheted vests and caps. That took a long time, but since his return, thanks to one of his sisters-in-law who set about it with a great deal of good-will, it started, and everybody is beginning it.’

2 August 1915
‘A young negro who knows Ghardaia, the Fathers and Sisters, told me a few days ago: “When the Sisters come here I shall put my wife with them, so that she may learn to weave, and I shall ask to be their gardener.” . . . The time is near when the Sisters will be received by the natives with great gratitude, above all by the settled cultivators. . . . Will God arrange things in such a way as to bring the White Fathers and the White Sisters here?’

7 September 1915
‘To-morrow will be the feast of the nativity of the Blessed Virgin, ten years since my Tamanrasset hermitage was built and I have said Mass in it. I owe much thanksgiving to God for al the graces He has bestowed on me here.’

16 November 1916
‘How good God is to hide the future from us! What a torture life would be were it less unknown to us! and how good He is to make so clearly known to us the heaven thereafter which will follow our earthly time of trial!’

Bazin comments: ‘The writer of these lines had only two weeks to live. He did not know it, but he was ready to receive death any day form the hands of those for whom he had so much prayed, walking so far over the sand and pebbles, suffering o severely from thirst and hear, working so many days and nights, in so much solitude, and for whom, in short, he had toiled so hard with body and mind.’

Further, Bazin sets down the facts about Foucauld’s death from the combined evidence of Paul, a negro servant, and that of another harratin, as they were recorded in two official reports:

‘On December 1, after having served the marabout’s dinner, I went to my zariba, about five hundred yards from there. It was about 7 o’clock, and dark. A short time afterwards, when I had myself finished my meal, two armed Tuaregs sprang into the zariba and said to me: ‘Are you Paul, the marabout’s servant? Why do you hide? Come and see with your own eyes what is happening: follow us! ‘I replied that I was not hiding, and that what was happening was God’s will.

On arriving near the marabout’s house, I perceived the latter seated, his back to the wall, on the right of the door, his hands bound behind his back, looking straight in front of him. We did not exchange a single word. I crouched down as ordered, on the left of the door. Numerous Tuaregs surrounded the marabout; they were speaking and gesticulating, congratulating and blessing the hartani El Madani, who had drawn the marabout into the trap, foretelling a life of delights for him in the other world as a reward for his work. Some other Tuaregs were in the house, going in and coming out, carrying various things found in the interior - rifles, munitions, stores, chegga (cloth), etc. Those who surrounded the marabout pressed him with the following questions: ‘When does the convoy come? Where is it? What is it bringing? Are there any soldiers in the bled? Where are they? Have they set out? Where are the Motylinski soldiers?’ The marabout remained impassible, he did not utter a word. The same questions were then put to me, as well as to another hartani, who was passing in the wady and caught in the meantime.

The whole did not last half an hour. The house was surrounded by sentinels. At this moment one of the sentinels gave the alarm, shouting: ‘Here are the Arabs! Here are the Arabs (the soldiers of Motylinski).’ At these cries, the Tuaregs, with the exception of three, two of whom remained in front of me and the other standing on guard near the marabout, went towards the place whence the cries came. A lively fusillade broke out. The Tuareg who was near the marabout brought the muzzle of his rifle close to the head of the latter and fired. The marabout neither moved nor cried. I did not think he was wounded: it was only a few minutes afterwards that I saw the blood flow, and that the marabout’s body slipped slowly down upon its side. He was dead.’

Lord and Lady Cavendish

Frederick Charles Cavendish, an English politician and protege of William Gladstone, was born 180 years ago today. He was brutally murdered in Dublin, hours after being appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland. He was only 45. His wife, Lucy Lyttelton, was a niece of Gladstone, and, briefly, served as a Maid of Honour to Queen Victoria. She kept a detailed diary from the age of 13 until the death of her husband, and, naturally, there is much about Lord Cavendish in its pages. A fan of Lucy’s - Denise H who describes herself as an Anglophile in Minnesota - has made the diary freely available online, along with an excellent index.

Cavendish was born on 30 November 1836 at Compton House, a stately home, in Eastbourne, England, the second son of the 7th Duke of Cavendish. He was educated at home and then at Trinity College, Cambridge. He served as a cornet in the Duke of Lancaster’s Own Yeomanry Cavalry, before taking a post as private secretary to Lord Granville, who was then Lord President of the Council. He remained in that position from 1859 to 1864. In 1864, he married Lucy Caroline Lyttelton, the second daughter of the 4th Baron Lyttelton, and a niece of William Gladstone’s wife. They would have no children.

In 1865, Cavendish was elected to parliament as a Liberal MP for the Northern Division of the West Riding of Yorkshire. After serving as Gladstone’s private secretary, from July 1872 to August 1873, he became a junior lord of the Treasury until the 1874 election brought the Tories back into power. With Gladstone again PM in 1880, Cavendish was appointed financial secretary to the Treasury, until 1882 when he was offered, and accepted, the post of Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland (nominally subordinate to the Lord-Lieutenant but effectively government minister in charge of Ireland). He travelled with the Lord-Lieutenant, Earl Spencer, to Dublin on 6 May. Later that same day, he was walking in Phoenix Park with Thomas Henry Burke, the Permanent Under-Secretary, and they were both murdered by Irish nationalists. Subsequently, during the trial of the murderers, it was established that the plot had been against Burke, and that Cavendish was only killed because he was in Burke’s company.

After her husband’s death, Lucy became an increasingly active campaigner for girls’ and women’s education. She was a member of the royal commission on education in 1894 (one of the first women to serve on a royal commission); and she was a long-serving president of the Yorkshire Ladies’ Council of Education (1885-1912). In 1904 she was awarded an honorary degree (Doctor of Laws) at the formal inauguration of Leeds University for ‘notable service to the cause of education’. She died in 1925, but was not forgotten - in 1965, Cambridge University named its first postgraduate college for women after her. Further information can be found at Wikipedia (Lord Cavendish, Lady Cavendish) or the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (log-in required, free with UK library card).

Lady Cavendish was an assiduous diarist for the first part of her life, from the age of 13 until the death of her husband. Her diaries were edited by John Bailey (her brother-in-law) and published by John Murray in 1927 as The Diary of Lady Frederick Cavendish. The diary is used as a major resource by Andrea Geddes Poole in her recent book Philanthropy and the Construction of Victorian Women’s Citizenship: Lady Frederick Cavendish and Miss Emma Cons (parts of this can be read online at Googlebooks). Also, a review of the published diary can be read in a 1927 edition of The Spectator.

The diaries, as published, however are all freely available online - at the Lady Lucy Cavendish Diary Blog - thanks to a shy lady, Denise H, who describes herself at ‘just an Anglophile in Minnesota’. The diary records, Denise says, ‘an exciting whirl of the best upper class life of the time both in town and in the country. From crowded London dinner parties to extended stays at the most famous British country manors (Chatsworth, Holker), to travels to the continent and the West Indies, her diary records a life that Anthony Trollope could only imagine.’ Apart from a full index of Lady Cavendish’s diary by date, Denise has also indexed the entries by topics and names. Her site also includes the editor’s introductions to each of the various diary volumes.

Here are several extracts from Lady Cavendish’s diary chosen because they shed light on the life of Lord Cavendish (F. or Fred.). The first includes her mention of her future husband, and another concerns her wedding day; Uncle W, being Gladstone, also appears in these extracts. (FN in square brackets indicate Bailey’s footnotes as inserted into the text by Denise.)

20 November 1862
‘A notable day; I came to Chatsworth chaperoned by At. Y. and Tallee, in default of Papa, who is too busy commissioning, besides he told me he had a romance abt Chatsworth, and wanted to see it in lovely weather, never having been here since ‘39. It is most delightful being again with my Tallee, and we have managed already a quiet sit and a spell of capping verses! I can’t judge of the house yet, only it seems immeasurable. We find the Duke of Devonshire, Ly. Louisa, and Ld. Frederic Cavendish, [FN: This is the first mention of her future husband.] Ld. and Ly. George Cavendish and daughter, Ld. and Ly. Fanny Howard and daughters, Mr. Charles Clifford, Mr. Vyner, etc., all family I fancy. Round game, at which I won 4s.’

11 March 1871
‘My precious Fred sent me a full account [FN: There had been a fire at Holker.]. Something in his dressing-room chimney did the mischief, but he suspected nothing till he was woke about 5 by a loud crash, and looking into the dressing-room, was driven back by suffocating hot smoke. He groped as fast as he could (no possibility of putting any clothes on!) to the other wing, alarmed the house, and set everyone to work saving pictures and books from the rooms below. The Duke and Uncle Richard worked hard, but when F. came down again from an expedition (commanded by the Duke in the advancing dawn!) to get on some borrowed clothes, the drawing-room and library were ungetatable, and alas some good pictures were lost: the Vernet (calm sea), the large Ruysdael, the Van der Cappelle, the Canaletto, and the S. Christopher by either Memling or Albert Dürer; engines came one after another and were efficacious in preventing the fire spreading to the old wing, which however was hardly to be averted except by the providential change of wind at the critical moment when the very doors of communication between the 2 wings were burnt. All is utter ruin of the new wing.’

2 February 1874
‘The meeting was in the Keighley Mechanics’ Institute, at 8. The fine big hall was crammed in every corner. F. spoke with rather less effect than at Halifax, confining himself almost entirely to finance, but the people listened famously well, and I enjoyed the sight of their keen, shrewd faces. At first there were symptoms of opposition, from Tory, extreme Radical, and Republican (! ! !) sections, but all this seemed to dwindle away. My proudest time was during the questions, in which my old Fred does certainly excel. He is thoroughly up upon all the subjects and one could see growing respect and confidence in the faces below. Jolly old Mr. Wilson followed suit with unbounded good-will and pluck, but not quite with all the knowledge of the various matters one could wish; occasionally taking wild Radical flights, occasionally coming out rather old Tory than otherwise; but always with straightforwardness and bonhomie. What with F.’s profound earnestness and his humorous hitting, they are a good deal like Tragedy and Comedy. The meeting ended with splendid enthusiasm, and was all but unanimous, barely 6 hands being held up against us.’

7 June 1864
‘Our wedding day. I cannot write about it. I can only look backwards with loving regret, and forward with bright but trembling hope. We were married in Westminster Abbey, by Uncle Billy, and came here [FN: The Duke of Devonshire’s house at Chiswick in which both Fox and Canning died. It is now the property of the Municipality.] about 4 o’clock, into peaceful summer loveliness and the singing of birds.’

31 January 1881
‘A very notable week of Parliamentary events. The “debate” on leave to bring in the Coercion Bill began afresh on Monday, and the House sat for 41 1/2 hours. The Speaker and Dep. Speaker (Dr. Playfair) relieved each other, and the House divided itself as before into relays. On Tues. night F. was to sit up, and to go to bed at 8 on Wednesday morning the 2nd Feb. Instead of which, when he turned up at that hour, he announced that after some breakfast and a tub he was to go back again, as a coup d’état was decided on. The Speaker had gone on patiently calling the wretches to order over and over again, and about midnight the Tories made a dead set at Dr. Playfair, who had taken the Chair, to “name” one of the lot. He wouldn’t do what the Speaker had declined to do, and a bear-garden ensued. The Front Opposition bench all stalked out of the House, and rest took to shouting. Only poor Mr. Childers was on the Government bench at the time; but after a bit Bright came in and made a good speech which quieted them. Meanwhile F. went off in a cab to Devonshire House and pulled unlucky Hartn. out of bed at 1 when he had just got there and was sound asleep. The rest of the night passed peacefully. Very few even of the Government knew what was planned between the Speaker, Uncle W., and Sir Stafford; but some notion of a decisive step impending must have prevailed, for at 9 a.m. the House was pretty full. I hurried matters at home, but couldn’t omit Prayers for any coup d’état! so that I was just in time at 9.30 to be too late. The Speaker took Playfair’s place at 9, and without sitting down made a stately little speech as to the obstructed condition of things, and proceeded to say that under the exceptional circumstances he should call on no member to speak, but should at once call for the division. Biggar, one of the most offensive of the Irish, like a hunched-back toad to look at, who was comfortably expecting to resume his speech (interrupted by Playfair’s leaving the Chair), was thus left high and dry! and, before any of them could say Jack Robinson, the division was taken and leave given to bring in the Coercion Bill, which was immediately read a 1st time. When I got there, a bit of the business was being got thro’ and then came the announcement that the House do adjourn (for only 2 1/2 hours!), received by a worn-out cassé cheer of joy as the hapless M.P.s rushed out of the House and home to bed. We came across Sir Bow-wow Harcourt and Cavendish by Westminster Hall in high feather, Sir Bow-wow saying that it was the 1st time in history that Cavendish had been known to be in bed at 1, and then he was pulled out of it! F. went to bed, but had to be back by 12. Motions for adjournment went on just as if nothing had happened, and so came 6 with no progress made. Uncle W. then gave notice of Anti-Obstruction Resolutions.’

4 November 1881
‘—F. had talks with Uncle W. about his resignation, which he is very seriously contemplating about Easter, on the strength of having carried out all the great foreign matters of policy that he took office to do. The conversation as I have it from F. was pretty much as follows. Uncle W. began by saying that resigning the Chancellorship of the Exchequer would have the great drawback of in a manner binding him to remain on as P.M. for an indefinite time. His reasons for wishing to give it up altogether he then went into.

(I ought to have put in, after his words about the Exchequer, what he then proceeded to say as to his having been called to office. All the special reasons which justified his taking office were at an end or nearly so: the Berlin treaty carried out, Afghanistan evacuated, Transvaal settled, finance put on a satisfactory footing. Two matters that had since arisen no doubt still required his care - the state of Ireland, and Parliamentary Obstruction; but these were, he trusted, in a hopeful way of being settled.)

Never liked the tone even of Sir Robert Peel, when he used to complain of the severity of public service; which, in his (Uncle W.’s) opinion, was fairly requited and not heavier than duty called for. At the same time, he considered that after 50 years of public service it was not well to be obliged to work with the intensity which office now entailed, nor was it desirable to look forward to end one’s days in the contentions necessarily entailed by the office of P.M. In the next place, his position towards the Queen was intolerable to one who throughout life had reverenced her as a constitutional sovereign, inasmuch as he now had to strive daily with her on the side of liberty as opposed to jingoism. In the 3rd place he said it was only fair to Lord Granville and Hartn., who had led the party thro’ difficult and disagreeable times. F. acknowledged the force of all this, but represented the practical impossibility. While he retained his full powers, the country would not let him resign and nobody else could lead. Uncle W. then suggested temporary abstention on his part as meeting these difficulties; though he acknowledged that a retired Minister was inevitably the centre which attracted all discontent.

Subsequently, he mentioned the House of Lords, but said he thought of that with great reluctance. F. replied that to take a peerage was his only possible course if he was bent on retiring; that the country would otherwise always be turning to him and clamouring for him; that in the H. of Commons he could never occupy a 2nd place. Uncle W. laughed and said, “You have indeed put a serious bar in the way of my retiring.” When he spoke of Ld. Granville, F. said he had heard on good authority (which he did not quote - it was a letter from Lord Acton to Mazy) that Ld. G. meant to retire whenever Uncle W. did. At this he was greatly surprised; but said he did fear Ld. G.’s life was not a good one. He spoke of the effects of old age: said he was constantly reminded of Cobden’s remark about Ld. Palmerston - that with age authority was apt to increase as powers of judgment decreased; and quoted the D. of Wellington as another instance of harm done by old men. Nevertheless he was obliged to confess that he had stood the hard work of the last session without harm, and was in perfect force, and better than he had been. Spoke of a former time when he could not sleep on one side without disquiet and bad dreams - was now quite free from that. He tried to make out that Ireland might be quiet and the regulation of the House all settled by Easter. F. thinks there is hardly any chance of this. Within this very week he has given F. to read an able and exhaustive paper (such as might furnish matter for a 3 hours’ speech) on Local Government for the guidance of Mr. Dodson. How could this be launched and then left to others? (F., however, has learnt since that it is to be laid before a special Committee on which Uncle W. will not sit.) The talk ended by his saying he would consult Lord Granville.

The impression F. gathered from the whole conversation was that the thought of retirement was not so much prompted by the personal longing for it (tho’ without doubt it is a vision which refreshes and cheers him to turn to) as by conscientious scruples with regard to Ld. G. and Hartn., and as to his own conviction against old men going on at politics till they drop. He hates making himself the exception. (But N.B. what an exception he is, as a matter of fact!)

The upshot seems to me that he will find it impossible to retire before there is some indication of serious overstrain in him, either mental or bodily. That otherwise, however he might seclude himself he would remain a great power in the country, such as would necessarily hamper his successors. That the only feasible way, supposing his powers anything like what they are at present, would be by taking a peerage. That, unless he should be in real danger of breaking down, it could not be right for him to leave the helm in the present state of politics; nor can the moment be foreseen when it would be right. I think the hope of being able to retire soon will continue to please him; but that he will find it impossible at any given moment except under the above-mentioned conditions. Taking a peerage and continuing to be P.M. might do; but it could hardly be bearable for him to be P.M. with no power over the H. of C. and in a minority in the H. of Lords.’

For one’s great-grandson

‘Feeling much better. I do a Spectator article on keeping diaries, in which I lay down the rule that one should write one’s diary for one’s great-grandson. I think that is a correct rule. The purely private diary becomes too self-centred and morbid. One should have a remote, but not too remote, audience.’ This is Harold Nicolson, one of the greatest of 20th century diarists, born 130 years ago today, musing on the diary form.

Nicolson was born on 21 November 1886, in Tehran, part of Persia at the time. He  spent much of his youth either abroad, where his diplomat father was posted, or at the Irish estates of his mother’s relatives. He was educated at a preparatory school, The Grange, then Wellington College and Balliol College, Oxford. After a period in France, improving his languages, he joined the diplomatic service, being posted to Madrid briefly and then Constantinople. He married Victoria Mary (Vita) Sackville-West in 1913, and in 1915 they brought Long Barn, a semi-derelict medieval farmstead in Kent where they would live for 15 years before moving to Sissinghurst.

With the outbreak of war, Nicolson was recalled to the Foreign Office; and through the war years he was mostly occupied on matters relating to neutral powers. He was one of the chief draftsmen of the Balfour declaration, which committed Britain to supporting a Jewish homeland in Palestine. In the war’s aftermath, Nicolson was attached to the British delegation at the Paris Peace Conference, where he served on a number of Balkan committees. He established a reputation for analysis and sound judgement. Subsequently, he was appointed private secretary to Sir Eric Drummond, the first secretary-general of the League of Nations, but within months had been recalled to London. He went on to be involved mostly in Middle East issues.

By this time, Nicolson had embarked on a parallel career, writing biographies of literary figures, including of Paul Verlaine, Tennyson, Byron and Swinburne. His civil service career, though, did not proceed smoothly. Having been promoted to First Secretary and then Counsellor, he was posted to Tehran as Chargé d'affaires, but was recalled in 1927 and demoted for criticising his minister. Another posting, to Berlin, followed, and another promotion, but in 1929 he resigned. He worked at the Evening Standard briefly, and edited Action, a newspaper put out by Oswald Mosely’s New Party. He also stood, unsuccessfully, as an MP for the party in the 1931 General Election. Soon after Moseley formed his fascist party Nicolson ceased to support him, and, thereafter, always regretted his earlier involvement.

In 1935, Nicolson stood for Parliament, successfully this time, as a National Labour Party member (for Leicester West). He remained an MP for ten years, when he lost his seat. He was never an especially remarkable politician, though he was well-respected as a back-bencher for his knowledge of foreign affairs. He was, however, a talented writer and journalist. Because of the remarkable relationship with his wife (which was very close while allowing affairs with same-sex lovers) and the fact that he moved in high political circles and was intimate with the Bloomsbury Group, he had plenty to observe and write about. With Vita, he developed one of the country’s most famous gardens at Sissinghurst (now run by the National Trust). He was appointed Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in 1953, as a reward for writing the official biography of George V. Vita died in 1962, and Nicolson in 1968. Further biographical information is available from Wikipedia, Spartacus, Mantex, or the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (log-in required).

As a young man, Nicolson kept a diary intermittently, and a little bit more regularly during the Paris Peace Conference. This latter he later edited for publication by Constable as Peacemaking (1933). However, he did not start to keep a regular daily diary until 1 January 1930; from then on, he kept it continuously for over 30 years, until 1964, amassing some three million words. According to his son, Nigel Nicolson, editor of the diaries, he would type up the previous day’s diary entry every morning after breakfast using both sides of loose sheets of quarto paper. The sheets were then filed and stored in a steel cabinet at Sissinghurst, never to be re-read or shown to anyone until Nigel, in the 1960s, suggested editing them for publication. Collins brought out a first volume - Diaries and Letters 1930-39 - in 1966; a second volume - Diaries and Letters 1939-45 - in 1967; and, posthumously, a third volume - Diaries and Letters 1945-1966 - in 1968.

Although Nicolson is well-remembered for his relationship with Sackville-West and their Sissinghurst garden, his enduring literary legacy, without doubt, is the diaries. Since the three-volume edition in the 1960s, there have been various further editions and collections some of which have included pre-1930 diary material. In 2009, Faber Finds republished the original 1960s editions - see Of war and of sowing.

A few years earlier, though, in a 2004, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (a publisher set up by Nigel Nicolson but sold to Orion in 1991) had published a one volume edition, Diaries and Letters 1907-1964 (some pages can be read at Amazon). In an editorial note, Nigel Nicolson observes that still only one twentieth part of all his father’s diaries had ever been published. And then, at the start of his introduction, he explains why he thinks the diaries have been so acclaimed over the years: ‘First, he had led a very active life in diplomacy, politics and literature, and knew, some intimately, the leading figures in all three professions. Therefore his diaries and letters form a record of considerable value to historians and biographers. Secondly, he had unusual powers of observation and recollection, specially of conversations. He recorded not just what people said, but their tone of voice, their gestures, their clothes, possessions and houses, all clues to their characters.’

Here are several extracts taken form the original 1960s volumes.

30 November 1930
‘Dawdle all morning. Go a damp walk with Hilda Matheson. In the afternoon over to Eton. The boys are well and Ben seems more self confident. Have tea at Fuller’s and return to Cliveden. In the evening after dinner a discussion starts on the future of England. Philip Ken - now Lothian - says that democracy and Empire cannot go together, Garvin inveighs against the politicians, and especially Baldwin and Ramsay. The others join in. The main conclusion is that Parliament, though susceptible to dealing with politics, is hopeless at finance and economics. That we are about to enter the worst crisis in our history. And that unless the economic situation can be dealt with on undemocratic lines, i.e. independent of votes, we shall go smash. Not even Holland, but worse than Holland.

Tom Mosley tells me that he will shortly launch his manifesto practically creating the National Party. He hopes to get Morris of Oxford to finance him. He hopes to get Keynes and similar experts to sign his manifesto. He hopes that [Oliver] Stanley and Macmillan will also join. He hopes to get the support of Beaverbrook. I doubt whether many of these hopes will be realised, but his conversation is convincing enough to decide me to write to Tudor Walters declining his offer to stand for Falmouth. That is one boat burnt.’

31 January 1932
‘There is a dead and drowned mouse in the lily-pool. I feel like that mouse - static, obese and decaying. Viti is calm, comforting and considerate. And yet (for have I not been reading a batch of insulting press-cuttings?) life is a drab and dreary thing. I had a great chance. I have missed it. I have made a fool of myself in every respect.

Surely there was a time I might have trod
The sunlit heights, and from life’s dissonance
Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God?
[Oscar Wilde lines]

Very glum. Discuss finance. Viti keeps on saying that we have got enough to go on with. But when one goes into it, that enough represents only two months. I must get a job. Yet all the jobs which pay humiliate. And the decent jobs do not pay. Come back to Long Barn. Arrange my books sadly. Weigh myself sadly. Have put on eight pounds. Feel ashamed of myself, my attainments, and my character. Am I a serious person at all? Vita thinks I could make £2,000 by writing a novel. I don’t. The discrepancy between these two theories causes me some distress of mind.’

30 January 1936
‘Dr Broadbent has telephoned to say that B.M. [Lady Sackville] cannot live through the day. Vita goes down by the 12 noon train and I promise to follow as soon as I have put off all my engagements. Reach Brighton at 2 p.m. and go to White Lodge. Go straight up to B. M.’s room and find that she has died some three minutes before, quite painlessly and without recovering consciousness. Take Vita into the other room. Rhind [Lady Sackville’s secretary] is much upset but behaves well. The solicitor arrives and also the priest. The latter is disgusting and refuses to have a service over B.M. if she is to be cremated. She has left a pathetic little typewritten notice saying that she was to be cremated and the ashes flung into the sea. Vita is much harassed and shattered, but inwardly, I think, relieved.’

12 November 1936
‘Debate on Defence. We have to abandon our Foreign Affairs Committee as Winston is to make a great speech. He does. His style is more considered and slower than usual, but he drives his points home like a sledge-hammer. We adjourn rather shaken to Ramsay’s room expecting to hear the bombs dropping at any moment. The usual dull drab discussion of Party affairs. Then into the House to hear Baldwin reply. He speaks slowly and with evident physical effort. At one moment he loses his notes. It is all very well done, but he has a poor case. One of the Whips whispers to me, “This will take three months energy out of him”, and by the end of his speech his voice and thought limp as if he were a tired walker on a long road. The House realises that the dear old man has come to the end of his vitality.’

30 November 1936
‘I go to see Ramsay MacDonald. He talks to me in deep sorrow about the King. “That man”, he says, “has done more harm to his country than any man in history.” It seems that the Cabinet are determined that he shall abdicate. So are the Privy Council. But he imagines that the country, the great warm heart of the people, are with him. I do not think so. The upper classes mind her being an American more than they mind her being divorced. The lower classes do not mind her being an American but loathe the idea that she has had two husbands already. Ramsay is miserable about it. The effect on America, the effect on Canada, the effect on our prestige. And in particular he is furious because Malcolm [MacDonald] had almost succeeded in persuading de Valera to accept Edward VIII as King, and now the whole thing is torn to pieces.’

28 December 1941
‘Feeling much better. I do a Spectator article on keeping diaries, in which I lay down the rule that one should write one’s diary for one’s great-grandson. I think that is a correct rule. The purely private diary becomes too self-centred and morbid. One should have a remote, but not too remote, audience.

The Russians continue to nibble at the German lines. In Libya we are ‘mopping up’, but it is not clear what has really happened. The public seem to have lost all interest in Libya.’

26 December 1942
‘A cold slate-grey day. I write an article on Parliament in 1942. I weed the lime-border in the afternoon. Viti is at work on her poem The Garden. She is finding it very difficult, and alternates between depression and elation.

Darlan has been assassinated by a Frenchman with an Italian mother. Giraud says he hopes de Gaulle will join him.’

26 December 1943
‘We go over to Long Barn. I walk sadly in the damp fog thinking of all the happy days of youth passed among those poplars and meadows. Fifteen years was Long Barn my dear home, and now it is to be sold to a film magnate called Soskin. It is looking very pretty. Viti and I rather sadly measure furniture to see what we shall take to Sissinghurst. Afterwards the refugee children sing carols for us. [Long Barn was used during the war for displaced children.]

I feel depressed by the war and the coming revolution and the loss of my past life and values. Even Europe, which I knew and loved well, has ceased to be important. Les Scythes ont conquis le monde.’

21 November 1946
‘I reach the age of sixty. I talk at Chatham House on ‘Peacemaking, 1919 and 1946’. It goes very well. There are many questions - all sensible. I then return to the Travellers and have a drink with Victor Cunard and Moley Sargent. I come back with Victor, who has taken a house immediately opposite this bloody tenement.

I return across the road, conscious of my sixty years. Until about five years ago I detected no decline at all in physical vigour and felt as young as I did at thirty. In the last five years, however, I am conscious that my physical powers are on the decline. I am getting slightly deaf. Intellectually I observe no decline: I can write with the same facility, which is perhaps a fault. I do not notice that my curiosity, my interests or my powers of enjoyment and amusement have declined at all. What is sad about becoming sixty is that one loses all sense of adventure. It is unlikely now that the impossible will happen. I am very well aware, moreover, that I have not achieved either in the literary or the political world that status which my talents and hard work might seem to justify. In literature, the explanation is simple: although hard-working, I am not intelligent enough to write better than I do. In politics, it has been due partly to lack of push and even of courage, and partly to a combination of unfortunate events (Mosley, National Labour, my being identified with the Ministry of Information at a bad time, and so on). There was a moment in 1938 when it looked as if I had a political future, but that moment passed. I failed to seize it.

Now how much do I mind all this? I have no desire for office or power in any sense. I know quite honestly that if I were offered the Embassy in Paris or Rome, I should hesitate to accept, not only because Viti would hate it, but because I have no wish to be prominent and grand. But of course I am disappointed by my literary ill-success. Nor do I quite relish the idea that my reputation rests not so much upon my political or literary work, as upon my journalistic and broadcasting work. I regret all this quite faintly. I see, on the other hand, a long life behind me, dashed with sunshine and gay with every colour. And to have three people in my life such as Viti and Ben and Nigel is something greater than all material success. For if happiness is in fact the aim of life, then assuredly I have had forty years of happiness, from the day when as a little boy I walked down to the station at Wellington College with a surge of freedom in my heart. Since that hour of liberation I have had a wonderful succession of delights and interests. For which I thank my destiny.’

29 November 1948
‘I spend the day inserting into my notebook all the public events in the reign of George V. It is laborious, but useful and restful. I then read Sidney Lee’s biography of Edward VII, about which there hangs an aroma of feline skill.

Viti and I discuss after dinner whether Bertie Russell was right in stating that we should make war on Russia while we have the atomic bomb and they have not. It is a difficult problem. I think it is probably true that Russia is preparing for the final battle for world mastery and that once she has enough bombs she will destroy Western Europe, occupy Asia and have a final death struggle with the Americas. If that happens and we are wiped out over here, the survivors in New Zealand may say that we were mad not to have prevented this while there was still time. Yet, if the decision rested with me, I think I should argue as follows: “It may be true that we shall be wiped out, and that we could prevent this by provoking a war with Russia at this stage. It may be true that such a war would be successful and that we should then establish some centuries of Pax Americana - an admirable thing to establish. But there remains a doubt about all this. There is a chance that the danger may pass and peace can be secured by peace. I admit it is a frail chance - not one in ninety. To make war in defiance of that one chance is to commit a crime. Better to be wiped out by the crime of others than to preserve ourselves by committing a deliberate crime of our own. A preventive war is always evil. Let us rather die.”

And the New Zealander would say, “The man was mad” - or cowardly, or stupid, or just weak.’

The Diary Junction