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349
The Journal of a Disappointed Man
·
W. N. P. Barbellion
315
That
is
strange
enough.
But
my
life
is
stranger
still
by
comparison.
And
this
is
the
marvel:
that
every
day
I
spend
by
the
waters
of
Babylon,
weeping
and
neglected
among
enthusiasts,
enthusiastically
counting
joints,
while
every
evening
I
return
to
Zion
to
my
books,
to
Hardy's
poems,
to
Maurice
de
Guérin's
Journals,
to
my
own
memoirs.
Mine
is
a
life
of
consummate
isolation,
and
I
frequently
marvel
at
it.
The
men
I
meet
accept
me
as
an
entomologist
and
ipso
facto,
an
enthusiast
in
the
science.
That
is
all
they
know
of
me,
and
all
they
want
to
know
of
me,
or
of
any
man.
Surely
no
man's
existence
was
ever
quite
such
a
duplicity
as
mine.
I
smile
bitterly
to
myself
ten
times
a
day,
as
I
engage
in
all
the
dreary
technical
jargon
of
professional
talk
with
them.
How
they
would
gossip
over
the
facts
of
my
life
if
they
knew!
How
scandalised
they
would
be
over
my
inner
life's
activities,
how
resentful
of
enthusiasm
other
than
entomological!
I
find
it
very
irksome
to
keep
up
this
farce
of
concealment.
I
would
love
to
declare
myself.
I
loathe,
hate
and
detest
the
secrecy
of
my
real
self:
the
continuous
restraint
enforced
on
me
ulcerates
my
heart
and
makes
harmonious
social
existence
impossible
with
those
who
do
not
know
me
thoroughly.
"On
dit
qu'au
jugement
dernier
le
secret
des
consciences
sera
révélé
à
tout
l'univers;
je
voudrais
qu'il
en
fut
ainsi
de
moi
dès
aujourd'hui
et
que
la
vue
de
mon
âme
fut
ouvert
à
tous
venants."
Maurice
de
Guérin.
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