The Journal of a Disappointed Man

The record nauseates me. I am nauseated with myself and my self-centredness.... Suppose I have been "whizzing" as I call it--what then? They are but subjective trifles--meanwhile other men are seeing great adventures in Gallipoli and elsewhere. "The Triumph is gone," exclaimed the Admiral who in a little group of naval officers on board the flagship had been watching H.M.S. Triumph sink in the Ægean. He shuts his telescope with a click and returns in great dudgeon to his own quarters. How I envy all these men who are participating in this War--soldiers, sailors, war correspondents--all who live and throb and are not afraid. I am a timid youth, anæmic, wear spectacles, and am frightened by a Zep raid! How humiliating. I hate myself for a white-livered craven: I am suffocated for want of more life and courage. My damnable body is slowly killing off all my spirit and buoyancy. Even my mind is becoming blurred. My memory is like an old man's exactly. (Ask ----.) Yet thro' all my nausea, here I remain happy to discuss myself and my little mishaps. I'm damned sick of myself and all my neurotic whimperings, and so I hereby and now intend to lead a new life and throw this Journal to the Devil. I want to mangle it, tear it to shreds. You smug, hypocritical readers! you'll get no more of me. All you say I know is true before you say it and I know now all the criticism you are going to launch. So please spare yourself the trouble. You cannot enlighten me upon myself. I know. I disgust myself--and you, and as for you, you can go to the Devil with this Journal.