The Journal of a Disappointed Man

My gratitude to E---- for plucking me out of the hideous miseries of my life in London is greater than I can express. If I were the cheap hero of a ladies' novel I should immolate my journals as a token, and you would have a pretty picture of a pale young man watching his days go up in smoke by the drawing-room fire. But I have more confidence in her sterling good sense, and if I cannot be loved for what I am, I do not wish to be loved for what I am not. Since the fateful Nov. 27th, my life has become entirely posthumous. I live now in the grave and am busy furnishing it with posthumous joys. I accept my fate with great content, my one-time restless ambition lies asleep now, my one-time, furious self-assertiveness is anæsthetised by this great War; the War and the discovery about my health together have plucked out of me that canker of self-obsession. I sit at home here in this country cottage in perfect isolation--flattened out by a steam hammer (tho' it took Armageddon to do it!), yet as cheerful and busy as a Dormouse laying up store for the winter. For I am almost resigned to the issue in the knowledge that some day, someone will know, perhaps somebody will understand and--immortal powers!--even sympathise, "the quick heart quickening from the heart that's still." July 19. Omniscience An omniscient Caledonian asked me to-day: "Where are the Celebes? Are they E. or N.E. of the Sandwich Group?"