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1
349
The Journal of a Disappointed Man
·
W. N. P. Barbellion
316
March
1.
It
is
curious
for
me
to
look
at
my
tubes
and
microscope
and
realise
that
I
shall
never
require
them
again
for
serious
use.
Life
is
a
dreadful
burden
to
me
at
the
Museum.
I
am
too
ill
for
any
scientific
work
so
I
write
labels
and
put
things
away.
I
am
simply
marking
time
on
the
edge
of
a
precipice
awaiting
the
order,
"Forward."
It
is
excoriating
to
be
thus
wasting
the
last
few
precious
days
of
my
life
in
such
mummery
merely
to
get
bread
to
eat.
They
might
at
least
let
me
die
in
peace,
and
with
fitting
decorum.
It
is
so
ignoble
to
be
tinkering
about
in
a
Museum
among
Scarabees
and
insects
when
I
ought
to
be
reflecting
on
life
and
death.
I
ask
myself
what
ought
to
be
my
most
appropriate
reaction
in
such
circumstances
as
the
present?
Why,
of
course,
to
carry
on
as
if
all
were
normal,
and
the
future
unknown:
why,
so
I
do,
to
outward
view,
for
the
sake
of
the
others.
Yet
that
is
no
reason
why
in
my
own
inward
parts
I
should
not
at
times
indulge
in
a
little
relaxation.
It
is
a
relief
to
put
off
the
mailed
coat,
to
sit
awhile
by
the
green-room
fire
and
have
life
as
it
really
is,
all
to
myself.
But
the
necessity
of
living
will
not
let
me
alone.
I
must
be
always
mumming.
My
life
has
been
all
isolation
and
restriction.
And
it
now
appears
even
my
death
is
to
be
hedged
around
with
prohibitions.
Drugs
for
example--how
beneficent
a
little
laudanum
at
times
in
a
case
like
mine!
and
how
happy
I
could
be
if
I
knew
that
in
my
waistcoat
pocket
I
carried
a
kindly,
easy
means
of
shuffling
off
this
coil
when
the
time
comes
as
come
it
must.
It
horrifies
me
to
consider
how
I
might
break
the
life
of
E----
clean
in
two,
and
sap
her
courage
by
a
lingering,
dawdling
dying.
But
there
is
the
Defence
of
the
Realm
Act.
It
is
a
case
of
a
Scorpion
in
a
ring
of
fire
but
without
any
sting
in
its
tail.
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