The Journal of a Disappointed Man

And, mind you, there are people who have seen most things but have never seen themselves walking across the stage of life. If someone shows them glimpses of themselves they will not recognise the likeness. How do you walk? Do you know your own idiosyncrasies of gait, manner of speech, etc.? I never cease to interest myself in the Gothic architecture of my own fantastic soul.[1] March 6. The Punch and Judy Show Spent a most delightful half-an-hour to-day reading an account in the Encyclopædia Britannica (one of my favourite books--it's so "gey disconnekkit") the history of the Punch and Judy Show. It's a delightful bit of antiquarian lore and delighted me the more because it had never occurred to me before that it had an ancient history. I am thoroughly proud of this recent acquisition of knowledge and as if it were a valuable freehold I have been showing it off saying, "Rejoice with me--see what I have got here." I fired it off first in detail at ----; and H---- and D---- will probably be my victims to-morrow. After all, it is a charming little cameo of history: compact, with plenty of scope for conjecture, theory, research, and just that combination of all three which would suit my taste and capacity if I had time for a Monograph. March 22 I waste much time gaping and wondering. During a walk or in a book or in the middle of an embrace, suddenly I awake to a stark amazement at everything. The bare fact of existence paralyses me--holds my mind in mort-main. To be alive is so incredible that all I do is to lie still and merely breathe--like an infant on its back in a cot. It is impossible to be interested in anything in particular while overhead the sun shines or underneath my feet grows a single blade of grass. "The things immediate to be done," says Thoreau, "I could give them all up to hear this locust sing." All my energies become immobilised, even my self-expression frustrated. I could not exactly master and describe how I feel during such moments.