we are not so very much agreed after all. We’re not shaking hands after the boxing contest, but scowling at each other from the ropes and shaping for another round.”
“Your pulpit orations, my dear Barbellion, in full canonicals,” he reflected, “are worthy of a larger audience. … To find you of all people preaching. I thought you were philosopher enough to see the angle of everyone’s vision and broadminded so as to see every point of view. Besides, you are as afraid of marriage as I am, and for the same reasons.”
“I confess, when in the philosophic citadel of my own armchair,” I began, “I do see everyone’s point of view. You sit on the other side of the rug and put out the suggestion tentatively that murder may be a moral act. I examine your argument and am disposed to accept it. But when you slit up my brother’s abdomen before my eyes, I am sufficiently weak and human to punch you on the nose. … You are too cold and Olympian, up above the snowline with a box of paints.”
“It is very beautiful among the snows.”
“I suppose so.”
(Exit.)
Great physical languor, especially in the morning. It is Calvary to get out of bed and shoulder the day’s burden.
“What’s been the matter?” they ask.
“Oh! senile decay—general histolysis of the tissues,” I say, fencing.
Tonight, I looked at myself accidentally in the glass and noticed at once the alarming extent of my dejection. Quite unconsciously I turned my head away and shook it, making the noise with my teeth and tongue which means, “Dear, dear.” M⸺ tells me these waves of ill-health are quite unaccountable unless I were “leading a dissolute life, which you do not appear to be doing.” Damn his eyes.
Reading Nietzsche
Reading Nietzsche. What splendid physic he is to Pomeranian puppies like myself! I am a hopeless coward. Thunderstorms always frighten me. The smallest cut alarms for fear of blood poisoning, and I always dab on antiseptics at once. But Nietzsche makes me feel a perfect mastiff.
The Test for True Love
The test for true love is whether you can endure the thought of cutting your sweetheart’s toenails—the onychectomic test. Or whether you find your Julia’s sweat as sweet as otto of roses. I told her this tonight. Probably she thinks I only “saw it in a book.”
Chopin
On Sunday, went to the Albert Hall, and warmed myself at the Orchestra. It is a wonderful sight to watch an orchestra playing from the gallery. It spurts and flickers like a flame. Its incessant activity arrests the attention and holds it just as a fire does—even a deaf man would be fascinated. Heard Chopin’s Funeral March and other things. It would be a rich experience to be able to be in your coffin at rest and listen to Chopin’s Funeral March being played above you by a string orchestra with Sir Henry Wood conducting.
Sir Henry like a melanic Messiah was crucified as usual, the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 causing him the most awful agony. …
Rodin
More than once lately have been to see and admire Rodin’s recent gifts to the nation exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The Prodigal Son is Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony done in stone. It was only on my second visit that I noticed the small pebble in each hand—a superb touch!—what a frenzy of remorse!
The Fallen Angel I loved most. The legs of the woman droop lifelessly backwards in an intoxicating curve. The eye caresses it—down the thighs and over the calves to the tips of the toes—like the hind limbs of some beautiful dead gazelle. He has brought off exactly the same effect in the woman in the group called Eternal Spring, which I have only seen in a photograph.
This morning at 9 a.m. lay in bed on my back, warm and comfortable, and, for the first time for many weeks, with no pain or discomfort of any kind. The mattress curved up around my body and legs and held me in a soft warm embrace. … I shut my eyes and whistled the saccharine melody for solo violin in Chopin’s Funeral March. I wanted the moment prolonged for hours. Ill-health chases the soul out of a man. He becomes a body, purely physical.
This evening she promised to be my wife after a long silent ramble together through dark London squares and streets! I am beside myself!
I know now—I love her with passion. Health and ambition and sanity are returning. Projects in view:—
To make her happy and myself worthy.
To get married.
To prepare and publish a volume of this Journal.
To write two essays for Cornhill which shall surely induce the Editor to publish and not write me merely long complimentary and encouraging letters as heretofore.
Wired to A⸺, “The brave little pennon has been hauled down.”
Have so many projects in view and so little time in which to get them done! Moreover I am always haunted by the fear that I may never finish them through physical or temperamental disabilities—a breakdown in health or in purpose. I am one of those who are apt to die unexpectedly and no one would be surprised. An inquest would probably be unnecessary. I badly want to live say another twelve months. Hey! nonny-no! a man’s a fool that wants to die.
… I shook her angrily by the shoulders tonight and said, “Why do I love you?—Tell me,” but she only smiled gently and said, “I cannot tell. …” I ought not to love her, I know—every omen is against it. … Then I am full of self-love: an intellectual Malvolio proud of his brains and air of distinction. …
Then I am fickle, passionate, polygamous … I am haunted by the memory of how I have sloughed off one enthusiasm after another. I used to dissect snails in a pie-dish in the kitchen while Mother
