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349
The Journal of a Disappointed Man
·
W. N. P. Barbellion
47
A
good
raconteur
himself,
he
does
not
willingly
suffer
a
story
from
another.
The
varmint
on
occasion
finishes
your
joke
off
for
you,
which
is
his
delicate
way
of
intimating
that
he
has
heard
it
before.
He
is
a
first-class
mimic,
and
sends
every
one
into
a
thousand
fits
while
he
gives
you
in
succession
the
Mayor
and
all
the
Corporation.
He
also
delights
me
at
times
by
mimicking
me.
His
mind
is
receptive
rather
than
creative:
it
picks
up
all
sorts
of
gaudy
ideas
by
the
wayside
like
a
magpie,
and
I
sometimes
enjoy
the
exquisite
sensation
of
hearing
some
of
these
petty
pilferings
(which
he
has
filched
from
me)
laid
at
my
feet
as
if
they
were
his
own.
The
ideas
which
are
his
own
are
always
unmistakable.
His
favourite
poems
are
Omar
and
the
Ballad
of
Reading
Jail,
his
favourite
drinks
Medoc
or
a
Cherry
Mixture.
Me
he
describes
as
serpentilous
with
Gibbon-like
arms,
pinheaded,
and
so
on.
He
amuses
me.
In
fact
I
love
him.
March
16.
No
one
will
ever
understand
without
personal
experience
that
an
exceedingly
self-conscious
creature
like
myself
driven
in
on
himself
to
consume
himself
is
the
unhappiest
of
men.
I
have
come
to
loathe
myself:
my
finicking,
hypersensitive,
morbid
nature,
always
thinking,
talking,
writing
about
myself
for
all
the
world
as
if
the
world
beyond
did
not
exist!
I
am
rings
within
rings,
circles
concentric
and
intersecting,
a
maze,
a
tangle:
watching
myself
behave
or
misbehave,
always
reflecting
on
what
impression
I
am
making
on
others
or
what
they
think
of
me.
Introduce
me
to
a
stranger
and
I
swell
out
as
big
as
Alice.
Self-consciousness
makes
me
pneumatic,
and
consequently
so
awkward
and
clumsy
and
swollen
that
I
don't
know
how
to
converse--and
God
help
the
other
fellow.
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