The Journal of a Disappointed Man

December 21. This continuous preoccupation with self sickens me--as I look back over these entries. It is inconceivable that I should be here steadily writing up my ego day by day in the middle of this disastrous war.... Yesterday I had a move on. To-day life wearies me. I am sick of myself and life. This beastly world with its beastly war and hate makes me restless, dissatisfied, and full of a longing to be quit of it. I am as full of unrest as an autumn Swallow. "My soul," I said to them at breakfast with a sardonic grin, "is like a greyhound in the slips. I shall have to wear heavy boots to prevent myself from soaring. I have such an uplift on me that I could carry a horse, a dog, a cat, if you tied them on to my homing spirit and so transformed my Ascension into an adventure out of Baron Munchausen." With a gasconnade of contempt, I should like to turn on my heel and march straight out of this wretched world at once. December 22. Gibbon's Autobiography This book makes me of all people (and especially just now) groan inwardly. "I am at a loss," he says, referring to the Decline and Fall, "how to describe the success of the work without betraying the vanity of the writer.... My book was on every table and almost on every toilette." It makes me bite my lips. Rousseau and his criticism of "I sighed as a lover; I obeyed as a son," and Gibbon on his dignity in reply make one of the most ludicrous incidents in literary history. "... that extraordinary man whom I admire and pity, should have been less precipitate in condemning the moral character and conduct of a stranger!" Oh my giddy Aunt! Isn't this rich? Still, I am glad you did not marry her: we could ill spare Madam de Staël, Madam Necker's daughter, that wonderful, vivacious and warmhearted woman.