The Journal of a Disappointed Man

December 26. "In thus describing and illustrating my intellectual torpor, I use terms that apply more or less to every part of the years during which I was under the Circean spells of opium. But for misery--" (Why do I waste my energy with this damned Journal? I stop. I hate it. I am going out for a walk in the fog.) December 31. Reminiscences For the past few days I have been living in a quiet hermitage of retrospect. My memories have gone back to the times--remote, inaccessible, prehistoric--before ever this Journal was begun, when I myself was but a jelly without form and void--that is, before I had developed any characteristic qualities and above all the dominant one, a passion for Natural History. One day a school friend, being covetous of certain stamps in my collection, induced me to "swop" them for his collection of birds' eggs which he showed me nestling in the bran at the bottom of a box. He was a cunning boy and thought he had the better of the bargain. He little realised--nor did I--the priceless gift he bestowed when his little fat dirty hands decorated, I remember, with innumerable warts, picked out the eggs and gave them to me. In fact, a smile momentarily crossed his face, he turned his head aside, he spat in happy contemplation of the deal.