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349
The Journal of a Disappointed Man
·
W. N. P. Barbellion
207
April
10.
"Why,"
asks
Samuel
Butler,
"should
not
chicken
be
born
and
clergymen
be
laid
and
hatched?
Or
why,
at
any
rate,
should
not
the
clergyman
be
born
full
grown
and
in
Holy
Orders
not
to
say
already
beneficed?
The
present
arrangement
is
not
convenient
...
it
is
not
only
not
perfect
but
so
much
the
reverse
that
we
could
hardly
find
words
to
express
our
sense
of
its
awkwardness
if
we
could
look
upon
it
with
new
eyes...."
As
soon
as
we
are
born,
if
we
could
but
get
up,
bathe,
dress,
shave,
breakfast
once
for
all,
if
we
could
"cut"
these
monotonous
cycles
of
routine.
If
once
the
sun
rose
it
would
stay
up,
or
once
we
were
alive
we
were
immortal!--how
much
forrarder
we
should
all
get--always
at
the
heart
of
things,
working
without
let
or
hindrance
in
a
straight
line
for
the
millennium!
Now
we
waltz
along
instead.
Even
planets
die
off
and
new
ones
come
in
their
place.
How
infinitely
wearisome
it
seems.
When
an
old
man
dies
what
a
waste,
and
when
a
baby
is
born
what
a
redundancy
of
labour
in
front!
Two
People
I
hate
in
particular
The
man
walking
along
the
pavement
in
front
of
me
giving
me
no
room
to
pass
under
the
satisfactory
impression
that
he
is
the
only
being
on
the
pavement
or
in
the
street,
city,
country,
world,
universe:
and
it
all
belongs
to
him
even
the
moon
and
sun
and
stars.
The
woman
on
the
'bus
the
other
night--pouring
out
an
interminable
flow
of
poisonous
chatter
into
the
ear
of
her
man--poor,
exhausted
devil
who
kept
answering
dreamily
"Oom"
and"Yes"
and
"Oom"--how
I
hated
her
for
his
sake!
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