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Blunderov
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Re:The Assassin's Cloak
« Reply #15 on: 2010-12-08 03:14:46 » |
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8 December
1762
At night I went to Covent Garden and saw Love in a Village, a new comic
opera, for the first night. I liked it much. I saw it from the gallery but I was
first in the pit. Just before the overture began to be played, two Highland
officers came in. The mob in the upper gallery roared out, ‘No Scots! No
Scots! Out with them!’ hissed and pelted them with apples. My heart warmed
to my countrymen, my Scotch blood boiled with indignation. I jumped up
on the benches, roared out, ‘Damn you, you rascals!,’ hissed and was in the
greatest rage. I am very sure at that time I should have been the most distin-
guished of heroes. I hated the English; I wished from my soul that the Union
was broke and that we might give them another battle of Bannockburn. I
went close to the officers and asked them what regiment they were of. They
told me Lord John Murray’s, and that they were just come from the Havana.
‘And this,’ said they ‘is the thanks we get — to be hissed when we come
home.’ If it was French, what could they do worse? •
~James Boswell
I914 [Red Cross Volunteer on the French front]
I have a little ‘charette’ [cart] for my soup. It is painted red, and gives a lot
of amusement to the wounded. The trains are very long, and my small carriage
is useful for cups and basins, bread, soup, coffee, etc. Clemmie Waring designed
and sent it to me.
Today I was giving out my soup on the train and three shells came in
in quick succession. One came just over my head and lodged in a haystall
on the other side of the platform. The wall of the store has an enormous
hole in it, but the thickly packed hay prevented the shrapnel scattering. The
station-master was hit, and his watch saved him, but it was crumpled up like
a rag. Two men were wounded and one of them died. A whole crowd of
refugees came in from Coxide, which is being heavily shelled. There was not
a scrap of food for them, so I made soup in great quantities, and distributed
it to them in a crowded room whose atmosphere was thick. Ladling out the
soup is great fun.
~Sarah Macnaughtan
1948
Went to BBC with Kitty to look at a television performance. Very pitiable
in quality but I suppose they will improve it in time, and it will eventually
become as popular as wireless.
~Malcolm Muggeridge
1969
Saw [portrait painter Pietro] Annigoni again at the [Buckingham] Palace. The
portrait [of the Queen] is very advanced, indeed almost finished. For a moment
it looked dull and then Hugh uttered the word, ‘Varnish.’ Annigoni seized a
wide brush and dipped it in the water of a flower vase and applied it to the
picture as we shrieked, ‘Marvelous.’ .
~Roy Strong
I970
I took Ben Nicolson to the opera. Ben is extraordinarily vague but charm-
ing. He talked, as he often does, about his parents [Vita Sackville-West and ’
Harold Nicolson]. He adored his father but was never very close to his mother.
She was an avowed lesbian long before she married. She used to walk about
London dressed as a man, which she discovered early in life is what she should
have been. Ben kept on repeating that Harold was the kindest man in the
world, but agreed with me that he had an imp in him and that he enjoyed
apologizing to an absurd degree, saying, ‘If I go down on my knees, will you
forgive me?’, and other such expressions of contrition.
~Cynthia Gladwyn
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Blunderov
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Re:The Assassin's Cloak
« Reply #16 on: 2010-12-09 06:56:33 » |
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9 December
1775
At supper my wife and I had a dispute about some trifle. She did not yield
readily enough, and my passion rose to a pitch that I could not quite command. _
I started up and threw an egg in the fire and some beer after it. My inclination
was to break and destroy everything. But I checked it. How curious is it that
the thinking principle can speculate in the very instant of anger.
My wife soon made up our difference. But I begged of her to be more atten-
tive again.
~James Boswell
1826
In gratitude I suppose for the good Burgundy and Champane wt. which I
treated them yesterday my bowels allowd me a good night’s rest but began
their old trade about seven in the morning. So that to keep promise with
them I staid at home and sent for Doctor Ross who is to send some Doctor’s
stuff I suppose.
~Sir Walter Scott
1888
Slept sinfully.
~Leo Tolstoy
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Re:The Assassin's Cloak
« Reply #17 on: 2010-12-10 10:28:22 » |
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10 December
1860
Coming out ofthe Odéon after L'Oncle Million, I saw Flaubert and [Louis]
Bouilhet surrounded by men in cloth caps with whom they were shaking
hands; and Bouilhet left us saying that he was going to the café next door.
It seems that to keep a play going at the Odéon, one has to supply it with
drinks and handshakes.
Flaubert told us that while writing the description of the poisoning of
Mme Bovary he had felt a pain as if he had a copper plate in his stomach,
a pain which had made him vomit twice over. He said that one of his most
agreeable moments was when, working on the end of his novel, he had been
obliged to get up and look for another handkerchief; because he had soaked
the one he had! . . .And all that in order to amuse the bourgeois! ~
~The Brothers Gohcourt
1936
In the evening we sat listening to the wireless broadcasting the news of the
King’s abdication. I had the feeling that the affair somehow symbolised the
whole horror of life, the struggle between Man’s noblest, richest impulses,
and the shoddy fabric of Time. Hughie described how he had once visited
in Brittany the ruins of an ancient sacrificial Temple, and how there he had
first realized what sacrifice meant - the offering up of Youth by Age, a spilling
of young blood by withered arms, paying Life as a tribute of Death. I felt
that this was true, and an outward manifestation of what goes on in each
individual soul.
We drove I-Iughie back. Blackshirts were selling their papers in the streets,
surrounded by a circle of admiring girls. Kit [his wife] keeps saying to me:
‘Everything’s going to be all right, isn’t it?’ and I nod without conviction.
We went for a walk this morning. It was a perfect winter’s morning. I said
that most people managed to evolve either a sense of grievance, or illusions;
but that I had neither.
~Malcolm Muggeridge
I939
An intoxicating day spent with someone I have hardly seen alone since
January i.e. myself There is no such blissful companionship, no such satis-
factory or stimulating friendship. I got up late, wrote many letters, tidied up
and telephoned. The war is 100 days old, and a damned bore it is, though
no-one seems to talk about it now It might be somewhere very remote, and
I feel that there is a definite danger in such detachment.
~‘Chips’ Charmon
1976
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Re:The Assassin's Cloak
« Reply #18 on: 2010-12-11 14:31:41 » |
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11 December
1857 [on a Mississippi steamer]
Last night I sat finishing up my sketches at the public table. Company: the
pretty little Mrs H. and her fair Scotch-looking husband, Mr C. the intellectual-
looking Californian gentleman and Mrs B. who has a very beautiful expres-
sion and is the most refined woman on the boat. Mr C. is reading a paper
and read out loud the announcements of the marriage of a mulatto and a
white girl; it excites from all expressions of the utmost disgust and horror. I
say, ‘It is very uncommon? Mr C.: ‘Yes! thank God. Only permitted in
Massachusetts and a few states.' ‘There seems to be nothing disgusting in it.
My brothers went to school with a mulatto and I with a mulatto girl, and I
have seen mulattoes in England who were not unlikely to marry with whites.'
All: ‘At school! At school with niggers!’ BLS: ‘Yes.’ All: ‘I-lorrid idea, how
could you?’ BLS: ‘Why your little children all feel it possible to come in close
contact with negroes, and they seem to like it; there is no natural antipathy’
Some: ‘Yes, there is an inborn disgust which prevents amalgamation(Mark this:
only one--half the negroes in the United States are full-blood Africans — the
rest [the] product of whitc men and black women.) Some: ‘No, it is only the
effect of education} Mr C.: ‘There is no school or college in the U.S. where
negroes could be educated with whites.' BLS: ‘You are wrong, Sir. At Oberlin
men, women and negroes are educated together.' Mrs B.: ‘Yes, I know that,
because Lucy Stone was educated there with people of colour.’ Mr C.: “Lucy
Stone — she is a Woman’s Rights woman, and an atheist. All those people are.
Have you heard her speak?’ Mrs B.: “Yes, she speaks wonderfully well. She is
an elegant orator. I was carried away by her at first. — She said women had a
right to vote and all that sort of nonsense.' Mr C.: ‘Nonsense indeed! Why
women, if that they have not certain rights are exempt from certain duties.'
Mrs B.: ‘Oh, yes, certainly Womans Rights are great rubbish.’There is evidently
a feeling that Abolition and Womans Rights are supported by the same people
and the same arguments, and that both are allied to atheism —- and all these
slave owners are very religious people.
I wanted the conversation to stick to slavery so I did not answer this
argument with the other side which settles that objection. I said instantly,
‘Do not you think it right to give any education to the.negro race?’ Mrs
B.: ‘Oh, yes. Every child should be taught to read the Bible] Mrs H.: ‘I do
not think they ought to be taught to read. It makes them unhappy and all
the negroes who run away, you will find, are those who have learnt how
to read. I would not teach them to read.' BLS.: ‘But have they not souls
and should not they read the Bible?’ Some: ‘Oh, yes, they have souls, but
oral instruction is best for them] Mrs B.: "No, I do think everyone should
be able to read the Bible.' Mrs H.: ‘If you teach them to read they will run
away.' Mrs B. (who lives in Louisville and is evidently very kind to her
slaves): ‘Well, I say if they will run away, let them.' Mr and Mrs H. (who by
the bye are bringing south a woman who leaves a husband and five children
behind in Kentucky): ‘Let them run away if they will! Why every negro would
run away if they could — people don’t like to lose their servants.' Some said
it makes the negroes unhappy to know how to read — what is the use of
it to them? They are inferior to the whites and must be so always. BLS:
‘But you say they improve and are better off every year, and that there is
a wonderful difference between the African as he comes from Africa and
the African after two or three generations in America. How can you tell
where the improvement will stop?’ Mr C.: ‘Yes, they improve, but that is
no reason for giving them much instruction and us making them discon-
tented — for they never will be emancipated. we cannot consent to lose our
property]
~Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
1936 [France]
At ten o’clock this evening I listened on the BBC to Edward VIII’s farewell
speech to his peoples and his homeland. He spoke for barely five minutes,
but the simplicity, dignity and genuine humanity of the statement were
profoundly moving, like a speech from one of Shakespeare’s royal dramas.
~Count Harry Kessler
1936
Edward VIII has just abdicated. He has sacrificed his crown for love of a
woman. He did not give way; that is royal. He has left everything for the
one he loves: he is a marvellous and courageous lover. The story is a larger
version of my own. I was rather younger than Mrs Simpson at the time of
my marriage to Georges Ghika who was many years younger than I was but
who was very serious, basically very serious and didn’t often laugh.
~Liane de Pougy
I937
It is not true that chastity is sexually alluring, for, if it were, women would
be avid for young novices and newly ordained priests, who may be supposed
to take their vows seriously Instead, women go for elderly swine, men with
plenty of experience, bald—headed, and bad—tempered.
And you, too. You have never dreamed of nuns, have you?
~Cesare Pavese
I969
I was rung up in a panic by the Tate. The Queen Mother was on her way
from Clarence House, could I drop everything and come at once. I hopped
in a taxi and arrived in time to guide her round three—quarters of it. She
loved it for its Englishness and, coming across a warder slumped asleep, tiptoed
by, whispering to me, ‘We mustn’t wake him!’
~Roy Strong
1980 [New York]
I am having supper at The Odeon when word goes round the tables that
John Lennon has been shot. ‘This country of ours,’ sighs my waiter. “May I
tell you the specials for this evening?
The Chinese cooks come and stand at the door of the kitchen as a radio
is brought to one of the booths. At another table some diners call instantly
for their check, hardly bothering to conceal their appetite for the tragedy
(they are, after all, New Yorkers), and take a cab uptown to join what WNEW
is already calling ‘a vigil’. “Would you describe the crowd outside the Dakota
Apartment as a vigil? asks Dan, our host.‘I would describe it,` says the woman
reporter, whose name is Robin, “definitely as a vigil.’
In England this will mark New York down yet again as a violent and
dangerous place, but I walk back up West Broadway; the street deserted except
for a few drunks in doorways (‘The slayer thought to be male, white’) and
feel perfectly safe.Already though, there are candles burning in windows, and
a girl weeps as she waits on this warm, windy night to cross Canal Street -
‘Sixty-four degrees here on WNEW, the wind from the south—west’, the wind
and the warmth making it possible for the male, white slayer to wait however
long he had to wait this unseasonable December night for the return of his
victim.
~Alan Bennett
1992
The Daily Mail rang to ask my views on the separation of the Prince and
Princess of Wales. I said I had none. They added, ‘Constitutionally?’ Said I
had none on that either. They will have to sort it all out without my help.
Actually, I think the Princess has no rights whatever. She •was born a lady
came into the world in her right mind, ought to have known what was
implied by marrying the heir to the throne, and accordingly put up with
whatever befell her. In fact, duty.
~Anthony Powell
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Blunderov
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Re:The Assassin's Cloak
« Reply #19 on: 2010-12-13 07:16:30 » |
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[Blunderov] My apologies for skipping yesterday. Here it is.
12 December
1680
This evening looking out of my Chamber Window towards the West, I first
saw a Meteor, (or what ever other Phaenomenon it was) of an obscure bright
Colour (if so I may call it without a solecism) resembling the brightnesse of
the Moone when under a thin Clow’d, very much in shape like the blade
of a sword, whose point to the starre in appearance, bending Northwards
towards London, not seeming at the horizon to be above a yard in bredth,
and so pyramidal, the rest of the skie, very serene and cleere; The Moone
new but not appearing, the Weather exceeding sharp, hard frost with some
snow falling 2 daies before:What this may Portend (for it was very extraor-
dinarie) God onely knows; but such another Phaenomen[on] I remember I
saw, which went from North to South, and was much brighter, and larger,
but not so Ensiforme in the yeare 1640, about the Triall of the greate Earle
of Strafford, praeceeding our bloudy Rebellion: I pray God avert his
judgements; we have had of late severall Comets, which though I believe
appeare from natural Causes, and of themselves operate not, yet I cannot .
despise them; They may be warnings from God, as they commonly are for-
runners of his Animadversions.
~John Evelyn
I848 [Ireland]
A Sligo steamer bound for Liverpool put into Derry from stress of weather
and landed seventy-two corpses.The crew had shut down the hatches on the
miserable steerage passengers, all emigrants bound for America, and suffo-
cated half of them. Captain, etc. are in jail. Murder after murder in England.
Pope fled to Naples. Emperor of Austria abdicated in favour of his nephew
A thousand emigrants per day still leaving our Irish ports, most of them with
money The runaway farmers have learned the trick of thrashing out their
corn by night, leaving the straw neatly cocked, selling off stock and furni-
ture and bolting, with heavy arrears due to the ruined landlords.
~Elizabeth Grant of Rothiemurchus
1857 [on a Mississippi steamer]
I find Mrs B. is divorced from her husband as is Miss Sophia Titney In
Kentucky divorce is easy — for adultery, for cruelty for desertion, for slander,
or even public ridicule or intoxication. I believe Mrs B. obtained her divorce
on the grounds that her husband had held her up to public ridicule by
publishing certain private letters of hers against her wishes.There was a good
deal of conversation about her as she was the most interesting woman on
board and sang very sweetly The gentlemen all said she would marry again
andthat no man would think the divorce any impediment. Mr Collins said
a cousin of his had divorced his wife and both married again and the husband
to a divorced woman. In California divorce is quite easy. I asked over and
over again, ‘Do you think easy divorce makes married life happier or unhap-
pier than where divorce is impossible?’They all answered happier except one
lady who was a Catholic.
~Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichorz
1889
One day when my shawls were falling off to the left, my cushions falling out
to the right and the duvet off my knees, one of those crises of misery in short
which are all in the day’s work for an invalid Kath. exclaimed, “What an awful
pity it is that you can’t say damn.’ I agreed with her from my heart. It is an
immense loss to have all robust and sustaining expletives refined away from one!
At such moments of trial refinement is a feeble reed to lean upon. I wonder,
whether, if I had had any education I should have been more, or less, of a fool
than I am. It would have deprived me surely of those exquisite moments of
mental flatulence which every now and then inflate the cerebral vacuum with
a delicious sense of latent possibilities - of stretching oneself to cosmic limits,
and who would ever give up the reality of dreams for relative knowledge?
~Alice james
1918
B. [formerly a fairly senior Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs official] gave
a very curious account of Rasputin, whom he had known. Rasputin was a
perfectly honest son of the soil who, at the age of twelve, was engaged at
Court to tend the lamps burning in front of the icons. In that capacity he
Occasionally entered at night the room of the young grand duchesses, having
to light the lamps there, but nothing noteworthy ever arose out of that. It
was the ladies of the Court who, when they observed the influence he had,
positively sidled up to him and were responsible for his turning into a rake
and a glutton.The Empress never had intimate relations with him. She merely
Showed herself in his company to prove that she was a good Orthodox
Russian, but that was how the gossip started. The Tsar looked on him as ‘the
voice of the black earth’ and saw no need for the Duma as long as Rasputin
could echo to him directly the thought of his people. Gradually Rasputin
acquired enormous influence and earned a corresponding amount of jeal-
ousy and enmity. During the war he was always against the continuation of
hostilities, increasing the antipathy of Britain and the party of the grand dukes
still more. Britain spent immense sums on efforts to eliminate his influence.
In the last analysis, though, he always remained a simple peasant and lamp-
lighter. Everything else is romantic trimmings.
~Count Harry Kessler
1978
NewYork: I wandered about in the brisk cold window—shopping, and gazing
at this city of contrasts: such luxury, such elegance, such beautiful modern
buildings; and yet such poverty, such cheap unpleasant tat. In my extremely
staid hotel there is a bookstall in the lobby at which a blue—rinsed lady presides
over gum, candies, magazines and newspapers. I bought a soft porn maga-
zine and saw an article entitled ‘Tossing’. It’s not, as one would think, about
masturbation, but about sexual gratification in which, irrespective of your sex,
you have sexual pleasure from another person and then kick them out, deni-
grate them, or disappoint them, as speedily as possible.According to the article
this is the new craze that’s sweeping America - “Tossing’.The sheer indiffer-
ence to the individual and to human feeling is appalling. But that’s typical
of this town — as is also an extraordinary multiracial excitement. You walk
down a street and see every physical type, every colour, every creed. It’s truly
a melting pot.
~Peter Hall
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Blunderov
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Re:The Assassin's Cloak
« Reply #20 on: 2010-12-13 07:18:07 » |
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13 December
1855
This morning it is snowing, and the ground is whitened.The countless flakes,
seen against the dark evergreens like a web that is woven in the air, impart
a cheerful and busy aspect to nature. It is like a grain that is sown, or like
leaves that have come to clothe the bare trees. Now, by 9 o’clock, it comes
down in larger flakes, and I apprehend that it will soon stop. It does.
How pleasant a sense of preparedness for the winter, — plenty of wood in
the shed and potatoes and apples, etc., in the cellar, and the house banked
up! Now it will be a cheerful sight to see the snows descend and hear the
blast howl.
Sanborn tells me that he was waked up a few nights ago in Boston, about
midnight, by the sound of a flock of geese passing over the city, probably
about the same night I heard them here. They go honking over cities where
the arts flourish, waking the inhabitants; over State-houses and capitols, where
legislatures sit; over harbors where fleets lie at anchor; mistaking the city
perhaps, for a swamp or the edge of a lake, about settling in it, not suspect-
ing that greater geese than they have settled there.
~H. D. Thoreau
1940
Five other American correspondents going home from the war, from England,
from Germany from France, sat in the ship’s little bar over ‘old-fashioneds’.
It was a very good way of cushioning your farewell. I joined them. I had
one. But alcohol is not always enough. I felt restless, excited. l went up on
deck. For a time I stood against the rail watching the lights recede on a
Europe in which I had spent fifteen of my adult years, which had given me
all of my experience and what little knowledge I had. It had been a long
time, but they had been happy years, personally and for all people in Europe
they had had meaning and borne hope until the war came and the Nazi
blight and the hatred and the fraud and the political gangsterism and the
murder and the massacre and the incredible intolerance and all the suffering
and the starving and cold and the thud of a bomb blowing the people in a
house to pieces, the thud of all the bombs blasting man’s hope and decency.
~William L. Shirer
1943
My Cliif’s twenty-fitlh birthday - I cannot grasp it.These last five years have
passed so strangely and unconvincingly that, to me, he feels still my spoilt
but loveable boy of twenty so amazed to find himself a soldier after war
broke out. I-Ie was such a frail wee baby, only four pounds in weight: a
screaming bundle of nerves, who needed such loving, watchful care to rear.
How many mothers look back to struggles to rear ‘war babies’ of twenty-
five years ago, and wonder if it was worth it? What effort and endurance,
patience and sacrifice goes unheeded into the Pattern, each a grain of sand,
no more. I woke suddenly this morning. I felt as though, if I put my hand
out, I could gather my baby safe into my arms. If only it was that simple.
Vera Lynn sang Cliff’s song last night, ‘I’ll see you again' and not even her
nostalgic whine could kill its beauty — ‘time my life heavy between, but what
has been is past forgetting - I wonder if his thoughts stray home today •
Whether he thinks of all the gay happy birthdays of so long ago.
~Nella Last
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Blunderov
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Re:The Assassin's Cloak
« Reply #21 on: 2010-12-14 04:26:21 » |
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14 December
I943 [Cairo] .
General Patton of the US Army and his Aide, Colonel Goodman, have come
to stay at General ]umbo’s [Sir Henry Maitland Wilson, Commander in Chief
of the Mediterranean theatre] Mess. The General is tall, with a rugged face
and manner. He wears battledress with boots and gaiters. It is said that recently
when visiting a hospital in North Africa he hit an American soldier and called
him a coward. None of us knows the rights and wrongs of this but the
American press have made much of the supposed incident and it seems
probable that the General has come here to let the story die down.
Yesterday I was asked to take General Patton shopping as he wanted to
buy presents for his family in America. On our return for lunch he asked
me to find someone to show him the antiquities of Cairo, “I’ll need an expert
- someone who knows exactly what he is talking about,’ he said. I tele-
phoned Sir Robert Gregg and asked him as a favour to show the General
round but unfortunately he was busy. However he kindly arranged for a
Professor to meet the General at nine this morning on the terrace at Shepherds
Hotel. Jack Wintour, our Aide, would accompany the General, the Professor
and Colonel Codman on the tour in one of our cars.
Jack returned to our offce after lunch and regaled us, with much laugh-
ter, of the expedition.The General arrived very late at Shepherds Hotel and
after introductions the General asked the Professor what he was going to
show him. ‘First we will visit the mosques . . .’ began the Professor - but he
got no further.
“Now, Professorf roared the General. ‘NO, NO, NO. I don’t want to see
any of your Goddam mosques. I’ve seen enough of the darn things in Tunisia
to last a lifetime. I guess we'd best go see the Sphinx.' There was an agonis-
ing silence and then the Professor announced he knew nothing of the Sphinx.
He was angry, but so was the General. ‘Waal, Professor, then I guess you’d
best go home,’ he said and, turning to Jack, said in a loud whisper, ‘Should
I pay the little old guy off?’ Jack, suffocating with laughter, shook his head
and turned to the Professor who made a prolonged fart, turned on his heel
I and departed. Jack hurried the guests into our car and made for Mena where,
fortunately the General wished to go to the lavatory, giving Jack just time
to ring our office and tell me to telephone the Professor and grovel - “Smother
him with apologiesf said Jack and rang off.
I rang the Professor who was furious. I could hardly deliver our apolo-
gies and for all of twenty minutes he unleashed his opinion of what he
thought of the inhabitants of the United States of America.Then he slammed
down the telephone. I asked Jack what he had told the General about the
Pyramids and the Sphinx. ‘While the General was in the lavatory and I’d
spoken to you,’ said Jack, ‘I bought a guide book in the hotel and read out
bits to the General and it went fine.'
~Countess of Ranfurly
I972 .
This was the Duchess of Argyll’s dance for J. Paul Getty at the Dorchester.
We arrived late.Within, it resembled a scene from The Godfather. As midnight
struck the orchestra played ‘You’re the Top’ and a short procession wound its
way across the dance floor propelling a trolley draped in cloths on which sat
a cake with eighty red candles.
There was something really macabre about the whole scene, and if a man
had jumped out from under the trolley with a machine-gun it wouldn’t have
surprised me.
~Sir Roy Strong
1980
I was in a cab with a black driver during the minutes that were supposed to
be silence to remember John [Lennon] and pray for his soul. He had a black
station on and they had a ten-minute silence and the disc jockey said, ‘We’re
up there with you, John’ and the driver laughed and said. ‘Not me, baby, I’m
stayin’ right down here.'
~Andy Warhol
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Re:The Assassin's Cloak
« Reply #22 on: 2010-12-15 12:52:57 » |
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15 December
I852 [New York]
Prospect of a No-Popery riot here. Very numerous and bitter indignation
meeting in the Park yesterday, growing out of the arrest of a loafer who under-
took to preach Native Americanism and anti-priestcraft in the streets last Sunday
and was taken into custody to prevent a riot. He sets up for a Protestant martyr
on the strength of his detention, and swears that he will preach in the same
place next Sunday; in which case there will be a mob originating with the
Irish and German Papishes if he’s not arrested, and with the order of United
Americans and the godly butcher boys of the Hook and First Avenue if he is.
~ George Templeton Strong
1922 [visiting his Aunt Lily]
There was one inexplicable anecdote. She had been held up by a crush of
prams at Carfax and had asked one obstructive woman to take her pram off
the pavement.The woman replied that she had a right to be there. Aunt Lily
retorted that she had no right to bring these children into the world for
other people to look after and still less to block up the pavement,The woman
said she was shopping. Aunt Lily said it was bad for the child to be taken
shopping and the only good thing was that it killed some of them off
I asked her why on earth she said such a thing. “I was angry,’ she answered.
I replied, quoting Plato, that anger was an aggravation, not an excuse. She
added that she had a lot of leaflets issued by the C.B.C. (Constructive Birth
Control): and she was going to drop one into every pram the next time she
went into Oxford, wh. would indeed be a good joke: but I don’t think she
saw it that way
~ C. S. Lewis
1926 [Berlin]
Dinner-party at home for the Einsteins.
His wife told me that recently, after numerous admonitions, he at last went
to the Foreign Ministry and fetched the two gold medals awarded him by
the Royal Society and Royal Astronomical Society. She met him afterwards
to go to the cinema. When she asked what the medals looked like, he did
not know because he had not yet undone the package. He has no interest
in such trifles. She gave me one or two other examples.This year the American
Barnard Medal, awarded only every four years to outstanding scientists, has
gone to Niels Bohr. The newspapers recalled that last time Einstein was the
recipient. He showed her the paper and asked, Is that true? He had completely
forgotten. He cannot be induced to wear his Pour Le Mérite. At an Academy
session not long ago [Walther] Nernst drew his attention to the fact that it
was missing: ‘I suppose your wife forgot to lay it out for you. Improperly
dressed.’To which Einstein retorted, ‘She didn’t forget. No, she didn’t forget;
I didn’t want to put it on.’
~ Count Harry Kessler
1987
The Jeffrey Archer party was one for mainly journalists and newspaper people.
Robert Maxwell there. Very friendly on the whole. I asked him why on
earth he wanted to own a football club. ‘It must be extremely boring mixing
with dreary people.'
He admitted that he liked wearing his ridiculous baseball hat in photo-
graphs and being an actor. He is a buccaneer and a crook. His energy splashes
bogus charm around. He longs to be popular but, however hard he tries, I
think he will never succeed in that.
Mary Archer looking very pretty and now far better dressed in expensive,
fashionable dresses than she’s ever been before. She told Nick Lloyd, an old
university friend, when she had lunch with him today that she had now got
Jeffrey absolutely under control.
If he makes any false step she can deal with him. And she passed her hand
across her throat. She is the one who triumphed in the libel action [in which
her husband successfully challenged newspaper reports that he had consorted
with a prostitute]
~ Woodrow Wyatt
1997
The Christmas silly season is on. Off to ITV to record a snippet on the
‘twelve Lords a-leaping’ of the famous seasonal song. My task was to tell
Peter Hayes (political correspondent for Central TV) about the difhculties
that would be involved in teaching twelve members ofthe Upper House to
‘leap’. I’m not sure if he actually intends to try this. I think he has one volun-
teer. Brian Rix, he of the ‘Whitehall farces’. Although he is an elderly Lord,
and a surprisingly sprightly one at that, I’m not certain he counts. He’s a
man of the theatre and once a performer, always a performer. Dancing is like
riding a bicycle; something you never forget. I suggested that the simplest
way to make them all leap was to publish a white paper on the abolition of
the Upper House. That would start them jumping.
~ Deborah Bull
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Re:The Assassin's Cloak
« Reply #23 on: 2010-12-16 10:47:32 » |
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16 December
1899
This morning: first to the dentist, then lesson at Frau Radnitzky’s. I’m learn-
ing the ‘Emperor’ Concerto now When I play Beethoven, I always feel as if
my soul were at the dry cleaners, and that the ugly black stains caused by
the impurities and nervous traumas of` Wagner were being removed. ~
~ Alma Mahler-Werfl
1917 [Odessa]
How can I describe all that has happened in these last tragic days? I feel as
though I have been caught up in a mighty whirlpool, battered, buffeted, and
yet . . . I am still myself, still able to walk, talk, eat and sleep. It is astound-
ing how much a human being can endure without any outward sign of`
having been broken up into pieces.
It was 12th December. We were hourly expecting orders, but none had
arrived.We had little to fear from the war; our Front Line, being half-emptied,
was quiet. The Austrian troops were still docile, realising undoubtedly that
with the coming of the Bolshevist regime the Russian Regular Army had
ceased to exist and the Russian territory lay before them - theirs for the
taking! When discussing the insubordination of the so-called fighting-men,
the name of [Premier Aleksandr Fyodorovich] Kerensky was continually crop-
ping up; all his great achievements on behalf of his country seemed to have
been forgotten - only his lamentable mistakes were remembered. He it was
who had insisted on closer comradeship among army ranks and less rigor-
ous army discipline. Alas! that one mistake of a great and just man can stamp
with indelible blemish his whole character!
When a soldier, conversing with his superior officer, omitted the salute;
when he strutted before him with hands in his pockets and a cigarette between
his lips, it was easy to guess that chaos must follow A general, who had been
visiting some regiments in our vicinity had been shot dead by his orderly
only the previous morning. It was said that the general called for his high
boots; the orderly threw them at him. The general. struck the orderly; the
orderly shot the general dead. The news spread like lightning. Officers were
openly defied by their men and there was no power to support them or
protect them. Many were shot. Finally the soldiers, or tovarishchi [comrades]
as they now call themselves, refused catagorically to take any orders and, leaving
their trenches, roamed the countryside at will. Theft and pillage were the order
of the day We heard all this with sinking hearts and we were powerless to
act. So far, the Red Cross personnel had always been respected and unharmed,
but whispers had reached us of units attacked, doctors shot and nurses assaulted.
~ Florence Farmborough
1931
William Faulkner, the Southern author who has been visiting New York for
six or eight weeks past, has gone home at last, leaving a powerful odor of
alcohol behind him. judging from stories I hear on all sides, he was drunk
every night he was here.
Among those who entertained him was Alfred Knopf. The other night
Knopf was invited to a dinner somewhere else, with Faulkner as the guest
of honor. Knopf took along a couple of copies of Faulkner’s books and asked
him to autograph them. Faulkner replied about as follows: ‘I am sorry but I
don`t think I can do it. Too many people are asking for autographs. Yesterday
a bell-boy at my hotel wanted one. I believe that it is a mistake for an author
to make his signature too common. However, inasmuch as it is you, I think
I might very well autograph one of the books.' This extraordinary boorish-
ness to a man who had been hospitable to him struck the whole assemblage
dumb. Knopf himself made no reply, and did not mention the books again.
Faulkner’s publisher, Harrison Smith, wrote to me a week ago saying that
Faulkner would stop off in Baltimore on his way South. Fortunately, he did
not do so. The town is full of tales about his incessant boozing, He had a
roaring time while he was here, and will go back to Prohibition Mississippi
with enough alcohol ini his veins to last him a year.
~ H. L. Mencken
1980
Boy drearily playing tennis. ‘I have to do this because my father couldn’t
afford to when he was my age.’
Taxi driver lost wife - ‘Married 26 years and in all those years I never
had to raise my voice to her once and she was never short a dime'.
~ Dawn Powell
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Re:The Assassin's Cloak
« Reply #24 on: 2010-12-17 06:22:32 » |
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17 December
I832 [Tierra de Fuego]
In the afternoon we anchored in the Bay of Good Success.While entering
we were saluted in a manner becoming the inhabitants of this savage land.
A group of Fuegians, partly concealed by the entangled forest, were perched
on a wild point overhanging the sea; and as we passed by, they sprang up
and, waving their tattered cloaks, sent forth a loud and sonorous shout.
In the morning the captain sent a party to communicate with the Fuegians
and after we had presented them with some scarlet cloth, which they imme•
diately tied round their necks, they became good friends.This was shown by
the old man patting our breasts and making a chuckling kind of noise, as
people do when feeding chickens. I walked with the old man, and this demon-
stration of friendship was repeated several times; it was concluded by three
hard slaps, which were given me on the breast and back at the same time.
He then bared his bosom for me to return the compliment, which being
done, he seemed highly pleased. The language of these people, according to
our notions, scarcely deserves to be called articulate. Captain Cook has
compared it to a man clearing his throat, but certainly no European ever
cleared his throat with so many hoarse, guttural, and clicking sounds.
They are excellent mimics: as often as we coughed or yawned or made
any odd motion, they immediately imitated us. Some of our party began to
squint and look awry; but one of the young Fuegians (whose face was painted
black, excepting a white band across his eyes) succeeded in making far more
hideous grimaces. They could repeat with perfect correctness each word in
any sentence we addressed them, and they remembered such words for some
time.Yet we Europeans all know how diflicult it is to distinguish apart the
sounds in a foreign language. Which of us, for instance, could follow an
American Indian through a sentence of more than three words? All savages
appear to possess, to an uncommon degree, this power of mimicry. I was told,
almost in the same words, of the same ludicrous habit among the Kafirs; the
Australians likewise have long been notorious for being able to imitate and
describe the gait of any man, so that he may be recognised. How can this
faculty be explained? ls it a consequence of the more practiced habits of
perception and keener senses, common to all men in a savage state, as compared
with those long civilised?
~ Charles Darwin
1889
I read in the Nation last night a notice of Miss [Louisa May] Alcott’s Life and
Letters, where mention is made of Harry’s [Henry, her brother] writing a
review of Moods in the North American Review which reminded me of Father’s
having met Mr Alcott in the street one day and saying to him: ‘They are
reading Dumps at home with great interest} “Dumps?’ queried Mr A. ‘Yes,
Dumps, your daughters novel!’ said the pater. The suggestive Moods reduced
to Dumps!
~ Alice James
1922 [London]
Reached London at ten, after more than eight years’ absence.
I left with Rodin on a Friday morning, a week before the war began. I
remember our Channel crossing and how Rodin, when we sailed from
Folkestone and I asked him whether he wanted anything to eat, replied, ‘Non,
je n’ai pas faim. Je regarde la nature. La nature me nourrit.’ Then the arrival at
Boulogne, with the ultimatum in the papers and my instant firm conviction
that war was inevitable and Austria wanted it. Thereafter the parting with
Rodin at the Gare du Nord in Paris and the arrangement (unreal, to my
mind) to meet for tea next Wednesday at Countess Greffule’s. By Wednesday
I was sitting in Cologne, waiting for war to be declared.
I recalled it all as the train carried me through the sooty, mean London
suburbs.
In the late afternoon I walked along the Embankment towards Westminster.
The sun shone on the wet streets and heavy clouds scudded low across the
sky. The whole city was bathed in a violet and golden light that turned the
Thames to glowing copper.
~ Count Harry Kessler
1931
Two pair of swanky pyjama pants came up to-day - I didn’t require the
jackets as I always wear a shirt, collar and tie. Why? To prove, of course, that
only my lower limbs are asleep. Nem coh?
~ William Soutar
1977
I was complaining to our Peggy this morning that the local clock-mender
had not yet come to attend to my gold Louis XV clock, which he has been
tinkering with on and off for more than a year, and which has never gone
properly since. He has a bad name, Peggy says, and her Gerald says he must
never have another of their clocks to mend. Last time he took out the jewels.
Now, how often have I heard this remark about the 'jewels’ in clocks? Are
they really jewels, as we like to suppose, and do all clock-menders systemat-
ically “take them out’ and thereby enrich themselves to a vast extent? Or are
'jewels’ an old wives’ tale? Why should clocks need jewels rather than ordi-
nary pins and screws?
~ James Lees-Milne
I995
Home for evening, watching The Beatles Anthology with Anthea. Interesting
to notice how a lot of those quite weak songs have that ring of total authen-
ticity now . . .The Beatles’ message was ‘Look: we can do anything - and
make it work!’ So the work becomes cradled within (and assessed in terms
of) a process of creative improvisation in which the whole culture is at that
moment engaged. And improvisations are very forgiving - entered into in
the spirit of ‘What’s to lose?’
‘AllYou Need is Love’, performed for the first global satellite link-up, must
have been a great moment. Funny to think that only a few years before that
We’d all clustered round the only Catholic TV in the neighbourhood to see
the new pope (John XXIII). And my Auntie Rene fell to her knees before
the TV.
~ Brian Eno
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Re:The Assassin's Cloak
« Reply #25 on: 2010-12-18 12:58:49 » |
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18 December
1783
I spent two hours with that great man, Dr Johnson, who is sinking into the
grave by a gentle decay.
~ John Wesley
1937
There is something even sadder than falling short of one’s own ideals: to have
realised them.
~ Cesare Pavese
1960
Dined with Edith Sitwell. There were about five people there. Edith sat
in her wheelchair looking very pale and tired and ill and really doing all
the talking because when she is with a group of people she can listen
and talk only on her own wavelength. There was a humiliating atmos-
phere of everyone being sycophantic, courtiers feeding her with titbits of
gossip and malice which would amuse her and draw her out. Whenever
there was a silence it was appalling, as though boredom and sterility might
seep like the fog outside through a chink in a door or a window. Anecdotes
were dragged out of the past and held up for inspection. No one was
quite successful in living up to Edith’s tone. As a matter of fact she was
rather brilliant, although this gave one the feeling that she had to make
all the effort and added to the sense of humiliation. She gave one or two
amusing examples of her replies to foolish letters. She had a letter from
some silly woman saying, ‘Dear Dame Edith, As an admirer of your poems
I am nevertheless greatly disturbed by a poem containing a line about the
mating of tigers. I have a daughter of 19 - at that age where the brook
runs into the river - and a son aged 10 who is very restless. I wish to
entreat you dear Dame Edith when you write your poetry, to consider
the disturbing effect that lines like those about the mating of tigers may
have on the young.' Edith wrote back: “Tell your dirty little brats to read
King Lear.”
~ Stephen Spender
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Re:The Assassin's Cloak
« Reply #26 on: 2010-12-19 16:33:06 » |
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19 December
1785
After dinner we saw the learned Pigg at the rampant Horse in St Stephens
-there was but a small Company there but soon got larger - We stayed there `
about an hour - It was wonderful to see the sagacity of the Animal - It was
a Boar Pigg, very thin, quite black with a magic Collar on its neck. He would
spell out any word or Number from the Letters and figures that were placed
before him. Paid for seeing the Pigg 1 shilling.
~ Rev James Woodforde
1832
The house was very full: the play was The Wonder. My dress was not finished
till the very last moment - and then, oh, horror! was so small that I could
not get into it. It had to be pinned upon me; and thus bebundled, with the
dread of cracking my bodice from top to bottom every time I moved, and
the utter impossibility of drawing my breath, from the narrow dimensions
into which it squeezed me, I went on to play a new part. The consequence
was, that I acted infamously and for the first time in my life was horribly
imperfect - out myself, and putting every body else out. Between every scene
my unlucky gown had to be pinned together; and in the laughing scene, it
took the hint from my admirable performance, and facetiously grinned in an
ecstasy of amusement till it was fairly open behind, displaying, I suppose, the
lacing of my stays, like so many teeth, to the admiring gaze of the audience;
for, as I was perfectly ignorant of the circumstances, with my usual easy
nonchalance, I persisted in turning my back to the folk, in spite of all my
father’s pulls and pushes, which, as I did not comprehend, I did not by any
means second either . . .
~ Fanny Kemble
1914 [Red Cross volunteer on the French front]
Not much to record this week.The days have become more stereotyped, and
their variety consists in the number of wounded men who come in. One
day we had 280 extra men to feed - a batch of soldiers returning hungry to
the trenches, and some refugees. So far we have never refused anyone a cup
of soup; or coffee and bread.
I haven’t been fit lately; and get fearful bad headaches. I go to the station
at 10 a.m. every morning, and work till 1 o’clock. Then to the hospital for
lunch. I like the staff there very much.The surgeons are not only skilful, but
they are men of education.We all get on well together, in spite of that curious
form of temper which war always seems to bring. No one is affable here,
except those who have just come out from home, and it is quite common
to hear a request made and refused, or granted with, ‘Please do not ask again.'
Newcomers are looked upon as aliens, and there is a queer sort of jealousy
about all the work.
Oddly enough, few persons seem to show at their best at a time when
the best should be apparent. No doubt, it is a form of nerves, which is
quite pardonable. Nurses and surgeons do not suffer from it.They are accus-
tomed to work and to seeing suffering, but amateur workers are a bit head-
long at times. I think the expectation of excitement (which is often
frustrated) has a good deal to do with it. Those who ‘come out for thriIls’
often have a long waiting time, and energies unexpended in one direction
often show themselves unexpectedly and a little unpleasantly in another.
In my own department I always let Zeal spend itself unchecked, and I
find that people who have claimed work or a job ferociously are the first to
complain of over-work if left to themselves. Afterwards, if there is any good
in them, they settle down into their stride.They are only like young horses,
pulling too hard at first and sweating off their strength - jibbing one moment
and shying the next - when it comes to "ammer, 'ammer, ’ammer, ’ammer
on the ’ard ’igh road" one finds who is going to stick and who is not.
~ Sarah Macnaughtan
1952
I hire a dinner jacket suit to dine at Oxford. My women very excited at the
prospect of seeing me once more, a rare sight in such clothes. I explain that
they will not have that pleasure, since the suit has to be returned next day.
Bunny [his aunt] says, ‘When I was in the concert world I often used to
think how different evening dress looked on different men.You could always
tell the men who were “of the people", they never seemed to carry it well.’
J. R. Ackerley
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Re:The Assassin's Cloak
« Reply #27 on: 2010-12-21 03:00:14 » |
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20 December
I9I9
After dinner we listened to the Black Syncopated Orchestra. They were
amazing - all the semi-religious songs of the negroes. D. [Lloyd George] says
it is very significant - their songs about the oppressed people. He says a race
who can sing these songs like that will cause trouble one of these days.
~ Frances Stevenson
1950
“How’s your sister? All right?' asked the young lady (a fluffy blonde, hard-
boiled little piece, I always think) in the tobacconist’s the other day. Something
in her tone of voice seemed to make this question sound like a serious
inquiry.
‘Yes, thank you. Did you think she wasn’t?’ I asked.
‘Oh no. I didn’t think so. But things seem to happen so quickly these days.
One day you’re all right, and the next you’re . . .’ she seemed to hesitate.
‘Dead?’ I supplied, but simultaneously she brought out, ‘Not so well.'
The conversation seemed to me worth recording.
~ J. R. Ackerley
1973
This morning I took my poor old dog, Pop, to the vet to have more teeth
out and his anal troubles investigated while under the anaesthetic. I begged
the vet, if he found he was beyond recovery from yet another operation, to
let him go. I was quite calm. I never said goodbye, nor patted him. I merely
took off his lead. The vet, Riley, a nice man, took him in his arms. I just cast
one quick glance at Fop’s old grey head which was not looking towards me.
The vet said, “I quite understand' and I left hurriedly He said he would tele-
phone. During the afternoon A. and I drove to Badminton to collect dead
bracken. I thought that because the vet had not telephoned perhaps Fop had
come through the operation. Late in the afternoon while I was out he rang.
A. said to me, ‘The vet had to let him go.’ I followed her into the house and
said, “What I must do immediately is to remove all the dog baskets to the
attics and started to do this before taking off my heavy coat. While carry-
ing his special basket from the library I burst into tears. A. was angelic,
comforting and sensible. I recovered quickly, and now merely have the ache
of sadness at losing the companion of twelve years, day and night.This house
is cheerless without the two dogs, and their departure marks the end of an
era, the heyday of Alderly with which they have been so intimately, so essen-
tially associated. Eheu! you darling old friends.
~ James Lees-Milne20 December
I9I9
After dinner we listened to the Black Syncopated Orchestra. They were
amazing - all the semi-religious songs of the negroes. D. [Lloyd George] says
it is very significant - their songs about the oppressed people. He says a race
who can sing these songs like that will cause trouble one of these days.
~ Frances Stevenson
1950
“How’s your sister? All right?' asked the young lady (a fluffy blonde, hard-
boiled little piece, I always think) in the tobacconist’s the other day. Something
in her tone of voice seemed to make this question sound like a serious
inquiry.
‘Yes, thank you. Did you think she wasn’t?’ I asked.
‘Oh no. I didn’t think so. But things seem to happen so quickly these days.
One day you’re all right, and the next you’re . . .’ she seemed to hesitate.
‘Dead?’ I supplied, but simultaneously she brought out, ‘Not so well.'
The conversation seemed to me worth recording.
~ J. R. Ackerley
1973
This morning I took my poor old dog, Fop, to the vet to have more teeth
out and his anal troubles investigated while under the anaesthetic. I begged
the vet, if he found he was beyond recovery from yet another operation, to
let him go. I was quite calm. I never said goodbye, nor patted him. I merely
took off his lead. The vet, Riley, a nice man, took him in his arms. I just cast
one quick glance at Fop’s old grey head which was not looking towards me.
The vet said, “I quite understand' and I left hurriedly He said he would tele-
phone. During the afternoon A. and I drove to Badminton to collect dead
bracken. I thought that because the vet had not telephoned perhaps Fop had
come through the operation. Late in the afternoon while I was out he rang.
A. said to me, ‘The vet had to let him go.’ I followed her into the house and
said, “What I must do immediately is to remove all the dog baskets to the
attics and started to do this before taking off my heavy coat. While carry-
ing his special basket from the library I burst into tears. A. was angelic,
comforting and sensible. I recovered quickly, and now merely have the ache
of sadness at losing the companion of twelve years, day and night.This house
is cheerless without the two dogs, and their departure marks the end of an
era, the heyday of Alderly with which they have been so intimately, so essen-
tially associated. Eheu! you darling old friends.
~ James Lees-Milne
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Re:The Assassin's Cloak
« Reply #28 on: 2010-12-21 03:45:31 » |
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21 December
1850
Must not read novels.
~ Leo Tolstoy
1901 [Discovery expedition to Antarctica]
We cast off somewhere about 2 or 3 p.m. and went out amid immense cheer-
ing with steamers crowded with visitors; on each side of us and following in
our wake, and then as they dropped off at the end of the inlet, the two cruis-
ers Ringarooma and Lizard were to take us up and escort us to Dunedin.
Happily the crowded steamers had turned and the bands and cheering
were no longer to be heard, when one of our R.N. bluejackets fell from the
main top and without touching anything in his fall, dashed his head to pieces
on the iron roof of the winch house. It was a horrid thud. He was dead
instantly and I helped to carry him aft, where we laid him out and covered
him up. We signalled the accident to the Ringarooma and they took it on to
Dunedin. It was a dreadful time for such an accident to happen and some
of the men wept like children. It was a horrible lesson too to them, because
it was afterwards found that he had taken up a bottle of whisky to drink at
the maintop. There was a heavy cloud over the ship the rest of the day
~ Edward Wilson
1913
It is amazing how little imagination the clerk-race has sometimes. I wrote to
the box•office at Covent Garden for seats for the spring season, on Stock
Exchange paper, asking that the tickets might be sent to the Travellers’ Club.
Yet the letter comes addressed to me as ‘Miss’. In acknowledging it, I couldn’t
help pointing out that if they search all Europe they couldn’t find two addresses
less likely to shelter a lady
~ Sir Alan "Tommy’ Lascelles
1939
Love is the cheapest of religions.
~ Cesare Pavese
I94I
I was in a vile temper with the hopelessness of things at home and in the
office. I was feeling in dreadful bad form, inclined to scrap my whole diary.
I kicked this volume across the study last thing at night.
~ Lord Reith
1967
It is finished: except for Cabinet. Harold [Wilson] has had to go to Australia
for a funeral, so George [Brown] is in charge and he has kept chopping and
changing the time till I’ve nearly gone mad. Finally he fixed 3pm with six
items on the list, only two of them really urgent. I was furious: how was I
to get ready for fifty guests at our party tomorrow night? Spent the morning
on frantic Christmas food shopping and having my hair done; then sat chafing
for two hours in Cabinet while they all talked and talked. Finally I slipped
out and sloped off to Hells Corner Farm [her cottage], leaving them to it.
Men have no sense of priorities.
~ Barbara Castle
I972
Mary took me to Figaro last night - a splendid performance, perhaps the best
I’ve ever been to. Her other guest, a slender, elegant woman dressed tightly
in well-cut black, with a profile reminiscent of Cocteau (whose life I’ve been
reading); her name, Lady Daphne Straight.
My hackles always rise, I hope and believe invisibly, when confronted by
consciousness of superiority which isn’t real superiority - i.e. not such as
Shakespeare displays in the Sonnets. And I noticed that, though I was the
oldest by ten years, they both tended to walk out of the door first, leave me
the back seat in the car and generally treat me rather like an old governess.
They prattled away: ‘Oh, do you know; Robert wrote to Bobo apologising
for being so drunk the other night."Oh, NO! DID he really? How SWEET!’
Gossip galore, about the rich or noble, Mrs Heinz of Beans, or Lord
Lansdowne. Complaints about how booked up the best chiropodist in London
was, so that you ‘simply have to devote a whole morning to having your hair
and feet done’. Or ‘Rosie will complain of my drinking habits. She says if I
didn’t drink red wine at lunch I wouldn’t have to have my afternoon kip,
but I told her that in that case I’d have to go to bed at seven-thirty because
I must have my ten hours.
In our box at the opera my companions took care to break the rules and
smoke without going into the passage. ‘And they won’t let one leave one’s
glass on the edge of the box!’ ‘Perhaps they’re afraid it might fall into the
stalls' I suggested. ‘The class war more likely’ said Lady D. The stalls, I see,
are the lower classes! I observed Mary’s touchingly old-fashioned belief that
the waiters were relishing her glamorous superiority whereas I could see the
cold look of calculation in their eyes as to what tip she was good for, and
their annoyance that her bringing her own drink made it less.The same with
the market lorry drivers as we wound our way out. They the aristos, fondly
believe these men love seeing expensive cars and women with diamonds
among them. What fatuous folly!
~ Frances Partridge
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Blunderov
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"We think in generalities, we live in details"
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Re:The Assassin's Cloak
« Reply #29 on: 2010-12-22 16:22:33 » |
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22 December
1655
This day I did with Eliza meet, though not to market we did go, for still no
monies do I have, and greatly does this vex me. From Eliza I should not
conceal that little dinner I do get as Mrs Pepys, and so she does quizz me;
and feed me. Some pity did I shrink from that she should show but naught
did she give and her sharp words did put the huffe in me for none did I
deserve.
Yet does she say that I am the fool, for time enough has there been to
learn how to manage the man, yet no sign do I give of how to do it.
She does counsel that I should cease to play the invalid and stay from my
bed, that I should put aside my sloth and dress my hair - which truth to tell
has no attention since the day I did wed. And that I should don my new
gown for when my husband does make his appearance. In her words, this is
how the man - and the monies - be managed.
Yet do I say that no effort does my husband make for me and unfair it
is that I should do all for him. But Eliza does just cool-say that this is how
it be. And she does add that the man has the purse and if it is to be opened,
then must the woman please him.
Which is not very loving, but some sense it does have in it and certain it
is that I should consult my pillow.
And while we did stroll and have such serious talk, yet did I note more.
’Twas Robin Holmes whom I did see was watching me, and most handsome
he is. ’Tis possible that he knows not that I am the wife - and forsooth he
does cut a fine figure in his uniform.
And too it does strike me that I be not at my best these past weeks. So
do I resolve to get back my looks, and to unfurrow my brow and think not
on the pain that does cut into me.
As I do keep this record here, even more need is there to make it safe
from prying eyes. For a great bout there would be if my husband did get
to this and all effort should he make to stop me from my diary And the
veriest miserable creature I should be with no journal to keep. ’Tis the
greatest comfort that it does provide me, and too do I think to pass these
pages on to my daughter, so she should know what I did not. To preserve
it, I must take all care to keep it from my husband’s eyes and hands. And
to think that but a few weeks past, I did seek to have no secrets from my
man.
~ Elizabeth Pepys’
1825
I wrote six of my close pages yesterd[ay], which is about twenty four pages
in print. What is more I think it comes off twangingly. The story is so very
interesting in itself that there is no fear of the book answering. Superficial it
must be but I do not disown the charge. Better a superficial book which
brings well and strikingly together the known and acknowledged facts than
a dull boring narrative pausing to see further into a mill stone at every
moment than the nature of the mill stone admits. Nothing is so tiresome as
walking through some beautiful scene with a minute philosopher, a botanist
or pebble gatherer who is eternally calling your attention from the grand
features of the natural scenery to look at grasses and chucky stones. Yet in
their way they give useful information and so does the minute historian -
Gad, I think that will look well in the preface.
~ Sir Walter Scott
I94I
Decrees yesterday — Paul Kreidl brings them up, circular from the Community,
signature necessary: (1) Prohibition on using public telephones. (Private telephones
were taken from us long ago.) (2) Curfew for all Jews from the morning of
December 24 to January 1, ‘since provocative behavior of a Jew in public has
caused outrage’. Exempted is only the shopping hour three till four (Saturday
twelve till one); so four of the eight days (the Christmas holidays, New Year’s
Day and Sunday) are days of complete imprisonment. —The one ‘outrageous’
case is supposed to have been this (reports in agreement and incontestable);
A Nazi cow shouts at an elderly gentleman: ‘Get down off the sidewalk, Jew!’
He refuses, he has a right to be on the sidewalk. He is summoned to the
Gestapo “for questioning and imprisoned. This was told us by Paul Kreidl
whose workmate is a son of the man, who was present at the scene and was
likewise summoned to the Gestapo. Katchen, who worked with the man at
Zeiss-Ikon, told exactly the same story.
This month the 200M installment from Georg’s blocked account was no
longer paid to me. The emigrants have now been expatriated, their assets
confiscated. I have insisted that the sum given to me as a gift is my property
- it will be no use. I have long been covering everything outside the tax
exemption limit from my reserves. They were replenished by Georg’s gift.
Now there is still 1,000M left. Once that is used up, somewhere about April,
I shall have to sell the house. —The Jews say, by April 1 shall be in the Polish
ghetto.
~ Victor Klemperer
1952
The Movietone News this week had a Christmas feature. A large number of
flustered turkeys were driven towards the camera, and the commentator
remarked that the Christmas rush was on, or words to that effect. Next they
were seen crowded about their feeding trough, making their gobbling turkey
fuss, and the commentator observed, with dry humour (again I do not remem-
ber his exact words), that it was no use their holding a protest meeting, for
they were for it in the morning. Similar facetious jokes followed them wher-
ever they went, hurrying and trampling about in their silly way; for to make
them look as silly as possible was no doubt part of the joke and easy to
achieve: turkeys, like hens, like all animals, are beautiful in themselves, and
have even a kind of dignity when they are leading their own lives, but the
fowls, in particular, look foolish when they are being frightened.
These jolly lip-licking sallies, delivered in the rich, cultivated self-confident
voice of one who has no sort of doubt of his own superiority to the animal
kingdom, raised no laugh from the considerable audience, I was pleased to
note. I took it from the silence that many other people besides myself would
have been glad to be spared jeers and jibes at these creatures who, parting
unwillingly with their lives, were to afford us pleasure at our Christmas tables.
It reminded me of a shop window I noticed in Marylebone High Street, not
many weeks ago. A whole calf’s head was displayed upon a dish, and the
tongue of the dead thing had been dragged out and twisted round into the
side of its mouth so that it appeared, idiotically; to be licking its own lips
over the taste of its own dead flesh. In order to make it more foolish still, a
tomato had been balanced on top of its head. How arrogant people are in
their behaviour to the domestic beasts at least. Indeed, yes, we feed upon
them, and enjoy their flesh; but does that permit us to make fun of them
before they die or after they are dead? If it were possible, without disorder-
ing one’s whole life, to be a vegetarian, I would be one; nothing could have
been more disgusting and degrading than the insensitiveness displayed by
these two exhibitions I have described.
J. R. Ackerley
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