The Journal of a Disappointed Man

February 28. What a boon is Sunday! I can get out of bed just when the spirit moves me, dress and bath leisurely, even with punctilio. How nice to dawdle in the bath with a cigarette, to hear the holiday sound of Church bells! Then comes that supreme moment when, shaven, clean, warm and hungry for breakfast and coffee, I stand a moment before the looking-glass and comb out my towzled hair with a parting as straight as a line in Euclid. That gives the finishing touch of self-satisfaction, and I go down to breakfast ready for the day's pleasure. I hate this weekday strain of having to be always each day at a set time in a certain place. March 3. I often sit in my room at the B.M. and look out at the traffic with a glassy, mesmerised face--a fainéant. How different from that extremely busy youth who came to London in 1912. Say--could that lad be I? How many hours do I waste day-dreaming. This morning I dreamed and dreamed and could not stop dreaming--I had not the will to shake myself down to my task.... My memories simply trooped the colour. It surprised me to find how many of them had gone out of my present consciousness and with what poignancy of feeling I recognised them again! How selfishly for the most part we all live in our present selves or in the selves that are to be. Then I raced thro' all sorts of future possibilities--oh! when and how is it all going to end? How do you expect me to settle down to scientific research with all this internal unrest! The scientific man above all should possess the "quiet mind in all changes of fortune"--Sir Henry Wotton's How happy is he born and taught.