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349
The Journal of a Disappointed Man
·
W. N. P. Barbellion
148
He
regards
me
with
the
most
obvious
commiseration
and
always
when
I
come
away
after
a
visit
he
shakes
me
warmly
by
the
hand
and
says,
"Good-bye,
old
man,
and
good
luck."
More
luck
than
the
pharmacopœia.
My
life
has
always
been
a
continuous
struggle
with
ill-health
and
ambition,
and
I
have
mastered
neither.
I
try
to
reassure
myself
that
this
accursed
ill-health
will
not
affect
my
career.
I
keep
flogging
my
will
in
the
hope
of
winning
thro'
in
the
end.
Yet
at
the
back
of
my
mind
there
is
the
great
improbability
that
I
shall
ever
live
long
enough
to
realise
myself.
For
a
long
time
past
my
hope
has
simply
been
to
last
long
enough
to
convince
others
of
what
I
might
have
done--had
I
lived.
That
will
be
something.
But
even
to
do
that
I
will
not
allow
that
I
have
overmuch
time.
I
have
never
at
any
time
lived
with
any
sense
of
security.
I
have
never
felt
permanently
settled
in
this
life--nothing
more
than
a
shadowy
locum
tenens,
a
wraith,
a
festoon
of
mist
likely
to
disappear
any
moment.
At
times,
when
I
am
vividly
conscious
of
the
insecurity
of
my
tenure
here,
my
desires
enter
on
a
mad
race
to
obtain
fulfilment
before
it
is
too
late
...
and
as
fulfilment
recedes
ambition
obsesses
me
the
more.
I
am
daily
occupied
in
calculating
with
my
ill-health:
trying
to
circumvent
it,
to
carry
on
in
spite
of
all.
I
conquer
each
day.
Every
week
is
a
victory.
I
am
always
surprised
that
my
health
or
will
has
not
collapsed,
that,
by
Jove!
I
am
still
working
and
still
living.
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