The Journal of a Disappointed Man

"Sounds like a book," She said in contempt. It was--Oscar Wilde! P---- insisted on my taking a biscuit. "Don't mind me," she said. "Just think I'm a waitress and take no notice at all." H.: "Humph! I never see him taking no notice of a waitress." (Sneers and Curtain.) February 24. H---- came home last night and told me that she said as he came away, "Tell W---- I hate him." So it's all right. I shall go over to-morrow again--Hurrah! My absence has been felt then. March 7. Came home, lay on my bed, still dressed, and ruminated.... First a suspicion then a conviction came to me that I was a cad--a callous, selfish, sensation-hunting cad.... For the time being the bottom was knocked out of my smug self-satisfaction. For several long half-hours I found myself drifting without compass or stars. I was quite disorientated, temporarily thrown off the balance of my amour propre. Then I got up, lit the gas and looking at myself in the mirror, found it was really true,--I was a mean creature, wholly absorbed in self. As an act of contrition, I ought to have gone out into the garden and eaten worms. But the mirror brought back my self-consciousness and I began to crawl back into my recently discarded skin--I began to be less loathesome to myself. For as soon as I felt interested or amused or curious over the fact that I had been really loathesome to myself I began to regain my equilibrium. Now, I and myself are on comparatively easy terms with one another. I am settled on the old swivel.... I take a lot of knocking off it and if shot off soon return.