A half-an-hour of today I spent in a punt under a copper beech out of the pouring rain listening to Lady ⸻’s gamekeeper at A⸺ talk about beasts and local politics—just after a visit of inspection to the Heronry in the firs on the island in the middle of the Lake. It was delightful to hear him describing a Heron killing an Eel with “a dap on the niddick,” helping out the figure with a pat on the nape of his thick bull neck.
the story of his life, was constantly interrupted but never disconcerted by the exuberant loyalty and devotion of his wife—a stout, florid, creamy woman, who capped every story with: “Ees quite honest, sir; no ’arm at all in old Joshua.”
Am reading Huxley’s Crayfish. H⸺ brought me in that magnificent aculeate Chrysis ignita.
Met her in the market with M⸺. I just lifted my hat and passed on. She has the most marvellous brown eyes I have ever seen. She is perfectly self-possessed. A bad sign this.
When I feel ill, cinema pictures of the circumstances of my death flit across my mind’s eye. I cannot prevent them. I consider the nature of the disease and all I said before I died—something heroic, of course!
She is a ripping girl. Her eyes are magnificent. I have never seen anyone better looking.
In the afternoon dissected a Frog, following Milnes Marshall’s Book. Am studying Chemistry and attending classes at the Evening School and reading Physiology (Foster’s). Am also teaching myself German. I wish I had a microscope.
What heaps of things to be done! How short the time to do them in! An appetite for knowledge is apt to rush one off one’s feet, like any other appetite if not curbed. I often stand in the centre of the Library here and think despairingly how impossible it is ever to become possessed of all the wealth of facts and ideas contained in the books surrounding me on every hand. I pull out one volume from its place and feel as if I were no more than giving one dig with a pick in an enormous quarry. The Porter spends his days in the Library keeping strict vigil over this catacomb of books, passing along between the shelves and yet never paying heed to the almost audible susurrus of desire—the desire every book has to be taken down and read, to live, to come into being in somebody’s mind. He even hands the volumes over the counter, seeks them out in their proper places or returns them there without once realising that a Book is a Person and not a Thing. It makes me shudder to think of Lamb’s Essays being carted about as if they were fardels.
Dissected an Eel. Cassell’s Natural History says the Air-bladder is divided. This is not so in the one I opened. Found what I believe to be the lymphatic heart in the tail beneath the vent.
1908
Am working frantically so as to keep up my own work with the daily business of reporting. Shorthand, typewriting, German, Chemistry classes, Electricity lectures, Zoology (including dissections) and field work. Am reading Mosenthal’s Muscle and Nerve.
Sectioned a leech. H⸺ has lent me a hand microtome and I have borrowed an old razor. My table in the Attic is now fitted up quite like a Laboratory. I get up every morning at 6 a.m. to dissect. Have worked at the Anatomy of Dytiscus, Lumbricus, another Leech, and Petromyzon fluviatilis all collected by myself. The “branchial basket” of Petromyzon interested me vastly. But it’s a brute to dissect.2
Cycled to the Lighthouse at the mouth of the Estuary. Underneath some telegraph wires, picked up a Land rail in excellent condition. The colour of the wings is a beautiful warm chestnut. While sweeping the sand hills with my field-glasses in search of Ring Plover, which nest there in the shingle beaches, I espied a Shelduck (Tadorna) squatting on a piece of level ground. On walking up cautiously, found it was dead—a Drake in splendid plumage and quite fresh and uninjured. Put him in my poacher’s pocket, alongside of the Land rail. My coat looked rather bulgy, for a Shelduck is nearly as big as a Goose. Heard a Grasshopper Warbler—a rare bird in North ⸻. Later, after much patient watching, saw the bird in a bramble bush, creeping about like a mouse.
On the seashore picked up a number of Sea Mice (Aphrodite) and bottled them in my jar of 70 percent, as they will come in useful for dissection. Also found the cranium of a Scyllium, which I will describe later on.
Near the Lighthouse watched some fishermen bring in a large Salmon in a seine net worked from the shore. It was most exciting. Cycled down three miles of hard sand with the wind behind me to the village where I had tea and—as if nothing could stay today’s good luck—met Margaret ⸻. I showed her one by one all my treasures—Rail, Duck, Skull, Sea Mice, etc., and felt like Thomas Edward, beloved of Samuel Smiles. To her I must have appeared a very ridiculous person.
“How do you know it’s the skull of a dogfish?” she asked, incredulous.
“How do I know anything?” I said, a little piqued.
On arriving home found T⸺ awaiting me with the news that he had discovered a Woodpecker’s nest. When will the luck cease? I have never had such a flawless ten hours in le grand air. These summer days eat into my being. The sea has been roaring into my ears and the sun blazing down so that even the backs of my hands are sunburnt.
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