The Journal of a Disappointed Man

June 30. Dinosaurs There are books which are Dinosaurs--Sir Walter Raleigh's History of the World, Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. There are men who are Dinosaurs--Balzac completing his Human Comedy, Napoleon, Roosevelt. I like them all. I like express trains and motor lorries. I enjoy watching an iron girder swinging in the air or great cubes of ice caught up between iron pincers. I must always stop and watch these things. I like everything that is swift or immense: London, lightning, Popocatepetl. I enjoy the smell of tar, of coal, of fried fish, or a brass band playing a Liszt Rhapsody. And why should those foolish Mænads shout Women's Rights just because they burn down a church? All bonfires are delectable. Civilisation and top hats bore me. My own life is like a tame rabbit's. If only I had a long tail to lash it in feline rage! I would return to Nature--I could almost return to Chaos. There are times when I feel so dour I would wreck the universe if I could.[1] (1917: I think after three years of Armageddon I feel quite ready to go back to top hats and civilisation.) July 8. Sunset in Kensington Gardens The instinct for worship occurs rhythmically--at morning and evening. This is natural, for twice a day at sunrise and sunset--however work-sodden we may be, however hypnotised by daily routine--our natural impulse is (provided we are awake) to look to the horizon at the sun and stand a moment with mute lips. During the course of the day or night, we are too occupied or asleep--but sunrise is the great hour of the departure and sunset is the arrival at the end. Everything puts on a mysterious appearance--to-night the tops of the elms seemed super-naturally high and, pushing up into the sky, had secret communion with the clouds; the clouds seemed waiting for a ceremony, a way had been prepared by the tapissier, a moment of suspense while one cloud stretched to another like courtiers in whispered conversation; a rumour of the approach; then slowly the news came thro' that the sun had arrived for immediate departure.