The Journal of a Disappointed Man

Spent the afternoon at the Royal Army Medical College in consultation with the Professor of Hygiene. Amid all the paraphernalia of research, even when discussing a serious problem with a serious Major, I could not take myself seriously. I am incurably trivial and always feel myself an irresponsible youth, wondering and futile, among owlish grown-ups. At 4 p.m. departed and went down on Vauxhall Bridge and watched a flour-barge being unloaded before returning to the Museum. I could readily hang on behind a cart, stare at an accident, pull a face at a policeman and then run away. June 20. ... It annoys me to find the laissez-faire attitude of our relatives. Not one with a remonstrance for us and yet all the omens are against our marriage. In the state of my nervous system and in the state of hers--we have both had serious nervous break-downs--how impossible it seems! Yet they say all the old conventional things to us, about our happiness and so on!... ... Am I a moral monster? Surely a man who can combine such calculating callousness with really generous impulses of the heart is--what? The truth is I think I am in love with her: but I am also mightily in love with myself. One or the other has to give. June 25. If sometimes you saw me in my room by myself, you would say I was a ridiculous coxcomb. For I walk about, look out of the window then at the mirror--turning my head sideways perhaps so as to see it in profile. Or I gaze down into my eyes--my eyes always impress me--and wonder what effect I produce on others. This, I believe, is not so much vanity as curiosity. I know I am not prepossessing in appearance--my nose is crooked and my skin is blotched. Yet my physique--because it is mine--interests me. I like to see myself walking and talking. I should like to hold myself in my hand in front of me like a Punchinello and carefully examine myself at my leisure.