The Journal of a Disappointed Man

March 2. I ask myself: what are my views on death, the next world, God? I look into my mind and discover I am too much of a mannikin to have any. As for death, I am a little bit of trembling jelly of anticipation. I am prepared for anything, but I am the complete agnostic; I simply don't know. To have views, faith, beliefs, one needs a backbone. This great bully of a universe overwhelms me. The stars make me cower. I am intimidated by the immensity surrounding my own littleness. It is futile and presumptuous for me to opine anything about the next world. But I hope for something much freer and more satisfying after death, for emancipation of the spirit and above all for the obliteration of this puny self, this little, skulking, sharp-witted ferret. A Potted Novel (1) He was an imaginative youth, and she a tragedy queen. So he fell in love with her because she was melancholy and her past tragic. "She is capable of tragedy, too," he said, which was a high encomium. But he was also an ambitious youth and all for dalliance in love. "Marriage," said he sententiously, "is an economic trap." And then, a little wistfully: "If she were a bit more melancholy and a bit more beautiful she would be quite irresistible." (2) But he was a miserable youth, too, and in the anguish of loneliness and lovelessness a home tempted him sorely. Still, he dallied. She waited. Ill-health after all made marriage impossible.