Lab
Library
Journal
Shop
Sign in
to keep
Share image
1
349
The Journal of a Disappointed Man
·
W. N. P. Barbellion
236
My
Journal
keeps
open
house
to
every
kind
of
happening
in
my
soul.
Provided
it
is
a
veritable
autochthon--I
don't
care
how
much
of
a
tatterdemalion
or
how
ugly
or
repulsive--I
take
him
in
and--I
fear
sponge
him
down
with
excuses
to
make
him
more
creditable
in
other's
eyes.
You
may
say
why
trouble
whether
you
do
or
whether
you
don't
tell
us
all
the
beastly
little
subterranean
atrocities
that
go
on
in
your
mind.
Any
eminently
"right-minded"
Times
or
Spectator
reader
will
ask:
"Who
in
Faith's
name
is
interested
in
your
introspective
muck-rakings--in
fact,
who
the
Devil
are
you?"
To
myself,
a
person
of
vast
importance
and
vast
interest,
I
reply,--as
are
other
men
if
I
could
but
understand
them
as
well.
And
in
the
firm
belief
that
whatever
is
inexorably
true
however
unpleasant
and
discreditable
(in
fact
true
things
can
never
lack
a
certain
dignity),
I
would
have
you
know
Mr.
Times-
and
Mr.
Spectator-reader
that
actual
crimes
have
many
a
time
been
enacted
in
the
secrecy
of
my
own
heart
and
the
only
difference
between
me
and
an
habitual
criminal
is
that
the
habitual
criminal
has
the
courage
and
the
nerve
and
I
have
not.
What,
then,
may
these
crimes
be?
Nothing
much--only
murders,
theft,
rape,
etc.
None
of
them,
thank
God;
fructify
in
action--or
at
all
events
only
the
lesser
ones.
My
outward
and
visible
life
if
I
examine
it
is
merely
a
series
of
commonplace,
colourless
and
thoroughly
average
events.
But
if
I
analyse
myself,
my
inner
life,
I
find
I
am
both
incredibly
worse
and
incredibly
better
than
I
appear.
I
am
Christ
and
the
Devil
at
the
same
time--or
as
my
sister
once
called
me--a
child,
a
wise
man,
and
the
Devil
all
in
one.
Just
as
no
one
knows
my
crimes
so
no
one
knows
of
my
good
actions.
A
generous
impulse
seizes
me
round
the
heart
and
I
am
suddenly
moved
to
give
a
poor
devil
a
£5
note.
But
no
one
knows
this
because
by
the
time
I
come
to
the
point
I
find
myself
handing
him
a
sixpenny-bit
and
am
quite
powerless
to
intervene.
Similarly
my
murders
end
merely
in
a
little
phlegm.
Marker
Marker
Fine marker
White-out
Fine white-out
Circle
Paint
Unmarker
Hand
Scalpel
Dice
Sieve
Purify
Undo
Redo
Start over
