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Re:The Assassin's Cloak
« Reply #45 on: 2011-01-11 15:52:25 » |
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10 January
1824
Called on Miss Lamb. I looked over [Charles] Lamb's library in part. He has the finest collection of shabby books I ever saw. Such a number of first-rate works of genius, but filthy copies, which a delicate man would really hesitate touching, is, I think, nowhere to be found.
~ Henry Crabb Robinson
1872
This morning at prayers the pretty housemaid Elizabeth with the beautiful large soft eyes was reading aloud in Luke 1 how Zacharias saw a vision in the Temple, but for the word 'vision' she substituted 'venison'.
~ Rev. Francis Kilvert
1914
To one of these new night-clubs, Murray's in Beak Street. Here were numerous people dancing the tango and the maxixe with jealous precision; the latter is rather a graceful dance, but, as to the former, the old lady in the current anecdote was not far wrong –'I whip my dog when he does that.'
Not that these people seemed to get any physical fun out of the thing, as they were all grimly preoccupied with trying to tread it out according to the rules. It's an amusing place, though, and we sat there till three; there are an amazing lot of all-but-beautiful women in the London stage, and demimonde, just now, and some who are quite – e.g., Sari Petrass, who is a lovely little creature, and looks like a duchess. Two years ago, I suppose, London was
without any sort of place of this kind, and now there are about half a dozen flourishing like the greenest bay trees; an excellent thing.
~ Sir Alan 'Tommy' Lascelles
1920 [Berlin]
To-day the Peace Treaty was ratified at Paris; the War is over. A terrible era begins for Europe, like the gathering of clouds before a storm, and it will end in an explosion probably still more terrible than that of the World War. In Germany there are all the signs of a continuing growth of nationalism.
~ Count Harry Kessler
1946
At the fashionable, carefree Carcano – Ednam wedding reception I remarked to Emerald [Cunard] how quickly London had recovered from the war and how quickly normal life had resumed. `After all,' said, pointing to the crowded room, 'this is what we have been fighting for.' `What,' said Emerald, 'are they all Poles?'
~ `Chips' Channon
1953
[With] the young duke of Kent and his sisters, taken to see a famous illusionist in a London music hall. The number ends with some nudity, and the nanny doesn't know what to do. As they leave she ventures to ask, 'How did Your Highness enjoy the performance?' 'I'm scared! 'Why, Your Highness?' `Mama told me if I looked at naked women I'd turn to stone – and it's starting:
~ Jean Cocteau
1979
Took off at 8-20 in a curious twin-engined, high-wing, old Russian plane which I viewed with apprehension and dismay, but which in fact proved to be extremely stable for the three-hour slow journey, diverting in order to see things like the Silingue Dam and to follow the course of the River Niger to Timbuctoo.
I was greeted at the airport by the military governor, mayor, etc, and then at the entrance to the main square, five miles away, by two Nubian maidens, one of whom presented me with some dates, which I ate, and the other with a bowl of camel's milk, which I put to my lips but refrained from drinking as it had the most nauseous smell. Then into the square
Where the whole population seemed to be lined up. Fortunately the population of Timbuctoo is now only about 8000 compared with 100,000 in 1500 so it was not quite as formidable a gathering as it might earlier have been. A lot of music and cheering, though quite whom or what they thought they were cheering I am not sure. Then I walked round the square and decided that the only thing to do was a Richard Nixon, plunge in, shake hands and then move on fifty yards and plunge again.
~ Roy Jenkins
1984
Two boxes arrived this morning, stuffed with PO cases and what officials call `reading'. First thing, always, on top of all the folders are the grey sheets of diary pages. My heart sank as I looked at the stuffed days, the names of dreary and supercilious civil servants who will (never singly) be attending. I've got three months of this ahead of me without a break.
At dinner the other night Peter [Morrison], who is a workaholic (not so difficult if you're an unhappy bachelor living on whisky) showed Ian [Gow] and me, with great pride, his diary card for the day following. Every single minute, from 8.45 a.m. onwards, was filled with 'engagements'.
`Look,' he said. 'How's that for a diary?'
Ian, unexpectedly and greatly to his credit, said, 'If my Private Office produced a schedule like that I'd sack the whole lot, immediately.'
~ Alan Clark
1995
Peter Cook died yesterday and of course today is the funniest man who ever lived. He may almost have been. (Dud: 'So would you say you've learned from your mistakes?' Pete: 'Oh yes, I'm certain I could repeat them exactly.)
This morning, after dark thoughts about my life, I picked up Whole Earth Review and read the interview with Annie Nearing, now 94 years old. She said something that struck me right in the heart – though it seems very minor: `People give so much attention to food.' This struck a chord because last night we left the Lacey meeting prematurely primarily so we could have a proper sit-down meal. A snack would have done me fine, and I was slightly discomfited that eating had come to occupy such a major position in our lives. Then I thought about all the evenings that evaporate in the long haze of preparing, eating, drinking, smoking. Lately, when cooking (unless I'm really in the mood) I find myself thinking, 'This is taking an absurdly long time.'
Generally my feeling is towards less: less shopping, less eating, less eating, less drinking less wasting, less playing by the rules and recipes. All of that I want in favour of more thinking on the feet, more improvising, more surprises, more laughs.
~ Brian Eno
11 January
1857
There was wit and even poetry in the negro's answer to the man who tried to persuade him that the slaves would not be obliged to work in heaven. `Oh, you g'way, Massa. I know better. If dere's no work for cullud folks up dar, dey'll make some fur 'em, and if dere's nuffin better to do, dey'll make em shub de clouds along. You can't fool this chile, Massa.'
~ H. D. Thoreau
1909
Madam Posfay was in the courtyard of the palace at the time of the murder of the King and Queen of Servia, but knew nothing. 'What are they throwing bolsters out of the windows for?' she asked. It was the bodies.
~ Arnold Bennett
1920
Like every morning I have had my enema, in order to preserve a clear skin and sweet breath. It is a family habit, approved of by Dr Pinard. One of Maman's old great-aunts, the beautiful Madame Rhomes, died at the age of ninety and a half with a complexion of lilies and roses, skin like a child's. She took her little enema, it seems, at five o'clock every evening, so that she would sleep very well. She did it cheerfully in public. She would simply stand in front of the fireplace; her servant would come in discreetly, armed with the loaded syringe; Madame Rhomes would lean forward gracefully so that her full skirts lifted, one two there, and it was done! Conversation was not interrupted. After a minute or two my beautiful ancestress would disappear briefly, soon to return with the satisfaction of a duty performed.
~ Liane de Pougy
1912
Night. Height 10,530. Temp -16.3°. Minimum -25.8°. Another hard grind in the afternoon and five miles added. About 74 miles from the Pole – can we keep this up for seven days? It takes it out of us like anything. None of us ever had such hard work before. Cloud has been coming and going overhead all day, drifting from the S.E., but continually altering shape. Snow crystals falling all the time, a very light breeze at start soon dying away. The sun so bright and warm tonight that it is almost impossible to imagine a minus temperature. The snow seems to get softer as we advance; the sastrugi, though sometimes high and undercut, are not hard – no crusts, except yesterday the surface subsided once, as on the Barrier. Our chance still holds good if we can put the work in, but it's a terribly trying time.
~ Captain Robert Falcon Scott
1940 [Berlin]
Cold. Fifteen degrees below zero centigrade outside my window. Half the population freezing in their homes and offices and workshops because there's no coal. Pitiful to see in the streets yesterday people carrying a sack of coal home in a baby-carriage or on their shoulders. I'm surprised the Nazis are letting the situation become so serious. Everyone is grumbling. Nothing like continual cold to lower your morale. Learned today from a traveller back from Prague that producers of butter, flour, and other things in Slovakia and Bohemia are marking their goods destined for Germany as 'Made in Russia.' This on orders from Berlin, the idea being to show the German people how much 'help' is already coming from the Soviets.
~ William L. Shirer
1973
In the British Museum reading room I asked the superintendent if I might be allowed to visit the shelves in order to search for an article in an obscure Italian journal of the 1850s and 60s, the reference to which was evidently wrongly given in the bibliography I have consulted. He looked at me and said, `We are not supposed to, but you seem all right.' 'I hope I am, but I don't know how you can tell: I said. He called a black assistant, who took me miles and miles upstairs past shelves and shelves and shelves, all beautifully stacked. We arrived at a little office amidst this forest of books.
The charming assistant took me to the shelves where the Rivista Europa volumes were stacked – about forty of them. He had them all taken out on a trolley and put on a table for me. I found my article and read it; it was of no use to me, but I was struck by the kindness and helpfulness of everyone concerned. When I came to leave my friend was nowhere to be found. It was terrifying being left alone in this deserted forest, no sound, only endless speechless books. Depressing, and frightening. Enough to make a humble author feel a worm.
~ James Lees-Milne
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Blunderov
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Re:The Assassin's Cloak
« Reply #46 on: 2011-01-13 15:15:02 » |
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12 January
1819
I sat up till two, as I did last night, to finish Pride and Prejudice. This novel I consider as one of the most excellent of the works of our female novelists.
Its merit lies in the characters, and in the perfectly colloquial style of the dialogue. Mrs Bennet, the foolish mother, who cannot conceal her projects to get rid of her daughters, is capitally drawn. There is a thick-headed servile parson, also a masterly sketch. His stupid letters and her ridiculous speeches are as delightful as wit. The two daughters are well contrasted — the gentle and candid Jane and the lively but prejudiced Elizabeth, are both good portraits, and the development of the passion between Elizabeth and the proud Darcy, who at first hate each other, is executed with skill and effect.
~ Henry Crabb Robinson
1840 [Ireland]
I have been thinking how best to encourage the school, and not being able to afford more help in money than it now costs, I have determined on giving fewer prizes — only one in each Division — instead I shall send ten children to school. I have also resolved on resuming my regular daily business as the only possible way of keeping things in order.
Monday — The washing to be given out. Clothes mended. Stores for the week given to the servants. Tuesday — work for the week cut out and arranged, my own room tidied. Wednesday — accounts, letters, papers all put by. Thursday — housekeeping, closets, storeroom, etc. arranged, bottles put by, pastry made — in short every necessary job done for the week. Friday — gardening and poor people's wants. Saturday — put by clean clothes and school. Two hours generally does all, except on Thursday. Thus I am always ready and have plenty of time for other occupations. I also give an hour every evening to the little girls. Janet' has a musick lesson every day — Annie every second day — twice a week French — twice a week English — twice a week dancing. Alas, when we see company all this happiness must be forborne, but we owe a duty to society as to other things and in its turn it must be paid and a little intercourse with our acquaintance is good both for ourselves and for our children. With friends it is delightful, and we have some even here I should be very sorry to have to part from. In the evening played some of Corelli's solos, read aloud Mrs Trollope's Domestic Manners of the Americans.
~ Elizabeth Grant of Rothiemurchus
1936
I realize now that I would marry if I could do so; but I am not wholly blind to the fact that my arrival at this nuptial mood has been accelerated by adventitious means. What woman — granting she overlook my disabilities — would expect that my affection was entirely unselfish. Yet — and this is perhaps a confession of my overweening self-regard rather than of my confidence in the magnanimity of women — I do believe that a woman would accept me for what I am and that our marriage should be one of mutual affection, and not a `second-best' accommodation for security and comfort. No doubt to an outsider it must appear preposterous that at my age I should consider it not an impossibility to win the affection of such a woman as I might have reasonably hoped to have won when a whole man; but the hope is there and Places me, I suppose, among the incorrigible.
~ William Soutar
1938 [Nanking]
A month ago today Nanking fell into the hands of the Japanese. The body of that Chinese soldier shot while tied to a bamboo sofa is still lying out in the street not 50 yards from my house.
~ John Rabe
13 January
1921
Rainy weather. Does the weather matter in a journal? Lunched alone; does that matter? (Grilled turbot and apple-pudding, if you want full details.) Talked to 'the Judge' about fox hunting for a few minutes. Then went to Cheyne Walk for tea with Gabriel. Bought yellow narcissi on the way. Buying flowers it refreshing, though I always give them away. Left at five, and played The Beggar's Opera for an hour: also refreshing. Dined at Arnold Bennett's and enjoyed it greatly. B. is always the same, and always nice. He showed me his manuscripts, - which are very beautiful. That of Old Wives' Tale practically free from corrections. He had been to see George Moore, who said: 'Hardy is a villager; Conrad is a sailor; Henry James was a eunuch
~ Siegfried Sassoon
1945 [Bergen-Belsen]
Yesterday marked our first year here. It has been a terrible year, far from home, from the children, without news from them, a year of disappointment. The transport to Palestine, the peace that did not come, a year of hunger, cold, hounding, persecution and humiliation. Fortunately, though, apart from a few bouts of dysentery, we have not been seriously ill.
The food is getting worse and worse. At midday, swede soup, every day without a single potato. The 'extra' food is distributed centrally now. Every day there are genuine punch-ups over a ticket. From time to time there is no bread at all here — from time to time (tonight, for example) we are not allowed to use the toilet. Those who have diarrhoea must go outdoors. We have procured some buckets for ourselves, discarded jam buckets.
This morning, my neighbour had to resort to them. This morning his bunkmate discovered to his horror that his shoes were full. The other had soiled himself twice during the night.
We are living amid the lice. For months I have not been able to change into clean underwear, nor had a shower. Naturally there is also no heating here, we suffer terribly from the cold in the huts, which are draughty and where the door is never shut.
Deaths, deaths, deaths.
For how long?
The persecution of the Jews continues. Nevertheless we are a year nearer to peace than on 13 January 1944.
~ Abel J. Herzberg
1953
Lunched with Jack Kennedy, the new Senator from Massachusetts. He has the making of a first-class Senator or a first-class fascist – probably depending on whether the right kind of people take the trouble to surround him. His brother is now counsel for McCarthy's committee and he himself has been appointed on McCarthy's committee, though Jack claims against his wishes. There was a time when I didn't quite understand why F.D.R. broke with Joe Kennedy. But the more I see of Jack, the more I can understand it.
~ Drew Pearson
1955 [Jamaica]
The Parachini [a neighbour] funeral was almost comical. It was also strident with local colour. The hearse and the funeral cortege were late and were unable to turn into the church gates and had to go straight on into Port Maria and then come back on the other side of the road. When the hearse finally drew up we observed that a common little Palmolive soap van had wormed its way into a position just behind it and directly in front of the relatives' car. On the side of the van in large letters was a slogan which read, `A Lovelier Skin in Fourteen days'.
~ Noel Coward
1995
Took a long walk this morning – down 11th Avenue to 42nd Street. Such nostalgic air – cool but clear, straight up Manhattan fresh off the Atlantic, having crossed the Sargasso Sea, then accented with all those residual traces of faint fishiness, cinnamon muffins, subway urine, women's perfumes, bacon, coffee, newsprint.
~ Brian Eno
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Re:The Assassin's Cloak
« Reply #47 on: 2011-01-14 18:28:24 » |
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14 January
1833 [Washington]
We walked up to the Capitol and went first into the senate, or upper house, because [Daniel] Webster was speaking, whom I especially wished to hear. The room itself is neither large nor lofty; the senators sit in two semi-circular rows, turned towards the President, in comfortable arm-chairs. On the same ground, and literally sitting among the senators, were a whole regiment of ladies, whispering, talkirig, laughing, and fidgeting. A gallery, level with the floor, and only divided by a low partition from the main room, ran round the apartment: this, too, was filled with pink, and blue, and yellow bonnets; and every now and then, while the business of the house was going on, and Webster speaking, a tremendous bustle, and waving of feathers, and rustling of silks, would be heard, and in came streaming a reinforcement of political beauties, and then would commence a jumping up, a sitting down, a squeezing through, and a howd'ye-doing, and a shaking of hands.The senators would turn round; even Webster would hesitate, as if bothered by the row, and in short, the whole thing was more irregular, and unbusiness-like than any one could have imagined ...
~ Fanny Kemble
1935
Today I had a chance to explore the waterfiont for the first time. New Orleans, a major world port, has ten miles of wharves and is used by scores of steamship lines and nine railroads. At the Thalia St wharf I watched as bananas from Central America were unloaded from a ship by sweating Negro longshoremen. They are paid 4S cents an hour and get work only about three days a week. As I sat watching the men, a hairy tarantula almost ran up my pant leg. Looking up, I began watching the sea gulls soaring over the river and ships and docks. Seldom have I seen such beauty.The sleek white birds have black-tipped wings and long necks, tuck their orange feet under them, and some glided so near that I saw their sparkling eyes. They are the essence of grace. I wish I were a poet because Poetry is the best medium for describing these lovely lofty creatures. If I believed in reincarnation, I'd like to come back as a sea gull. I am curious about them, just as I am curious about everything. Life without curiosity wouldn't be worth living. Today I remembered the first two lines of a poem:
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
~ Edward Robb Ellis
1938 [Corfu]
We climbed the dizzy barren razorback of Pantocratoras to the monastery from which the whole strait lay bare, lazy and dancing in the cold haze. Lines of dazzling water crept out from Butrinto, and southward, like a beetle on a plate, the Italian steamer jogged its six knots towards Ithaca. Clouds were massing over Albania, but the flat lands of Epirus were frosty bright. In the little cell of the warden monk, whose windows gave directly upon the distant sea, and the vague ruling of waves to the east, we sat at a deal table and accepted the most royal of hospitalities – fresh mountain walnuts and pure water from the highest spring; water that had been carried up on the backs of women in stone jars for several hundred feet.
~ Lawrence Durrell
1944
Anatole France, in his old age, intended to write a novel, of which the title was to be Les Autels de la peur. The Altars of Fear – could a better title be found for an account of our times?
~ Iris Origo
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Re:The Assassin's Cloak
« Reply #48 on: 2011-01-16 13:14:51 » |
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15 January
1912
It is wonderful to think that two long marches would land us at the Pole. We left our depot today with nine days' provisions, so that it ought to be a certain thing now, and the only appalling possibility the sight of the Norwegian flag forestalling ours. Little Bowers continues his indefatigable efforts to get good sights, and it is wonderful how he works them up in his sleeping-bag in our congested tent. (Minimum for night -27.5°.) Only 27 miles from the Pole. We ought to do it now.
~ Captain Robert Falcon Scott
1941
Parsimony may be the end of this book. Also shame at my own verbosity, which comes over me when I see the – 20 it is – books shuffled together in my room. Who am I ashamed of Myself reading them. Then Joyce is dead. Joyce about a fortnight younger than I am. I remember Miss Weaver, in wool gloves, bringing Ulysses in type-script to our tea-table at Hogarth House. Roger I think sent her. Would we devote our lives to printing it?
The indecent pages looked so incongruous: she was spinsterly, buttoned up. And the pages reeled with indecency. I put it in the drawer of the inlaid cabinet. One day Katherine Mansfield came, and I had it out. She began to read, ridiculing: then suddenly said, But there's something in this: a scene that should figure I suppose in the history of literature. He was about the place, but I never saw him. Then I remember Tom [T. S. Eliot] in Ottoline's [Lady Ottoline Morell] room at Garsington saying – it was published then – how could anyone write again after achieving the immense prodigy of the last chapter. He was, for the first time in my knowledge, rapt, enthusiastic. I bought the blue paper book, and read it here one summer I think with spasms of wonder, of discovery, and then again with long lapses of intense boredom. This goes back to a pre-historic world. And now all the gents are furbishing up their opinions, and the books, I suppose, take their place in the long procession.
~ Virginia Woolf
1943
A group of naughty little boys crept in [to the canteen] and started playing with the table-tennis gear. I went to chase them off, and collided with two little girls about twelve or fourteen. I said, 'Hallo, my dears, what do you want?' and got a very evasive answer. I noticed they were very bold-looking little things. It appears that they have haunted the canteen all week, and when Mrs. Diss came, I said, `Do you know, I've never before seen girls or women hanging round the canteen' and she answered, 'No, but we have not had Scotties or Australians before. We were warned of the queer attractions they – and Americans too – have for young girls.' She had talked firmly and kindly to the two girls, and asked, `Whatever would your mother think if she knew?' She had got a pert but pitiful reply, 'Oh she wouldn't say anything – but Dad would thrash me.' However, it appeared Dad was in the Middle East. The other said her mum was working, and she could not get in the house till seven o'clock when she came in.
When I told Mary, she said that, at Fulwood Barracks in Preston, it was really shocking to see such young girls 'seeking trouble'. We have seen little If it openly in Barrow, and it set me thinking again of the 'new world'. I wonder if the ones with such beautiful ideas, who blab so much about what Will happen after the war, even dimly realise the stupendous tasks and problems awaiting them, the cosmic swing of change, the end of all things as we know them. I read in the paper of American school-teachers' problems with unruly adolescents who have never been disciplined.
~ Nella Last
16 January
1755
This morning about 1 o'clock I had the misfortune to lose my little boy Peter, aged 21 weeks, 3 days. Paid for flour and other small things. At home all day. In the even read the 11th and 12th books of Paradise Regained, which I think is much inferior for the sublimity of style to Paradise Lost.
~ Thomas Turner
1814
I have simplified my politics into an utter detestation of all existing governments; and, as it is the shortest and most agreeable and summary feeling imaginable, the first moment of an universal republic would convert me into an advocate for single and uncontradicted despotism. The fact is, riches are power, and poverty is slavery all over the earth, and one sort of establishment is no better, no worse, for a people than another.
~ Lord Byron
1854
I was struck today by the poetic beauty of the winter weather. In the sky a mist got up and the pale sun shone through it. On the roads the dung is beginning to thaw and there is a damp moisture in the air.
~ Leo Tolstoy
1912
Camp 68. Height 9,760. T -23.5°. The worst has happened, or nearly the worst. We marched well in the morning and covered 7Y2 miles. Noon sight showed us in Lat. 89° 42' S., and we started off in high spirits in the afternoon, feeling that tomorrow would see us at our destination. About the second hour of the march Bowers' sharp eyes detected what he thought was a cairn; he was uneasy about it, but argued that it must be a sastrugus. Half an hour later he detected a black speck ahead. Soon we knew that this could not be a natural snow feature. We marched on, found that it was a black flag tied to a sledge bearer; near by the remains of a camp; sledge tracks and ski tracks going and coming and the clear trace of dogs; paws – many dogs. This told us the whole story. The Norwegians have forestalled us and are first at the Pole. It is a terrible disappointment, and I am very sorry for my loyal companions. Many thoughts come and much discussion have we had. Tomorrow we must march on to the Pole and then hasten home with all the speed we can compass. All the day-dreams must go; it will be a wearisome return. Certainly are descending in altitude – certainly also the Norwegians found an easy way up.
~ Captain Robert Falcon Scott
Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg have met with a dreadful and fantastic end. The midday editions of the newspapers have published the story. Last night Liebknecht was shot from behind while being taken in a truck through the Tiergarten and, so it is said, trying to escape. Rosa Luxemburg, having been 'interrogated by officers of the Guards Cavalry Division in the Eden Hotel, novas was first beaten unconscious by a crowd there and then, on the canal bridge, was dragged out of the car in which she was being removed. Allegedly she was killed. Her body has at any rate disappeared. But, according to what is known so far, she could have been rescued and brought to safety by party comrades. Through the civil war, which she and Liebknecht plotted, they had so many lives on their conscience that their violent end has, as it were, a certain inherent logic. The manner of their deaths, not the deaths themselves, is what causes consternation.
~ Count Harry Kessler
1979
Today I began a regime which will probably last for twenty-four hours. I jogged in the bedroom for about twenty-five minutes and did some exercises. Resolved not to eat any bread, potatoes or sugar, and to stop smoking. It's terrifying the extent to which one is dependent on drugs. If I tried to give up tea as well, I think I should go mad!
... It's 10.45 pm and I still haven't smoked.
~ Tony Benn
1995
Opening of Interview with the Vampire in Dublin. Tom Cruise comes over, bless his heart. He promised to do so months ago, and I had always thought circumstances would intervene. But here he is, causing a sensation in O'Connell Street. Police holding back crowds, as if the Beatles had returned. He makes his way through a quite terrifying line and finds time to talk to everybody. All I know is I couldn't do it.
A party afterwards in Dublin Castle. Liam Neeson turns up. And Michael D. Higgins and a group of British MPs who have come to see how the tax-breaks have worked for the Irish film industry, James Callaghan and a Labour spokesman for Defence among them. I talk to him for a while and get the impression they found the film quite loathsome. Maybe they don't want this kind of activity on their shores after all. When you have Shakespeare, why do you need movies?
~ Neil Jordan
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Re:The Assassin's Cloak
« Reply #49 on: 2011-01-17 16:35:45 » |
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17 January
1912
Camp 69.T. -22° at start. Night -21'. THE POLE. Yes, but under very different circumstances from those expected. We have had a horrible day – and to add to our disappointment a head wind 4 to 5, with a temperature -22°, and companions labouring on with cold feet and hands.
~ Captain Robert Falcon Scott
1919
In the evening I went to a cabaret in the Bellevuestrasse.The sound of a shot cracked through the performance of a fiery Spanish dancer. Nobody took any notice. It underlined the slight impression that the [Russian] revolution has made on metropolitan life. I only began to appreciate the Babylonian, unfathomably deep, primordial and titanic quality of Berlin when I saw how this historic, colossal event has caused no more than local ripples on the even more colossally eddying movement of Berlin existence. An elephant stabbed with a penknife shakes itself and strides on as if nothing has happened.
~ Count Harry Kessler
1936
I read Kipling's verses all the afternoon (he died yesterday). It struck me how good the verses were, how full of genuine vitality, how full of contempt for what I despised – 'brittle intellectuals' – and of poetic genius; how, if he praised Empire, it was not at all because he had not counted the cost (who has expressed better the wrongs of the common soldier?) but because, men being what they are, he saw it as one of the less despicable manifestations of their urge to over-run and dominate their environment.
~ Malcolm Muggeridge
1962
Walter Shenson [film producer]. He said he'd been having a talk with Brian Epstein, the Beatles' manager. He was delighted that I'd like to do the film [script]. `So,' W. Shenson said, 'you'll be hearing either from Brian or Paul MacCartney in the near future. So don't be surprised if a Beatle rings you up.' `What an experience,' I said. `I shall feel as nervous as I would if St Michael or God were on the line.' 'Oh, there's not any need to be worried, Joe Shenson said. 'I can say, from my heart, that the boys are very respectful of talent. I mean, most respectful of anyone they feel has talent. I can really say that, Joe.
~ Joe Orton
1965
Winston Churchill, I fear, is dying at this very moment. I suppose it's just as well really. Ninety years is a long, long, time. Personally I would rather not wait until the faculties begin to go. However, that must be left in the hands of 'The One Above' and I hope he'll do something about it and not just sit there.
~ Noel Coward
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Re:The Assassin's Cloak
« Reply #50 on: 2011-01-19 10:21:09 » |
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18 January
1805
I've just been reflecting for two hours on my father's conduct toward me, being deplorably worn down by a strong attack of the slow fever I've had for more than seven months. I haven't been able to recover from it: first, because I didn't have the money to pay the doctor; in the second place, because, having my feet constantly in the water in this muddy city owing to lack of boots, and suffering in every way from the cold owing to lack of clothing and wood for the fire, it was useless and even harmful to wear down my body with remedies to get rid of an illness which poverty would have given me even if I hadn't had it already.
If you add to this all the moral humiliations and the worries of a life passed continually with twenty sous, twelve, two, and sometimes nothing in my Pocket, you'll have a slight idea of the state in which that virtuous man has left me.
For two months I've been planning to put a description of my condition here; but, in order to describe it, you must regard it, and my only resource is to distract my attention from it.
Just calculate the effect of eight months of slow fever, fed by every possible Misfortune, on a temperament which is already attacked by obstructions and weakness in the abdomen, and then come and tell me that my father isn't shortening my life!
Were it not for my studies, or rather the love of glory that has taken root in my breast in spite of him, I should have blown out my brains five or six times.
~ Stendhal
1824
I have been reading about an English judge who desired to live to a great age and accordingly proceeded to question every old man he met about his diet and the kind of life he led — whether his longevity had any connexion with food, alcoholic liquor, and so forth. It appears that the only thing they had in common was early rising and, above all, not dozing off once they were awake. Most important.
~ Eugene Delacroix
1940 [Amsterdam]
Ed [Murrow] and I are here for a few days to discuss our European coverage, or at least that's our excuse. Actually, intoxicated by the lights at night and the fine food and the change of atmosphere, we have been cutting up like a couple of youngsters suddenly escaped from a stern old aunt or a reform school. Last night in sheer joy, as we were coming home from an enormous dinner with a fresh snow drifting down like confetti, we stopped under a bright street-light and fought a mighty snow-ball battle. I lost my glasses and my hat and we limped back to the hotel exhausted but happy. This morning we have been ice-skating with Mary Marvin Breckinridge, who has forsaken the soft and dull life of American society to represent us here. The Dutch still lead the good life. The food they consume as to both quantity and quality (oysters, fowl, meats, vegetables, oranges, bananas, coffee — the things the warring peoples never see) is fantastic. They dine and dance and go to church and skate on canals and tend their business. And they are blind — oh, so blind — to the dangers that confront them. Ed and I have tried to do a little missionary work, but to no avail, I fear. The Dutch, like everyone else, want it both ways. They want peace and the comfortable life. But they won't make the sacrifices or even the hard decisions which might ensure their way of life in the long run. The Queen, they say, stubbornly refuses to allow staff talks with the Allies or even with the Belgians. In the meantime, as I could observe when I crossed the border, the Germans pile up their forces and supplies on the Dutch frontier.
~ William L. Shirer
1977
I worked until 2, then up at 6.30 to go off to begin my tour of European capitals as President of the Council of Energy Ministers.
I took my own mug and lots of tea bags. When we arrived in Paris we were met by the Ambassador, Nico Henderson, a tall, grey-haired, scruffy man, almost a caricature of an English public schoolboy who got to the top of the Foreign Office. I don't think I had ever met him before; he was rather superior and swept me up in his Rolls Royce.
The end of a day of negotiations, and I enjoyed it very much. Ina way ..:, it's very relaxing not to be a British Minister, just a European one.
But I must admit that the standard of living of, for example, the Ambassador - a Rolls Royce, luxurious house, marvellous furniture, silver plate at dinner - is indefensible. Ours is a sort of corporate society with a democratic safety
valve. What a long time it will take to put it right. And how do you get measured steps in advance? Undoubtedly openness is one, and negotiations and discussions with the trade unions is another. Nobody should have power
unless they are elected.
~ Tony Benn
19 January
1938 [Senegal]
Night of anguish- Went to bed early, very sleepy; but stiffing. Stomach churning, never again take that frightful soft and sticky meat which is called 'fish' in this country.
At midnight I decide to have recourse to Dial. Badly closed tubes, which open and scatter the lozenges in my valise. In the bathroom, where I go to get some distilled water (but a mistake was made; the bottle contains syrup), I surprise cockroaches in the act of copulating. I thought they were wingIess; but some (probably the males), without taking flight, unfold enormous trembling wings. When I am ready to go back to bed, I notice rising above 'the top of the wardrobe opposite my bed the erect head of a python, which soon becomes but an iron rod.
Got up at dawn. The main road, which passes our veranda, becomes active: a whole nation is going to market. Very 'road to India.'
~ Andre Gide
1959 [Paris]
The evening finished with a blonde lady (French) pounding the piano and everyone getting a trifle 'high'. Princess Sixte de Bourbon was definitely shocked when the Duke [of Windsor] and I danced a sailor's hornpipe and the `Charleston, but there was no harm in it, perhaps a little sadness and nostalgia for him and for me a curious feeling of detached amusement, remembering "how beastly he had been to me and about me in our earlier years when he "Was Prince of Wales and I was beginning. Had he danced the Charleston and hornpipe with me then it would have been an accolade to cherish. As it was, it looked only faintly ridiculous to see us skipping about with a will. The Princess needn't have been shocked, it was merely pleasantly ridiculous.
~ Noel Coward
1976
This morning there arrived by post from Switzerland a Xerox sent by Ali Forbes of a letter written to him by Stephen Spender, abusing me. In it Stephen says he has always loathed the sight of me, and disliked my very appearance, which is that of a sinister undertaker who with his spade thrusts moribund, not yet dead corpses into the grave. That he sees my soul as a brown fungus upon a coffin, etc. That he has never spoken more than a dozen sentences to me in his life. Now this is pretty mischievous of Ali Forbes, I consider. I am affected by Spender's letter. No, not gravely, because I do not like him and know that what he writes is pretentious tripe, yet affected by the knowledge that there is someone alive who can write such disagreeable things about me.
~ James Lees-Milne
1995
We fly to West Cork where Liam (Neeson) is waiting and go to meet the Collins family. Welcomed at the home of Liam Collins, Michael's nephew, and his wife, with old-fashioned rural courtesy. Visit the old farmhouse at Woodfield which has been landscaped quite beautifully into a fitting monument. No museums or interpretative centres here. Just a preserved old burnt-out farmhouse, with a lovely oak tree in the garden and a plaque or two. One gets the impression of quite severe intelligence here, and of a reticence that has accumulated over the years – a necessary reticence given that neighbours and families would have been divided by the events of the Civil War.
We go to the Four-Alls pub and hear stories of the various directors and actors who passed through here, researching the same film. Michael Cimino, Kevin Costner, even, apparently, John Huston. Kevin Costner we are told turned down the offer of a pint of Guinness for a cup of tea. Liam immediately orders four more pints. Then four more and more again until I'm almost footless.
~ Neil Jordan
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Blunderov
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Re:The Assassin's Cloak
« Reply #51 on: 2011-01-21 16:31:07 » |
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20 January
1917 [Panshanger in Hertfordshire, home of Lord Desborough]
Instead of going to church, a party conducted by Lord Desborough went over to see the German prisoners. There are about a hundred of them in the park and they work in the woods. I was not allowed to talk German to them. The specimens I saw were of the meek and mild type, not at all 'blond beasts".
They had rather ignominious identification marks in the form of a blue disc patched somewhere on to their backs: it looked as though its purpose was to afford a bull's eye to the marksman if they attempted to escape.
~ Lady Cynthia Asquith
1936
Eventually we get to Tain and go to the little inn where we are received by a man in a kilt and given a dram. We walk across to the Town Hall, where there are the Provost, two ex-Provosts, and the local dominie. A good plat-Form. The hall is amazingly full for such a night. The gallery is packed. The Provost makes a speech, and then I talk for 45 minutes. It goes very well indeed. Then we take the old boys round to the inn and have more drams. 'And then off we go into the night. Twenty-five miles to Dingwall skidding and slithering. The sound of water in the mist. Then the lighted hotel and the journalists in the lounge and warmth and sandwiches.
'How is the King?' is our first question. 'The 11.45 bulletin was bad. It said that His Majesty's life was moving peacefully to its close.' How strange! That little hotel at Dingwall, the journalists, the heated room, beer, whisky, 'Pobacco, and the snow whirling over the Highlands outside. And the passing of an epoch. I think back to that evening twenty-six years ago when I was having supper at the Carlton and the waiter came and turned out the lights: 'The King is dead'.
~ Harold Nicolson
1941 [Dresden]
A couple of weeks ago at the Jewish tea downstairs with the Katzes and Kreidles, Leipziger, an elderly medical officer and insurance doctor, garrulously and somewhat boastfully and conceitedly monopolized the conversation; recently Frau Voss comes back enchanted from one of her bridge parties: The medical officer had read so interestingly from a book about the doctor, it is his own life. So now all the Jews who have been thrown out are writing their autobiography, and I am one of twenty thousand ... And yet: The book will be good, and it helps me pass the time. But then the old doubt also revived again, whether it would not have been better for me to learn English. Now on the one hand the new reduction in our money is in the offing, on the other the block on American visas has been lifted and it will soon be the turn of our quota number, and Sussmann ... has passed on my
It continues to be cold with snow (without interruption since December), apartment difficult to heat, bad chilblains on my chapped and swollen hands.
Victor Klemperer
1995
Travel back to Dublin. Do the Late, Late Show with Gay Byrne. For those who don't know, this is the Irish equivalent of Dave Letterman and Jay Leno rolled into one. And it has been running since they have had television in Ireland. I've avoided it for years, because it is the one thing that makes your face known here. As it is, I'm generally confused with Jim Sheridan and complimented for My Left Foot, which is fine by me. Actors and rock stars deserve that recognition since they're paid so much. Writers and directors are paid to be anonymous. And halfway through the show I realise that anonymity here for me is gone for ever. The interest in this Collins film is turning it into a national institution. My problem now is how to make a film that won't feel like a national institution.
~ Neil Jordan
21 January
1664
Up, and after sending my wife to my aunt Wight's to get a place to see Turner hanged, I to the office, where we sat all the morning. And at noon going to the 'Change, and seeing people flock in the City, I enquired and found that Turner was not yet hanged. And so I went among them to Leadenhall Street to St. Mary Axe, where he lived, and there I got for a shilling to stand upon the wheel of a cart, in great pain, above an hour before the execution was done; he delaying the time by long discourses and prayers one after another, in hopes of a reprieve; but none came, and at last was flung off the ladder in his cloake. A comely-looked man he was, and kept his countenance to the end: I was sorry to see him. It was believed there were at least 12 or 14,000 people in the street.
Samuel Pepys
1854
Here is a fact which needs to be remembered more often. Thackeray spent thirty years preparing to write his first novel, but Alexandre Dumas writes two a week.
~ Leo Tolstoy
1858 [New Orleans]
I am astonished more and more at the stupid extravagance of the women. Mrs H. (who gains her living by keeping a boarding house) has spent, she says, at least 60 pounds on hair dyes in the last ten years. All the ladies, even little girls, wear white powder on their faces and many rouge. All wear silk dresses in the street and my Carmelite [woollen material] and grey linen dresses are so singular here that many ladies would refuse to walk with me. Fashion rules so absolutely that to wear a hat requires great courage. Leather boots for ladies are considered monstrous. I never saw such utter astonishment as is depicted on the faces of the populace when I return from a sketching excursion. I do not like to come back. alone so the Dr [her husband] always comes for me.
The people in the house would lend me any amount of flower garden bonnets if I would but go out in them. This is so like the Americans - they are generous and kind but will not let you go your own way in the world. My little plain bonnet and plaid ribbon is despised, all my wardrobe considered shabby and triste. I never saw people dress so much, and I must confess, too, with a certain taste which is caught from the French.
~ Barbara Leigh Smith
Bodichon 1915
A stormy day. We walked back this morning. J. [John Middleton Murry; they married in 1918] told me a dream. We quarrelled all the way home more or less. It has rained and snowed and hailed and the wind blows. The dog at the inn howls. A man far away is playing the bugle. I have read and sewed today, but not written a word. I want to to-night. It is so funny to sit quietly sewing, while my heart is never for a moment still. I am dreadfully tired in head and body. This sad place is killing me. I live upon old made-up dreams; but they do not deceive either of us.
Later I am in the sitting-room, downstairs. The wind howls outside, but here it is so warm and pleasant. It looks like a real room where real people have lived. My sewing-basket is on the table: under the bookcase are poked J.'s old house shoes. The black chair, half in shadow, looks as if a happy person had sprawled there. We had roast mutton and onion sauce and baked rice for dinner. It sounds right. I have run the ribbons through my underclothes with a hairpin in the good home way. But my anxious heart is eating up my body, eating up my nerves, eating up my brain, now slowly, now at a tremendous speed. I feel this poison slowly filling my veins - every particle becoming slowly tainted. Yes love like this is a malady , a fever, a storm. It is almost like hate, one is so hot with it - and am never, never calm, never for an instant. I remember years ago saying that I wished I were one of those happy people can suffer so far and then collapse or become exhausted. But I am just the opposite. The more I suffer, the more of fiery energy I feel to bear it. Darling! Darling!
~ Katherine Mansfield
1918
[On Sunday] Lytton [Strachey] came to tea; stayed to dinner, and about 10 o'clock we both had that feeling of parched lips and used up vivacity which comes from hours of talk. But Lytton was most easy and agreeable. Among other things he gave us an amazing account of the British Sex Society which meets at Hampstead. They were surprisingly frank; and fifty people of both sexes and various ages discussed without shame such questions as the deformity of Dean Swift's penis; whether cats use the W.C., self abuse; incest –incest between parent and child when they are both unconscious of it, was their main theme, derived from Freud. I think of becoming a member. Lytton at different points exclaimed Penis: his contribution to the openness of the debate. We also discussed the future of the world; how we should like professions to exist no longer; Keats, old age, politics, Bloomsbury hypnotism – a great many subjects.
~ Virginia Woolf
1936
The King is dead – Long live the King. The eyes of the world are on the Prince of Wales, the new King Edward VIII. This morning everyone is in mourning, and the park is full of black crows. I went to the House of Commons at 6, which had been summoned by gun-fire – and unofficially, by radio. About 400 MPs out of 615 turned up, then the Speaker came in, and took his oath to Edward VIII, and we followed; the Prime Minister first ... it took hours and I sat in the smoking room with A. P. Herbert and Duff Cooper waiting my turn. We talked of Royalty. Today is the anniversary of Lenin's death; tomorrow that of Louis XVI and Queen Victoria ...Duff had just come on from St James's Palace where he attended the Privy Council to announce the accession of the King, and there they witnessed the King's Oath. 6o or 70 patriarchs, and grandees, in levee dress or uniform, presided over by Ramsay MacDonald as Lord President of the Council. They make an impressive picture, it seems, not unfunny and reminiscent of charades in a country-house; then they processed into yet another Long Gallery where they were received by the Princes ... a few moments later the new King was sent for, and he entered ... solemn, grave, sad and dignified in Admiral's uniform. Everyone was most impressed by his seeming youth and by his dignity. Much bowing, and he in turn swore his Oath. When he left some of the Councillors were overcome by their emotions ...all this from Duff.
~ `Chips' Channon
1979
Had my first pipe for about five or six days. Somehow the pressure of not smoking made me think of nothing but my pipe.
~ Tony Benn
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Blunderov
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Re:The Assassin's Cloak
« Reply #52 on: 2011-01-24 08:33:12 » |
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[Blunderov] Once again, apologies for the hiatus. Normal service is now resumed.
22 January
1826
I feel neither dishonourd nor broken down by the bad – miserably bad news I have received. I have walked my last on the domains I have planted, sate the last time in the halls I have built. But death would have taken them from .'Me if misfortune had spared them. My poor people whom I loved so well!! There is just another dye to turn up against me in this run of ill luck – i.e. If I should break my magic wand in a fall from this elephant and lose my popularity with my fortune. Then Woodstock and Boney may both go to the papermaker and I may take to smoking cigars and drinking grog or turn devotee and intoxicate the brain another way. In prospect of absolute ruin I wonder if they would let me leave the Court of Session. I should like methinks to go abroad
And lay my banes far from the Tweed.
But I find my eyes moistening and that will not do. I will not yield without a fight for it. It is odd, when I set myself to work doggedly as Dr Johnson would say, I am exactly the same man that I ever was – neither low spirited nor distrait. In prosperous times I have sometimes felt my fancy and powers of language flat – but adversity is to me at least a tonic and bracer – the fountain is awakend from its inmost recesses as if the spirit of afliction had troubled it in his passage.
Poor Mr Pole the harper sent to offer me $500 or $600, probably his all. There is much good in the world after all. But I will involve no friend either rich or poor – My own right hand shall do it – Else will I be done in the slang language and undone in common parlance.
I am glad that beyond my own family, who are excepting L. [ady] S. [cots] young and able to bear sorrow of which this is the first taste to some of them, most of the hearts are past aching which would have been inconsolable on this occasion.
I do not mean that many will not seriously regret and some perhaps lament my misfortunes. But my dear mother, my almost sister Christy R[utherfor]d, - poor Will: Erskine - these would have been mourners indeed-
Well - exertion - exertion - O Invention rouze thyself. May man be kind - may God be propitious. The worst is I never quite know when I am right or wrong and Ballantyne, who does know in some degree will fear to tell me. Lockhart would be worth gold just now but he too would be too diffident to speak broad out. All my hope is in the continued indulgence of the public.
I have a funeral letter to the burial of the Chevalier Yelin, a foreigner of learning and talent, who has died at the Royal Hotel. He wishd to be introduced to me and was to have read a paper before the Royal Society when this introduction was to have taken place. I was not at the society that evening and the poor gentleman was taken ill in the meeting and unable to proceed. He went to his bed and never arose again - and now his funeral will be the first public place that I shall appear at - he dead and I ruind. This is what you call a meeting.
~ Sir Walter Scott
1848
Lady Beavale told me some anecdotes of the Royal children, which may one day have an interest when time has tested and developed their characters. The Princess Royal is very clever, strong in body and in mind; the Prince of Wales weaker and more timid, and the Queen says he is a stupid boy; but the hereditary and unfailing antipathy of our Sovereigns to their Heirs Apparent seems this early to be taking root, and the Queen does not much like the child. He seems to have an incipient propensity to that sort of romancing which distinguished his uncle, George IV. The child told Lady Beavale that during their cruise he was very nearly thrown overboard, and was proceeding to tell her how when the Queen overheard him, sent him off with a flea in his ear, and told her it was totally untrue.
~ Charles Greville
1864
Last night and tonight I have observed for the first time the noise of the new Charing Cross Railway. Even as I write the dull wearing hum of trains upon the Surrey side is going on: it goes on far into the night, with every now & then the bitter shriek of some accursed engine.
I almost welcome the loss, which I had been groaning over, of my view of the Thames; hoping that the new building when it rises may keep out these sounds. No one who has not tasted the pure & exquisite silence of the Temple at night can conceive the horror of the thought that it is gone for ever. Here at least was a respite from the roar of the streets by day: but now, silence and peace are fast going out of the world. It is not merely the torture of this new noise in a quiet place: but one knows that these are only the beginnings of such sorrows.
Our children will not know what it is to be free from sound of railways.
~ Arthur E Munby
1935
Snow fell on roses today in New Orleans. These southern people couldn't have been more excited by the outbreak of another War between the States.
About 5 a.m. I walked downstairs and met a night watchman on a corner behind St. Louis Cathedral. In the glow of an antique street lamp he held the palm of his hand toward the white sky. A few flakes melted on his skin.
`Lookit that!' he exulted. 'Lookit that!' Pointing at himself, he said, 'Had a top-coat on when I began duty last night, but – gosh! I sure had to change into this overcoat, even if it does have moth holes in it'.
This is the first snowfall in New Orleans since 1899, according to old-timers. While they aren't all exactly sure of the date, they agree it has been ,some little spell' since the last time.
When I walked into the press room at the criminal court building, a reporter yelled: 'Eddie! Is this snow?'
`Why, sure.'
`Well,' he said slowly, `I wasn't sure whether it was snow or ice.'
We got in his car to drive out to get a story and this southern boy exclaimed at almost every snowflake. Excitedly he pointed at what he called snowdrifts – none more than half an inch deep. When we returned he jumped out of his car, scooped up what little snow he could and sprinkled it on his hat and shoulders. Then he yelled to a telephone operator in the building and she threw on a coat and joined us outdoors. She shouted in amazement. We put her under a palm tree, then hammered at the trunk to shake some snow off the fronds and onto her. Proud as a queen in ermine, she ran back inside to show her white collar to her friends.
Later in the day a man on a streetcar told me: 'I got my wife and daughter out of bed and we all hurried into the yard. My little girl made a snowball and threw it at her mother. My wife said: "That's the first time I've ever been hit by a snowball!"'
Instead of working today, these people who never before had seen snow frolicked outdoors or hung around doors and windows to gawk at something they called a miracle. A burly Negro grinned and said: 'Man! Tom an' Jerry sho catch hell today!' Eleven precincts reported snow.The twelfth precinct reported egg nogs.
~ Edward Robb Ellis
23 January
1662
By invitacon to my uncle Fenner's, where I found his new wife, a pitiful, old, ugly, ill-bred woman in a hats, a midwife. Here were many of his, and as many of her relations, sorry, mean people; and after choosing our gloves, we all went over to the Three Crane Tavern, and though the best room in the house, in such a narrow dogg-hole we were crammed, and I believe we were near forty, that it made me loathe my company and victuals; and a sorry poor dinner it was too.
~ Samuel Pepys
1920
This day, the anniversary of the death of Louis XVI, brings back memories of my childhood in that corner of Brittany where all the old, right-minded families indicated their respectful mourning by keeping their shutters closed all day, going to mass dressed in black and doing penance to compensate for France's criminal gesture. My mother, my old aunts and their friends set the example. My youth and cheerfulness were put to a hard test. Faces had to be long. Only the humble folk were allowed the privilege of passing this day comfortably, but they were regarded with an indulgent and disdainful pity.
~ Liane de Pougy
1927
Vita [Sackville-West] took me over the 4 acres building, which she loves: too little conscious beauty for my taste: smallish rooms looking on to buildings: no views: yet one or two things remain: Vita stalking in her Turkish dress, attended by small boys, down the gallery, wafting them on like some tall sailing ship — a sort of covey of noble English life: dogs walloping, children crowding, all very free and stately: & [a] cart bringing wood in to be sawn by the great circular saw. How do you see that? I asked Vita. She said she saw it as something that had gone on for hundreds of years. They had brought wood in from the Park to replenish the great fires like this for centuries: & her ancestresses had walked so on the snow with their great dogs bounding beside them. All the centuries seemed lit up, the past expressive, articulate; not dumb & forgotten; but a crowd of people stood behind, not dead at all; not remarkable; fair face, long limbed, affable, & so we reach the days of Elizabeth quite easily. After tea, looking for letters of Dryden's to show me, she tumbled out a love letter of Lord Dorset's (17th century) with a lock of his soft gold tinted hair which I held in my hand a moment. One had a sense of links fished up into the light which are usually submerged.
~ Virginia Woolf
1936
[Stanley] Baldwin spoke for 20 minutes about the late King. It is the sort of thing he does very well, and every word perfectly chosen, and perfectly balanced. He had a trying day as he was pall-bearer in the morning at the funeral of his first cousin Rudyard Kipling. Mr Baldwin's speech was 'The Question was—' that messages of condolence be sent to the King, and to Queen Mary. He was followed by Major Attlee for the Socialists. We on our side thought he would jar, and do badly, but on the contrary he was excellent ... he, too, held the House. At 3.40 the Speaker left the Chair, preceded by the Sergeant-at-Arms and Mace, etc., and we followed in pairs. Harold Nicolson said 'Let's stick together', and we did. In solemn silent state we progressed into Westminster Hall, lining the East side. Harold and I were at the end of the queue, as befitted 'new boys' and thus were nearly on the steps and found ourselves next to the Royal Family; I could have touched the Queen of Spain, fat and smelling slightly of scent, and old Princess Beatrice. Opposite us, were the Peers led by the Lord Chancellor, who, unlike the Speaker, always seems a joke character. In the middle of the Great Hall stood the catafalque draped in purple.
We waited for 10 minutes ... and I was rather embarrassed as my heavy fur-lined coat has a sable collar, a discordant note among all the black. I had been tempted to come into the hall without one, but that would certainly have meant pneumonia. I was sorry for the aged Princess next to me, shivering in her veil ... After a little some younger women, heavily-draped, came in, and were escorted to the steps. I recognized the Royal Duchesses. Princess Marina, as ever, managed to look infinitely more elegant than the others; she wore violets under her veil and her stockings, if not flesh-coloured, were of black so thin that they seemed so.
The great door opened ... the coffin was carried in and placed on the catafalque. It was followed by King Edward, boyish, sad and tired, and the Queen, erect and more magnificent than ever. Behind them were the Royal brothers. There was a short service ... and all looked first at the coffin, on which lay the Imperial Crown and a wreath from the Queen, and then we turned towards the boyish young King, so young and seemingly frail. Actually he is forty-two, but one can never believe it. After a few moments, the Queen and young King turned, and followed by the Royal Family, they left. The two Houses of Parliament then proceeded in pairs round the catafalque now guarded by four immobile officers and by Gentlemen-at-Arms... there was an atmosphere of hushed stillness, of something strangely sacred and awe-inspiring.
This King business is so emotional, it upsets and weakens me, and I am left with the feeling that nothing matters ... almost an eve-of-war reaction. As we left, we were told that on the way to Westminster hall, the top bit of the Imperial Crown had fallen out during the procession, and had been picked up by a Serjeant-Major.
`Chips' Channon
1996
Today there is much fuss about Harriet Harman, of the Shadow Cabinet, sending her 11-year-old son to St Olave's School in what the media describe as 'leafy Orpington'. Presumably it is not very leafy at this time of year. Part of the trouble is that the boy has to take an exam and face an interview. Without such things I can't see how the school would know in what form to place him. Neither do I see why all the emphasis is put on Ms Harman's decision; presumably her husband should have at least 50 per cent say in the matter, and perhaps Master Joseph may have his views on education.
~ Alec Guinness
24 January
1684
The frost still continuing more and more severe, the Thames before London was planted with bothes in formal streetes, as in a Citty, or Continual faire, all sorts of Trades and shops furnished, and full of Commodities, even to a Printing presse, where the People and Ladys tooke a fancy to have their names Printed and the day and yeare set downe, when printed on the Thames: This humour tooke so universaly, that 'twas estimated the Printer gained five pound a day, for printing a line onely, at six-pence a Name, besides what he gott by Ballads etc: Coaches now plied from Westminster to the Temple, and from severall other staires too and froo, as in the streetes; also on sleds, sliding with skeeter; There was likewise, Bull-baiting, Horse and Coach races, Pupet-plays and interludes, Cooker and Tipling, and lewder places; so as it seem'd to be a bacchanalia, Triumph or Carnoval on the Water, whilest it was a severe Judgement upon the land: the Trees not only splitting as if lightning-strock, but Men and Cattell perishing in divers places, and the very seas so locked up with yce, that no vessells could stirr out, or come in.
~ John Evelyn
1856
A journal is a record of experiences and growth, not a preserve of things well done or said. I am occasionally reminded of a statement which I have made in conversation and immediately forgotten, which would read much better than what I put in my journal. It is a ripe, dry fruit of long-past experience which falls from me easily, without giving pain or pleasure. The charm of the journal must consist in a certain greenness, though fresh, and not in maturity. Here I cannot afford to be remembering what I said or did, MY scurf cast off, but what I am and aspire to become.
~ H. D. Thoreau
1938 [Nanking]
We're all degenerating around here. We're becoming spineless, losing our respectability. In Indiscreet Letters from Peking, a book about the siege of Peking in i goo, Putnam Wheale reports how he and many other Europeans simply joined in the looting. I don't think we're all that far from it ourselves. My houseboy Chang bought an electric table fan worth 38 dollars for $1.20 today, and expects me to be pleased. A couple of genuine Ming vases, costing one dollar each, gaze at me with reproach from my fireplace mantel.
If I felt like it, I could fill the entire house with cheap curios — meaning stolen and then sold for a song on the black market. Only food is expensive these days: A chicken now costs two dollars, the exact same price as those two Ming vases.
~ John Rabe
1942 [Jersey]
Things are depressing all the time. Almost every night, the Evening Post reports sudden deaths. It is very strange — lack of proper nourishment must be the cause. Then there are lots of 'foreign' workmen in the island, brought by the Germans.These are half-starved, and half-clothed, and reported to have strange and dangerous diseases. However, we have all had a ration of a quarter pound of chocolate each this week. It was wonderful — chocolate!
~ Nan Le Ruez
1953
There are two kinds of men on tubes. Those who blow their noses and then examine the results in a handkerchief, and those who blow their noses without exhibiting any such curiosity, and simply replace the handkerchief in the pocket. I, generally, come under the first category.
~ Kenneth Williams
1996
The car taking me to Moorfields wriggled its way through tiny, twisted City streets which were almost deserted; a few thin clerks with blue noses hunched themselves against the bitter wind, walking stiffly and alone, like the black matchstick figures in a Lowry industrial townscape. The women to be seen were, for the most part, dressed as Paddington Bear. It is a pleasing hat but the face peeping from underneath it should be under thirty. The car slid past St Paul's Cathedral which somehow looked smaller than usual and rather drab. Elizabeth Frink's sheep, nearby, are being driven by their shepherd, as was pointed out to me a few years ago, and not following him as the Bible recommends. Things are out of joint.
~ Alec Guinness
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Blunderov
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Re:The Assassin's Cloak
« Reply #53 on: 2011-01-26 05:46:32 » |
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25 January
1851
I've fallen in love or imagine that I have; went to a party and lost my head. Bought a horse which I don't need at all.
~ Leo Tolstoy
1885
Daudet spoke of the first years of his married life. He told me that his wife did not know that there was such a thing as a pawnshop; and once she had been enlightened, she would never refer to it by name but would ask him: `Have you been there?' The delightful thing about it all is that this girl who had been brought up in such a middle-class way of life was not at all dismayed by this new existence among people scrounging dinners, cadging twenty-franc pieces, and borrowing pairs of trousers.
`You know,' said Daudet, 'the dear little thing spent nothing, absolutely nothing on herself. We have still got the little account books we kept at that time, in which, beside twenty francs taken by myself or someone else, the only entry for her, occurring here and there, now and then, is Omnibus, 3o centimes.' Mme Daudet interrupted him to say ingenuously: 'I don't think that I was really mature at that time: I didn't understand . . .' My own opinion is rather that she had the trustfulness of people who are happy and in love, the certainty that everything will turn out all right in the end.
~ The Brothers Goncourt
1936
My younger daughter managed to get through Downing Street and so had a very good view of the procession as it came down Whitehall from the station on its way to Westminster Hall for the Lying in State. She told me that she had never seen anyone look so ill or as unhappy as the Prince of Wales looked that day. He was evidently going through the most fearful mental and physical anguish. And I heard from someone else that in Trafalgar Square they were afraid he would not be able to go on to the very end.
~ Marie Belloc Lowndes
1940
Chaplin got on to the subject of the Duke of Windsor, whom he met several times during a trip to Europe. Windsor was then the Prince of Wales. His first question was, `How old are you?' He wanted to know what Chaplin had done in the 1914 war – and when Chaplin told him, 'Nothing,' there was a frosty silence. Then Chaplin asked him how many uniforms he owned and how he knew which one to wear on any given occasion: did someone tell him?' 'No one,' Windsor replied coldly, 'ever tells me to do anything.'
Nevertheless, he seems to have taken a great fancy to Chaplin and often asked him down to Fort Belvedere. Chaplin nearly committed a serious breach of etiquette by going to the lavatory when Windsor was already there. This is strictly against the rules.
Although Windsor had at once begun calling Chaplin 'Charlie,' Chaplin had stuck rigidly to the formal 'Sir'. He imitated himself saying demurely: 'Oh, no, Sir! Oh, yes, Sir!' Behind all these anecdotes, there was the sparkle of guttersnipe impudence. One sees him in his classic role of debunker of official pomposity, always, everywhere. `How can they possibly go on with all that nonsense?' he kept repeating.
~ Christopher Isherwood
1947
Embarked in the America full of cocaine, opium and brandy, feeble and low-spirited. One of the reasons for my putting myself under the surgeon's knife was to wish to be absolutely well and free from ointments for Laura's American treat. All the reasons for the operation [for piles] appeared ineffective immediately afterwards. The pain was excruciating and the humiliations constant. The hospital was reasonably comfortable and the nurses charming – the grace of God apparent everywhere. But I had ample time to reflect that I had undergone an operation, which others only endure after years of growing agony, when I had in fact suffered nothing worse than occasional discomfort. I took no advice, either from a physician or fellow sufferers, just went to the surgeon and ordered the operation as I would have ordered new shirts. In fact I had behaved wholly irrationally and was paying for it.
~ Evelyn Waugh
26 January
1837 [Paris]
Having seen all the high society the night before, I resolved to see all the low to-night, and went to Musard's Ball — a most curious scene; two large rooms in the Rue St Honore almost thrown into one, a numerous and excellent orchestra, a prodigious crowd of people, most of them in costume, and all the women masked. There was every description of costume, but that which was the most general was the dress of a French post-boy, in which both males and females seemed to delight. It was well-regulated uproar and orderly confusion. When the music struck up they began dancing all over the rooms; the whole mass was in motion, but though with gestures the most vehement and grotesque, and a licence almost unbounded, the figure of the dance never seemed to be confused and the dancers were both expert in their capers and perfect in their evolutions. Nothing could be more licentious than the movements of the dancers, and they only seemed to be restrained within the limits of common decency by the cocked hats and burnished helmets of the police and gendarmes which towered in the midst of them. After quadrilling and waltzing away, at a signal given they began galloping round the room; then they rushed pell-mell, couple after couple like Bedlamites broke loose, but not the slightest accident occurred. I amused myself with this strange and grotesque sight for an hour or more and then came home.
~ Charles Greville
1847 [Paris]
Dined with M. Thiers. I never know what to say to the men I meet at his house. From time to time they turn round and talk art to me when they observe how profoundly bored I am with conversation about politics, the Chamber, etc.
How chilly and tiresome is this modern fashion for dinner parties! The flunkeys bear the brunt of the whole business and do everything but put the food into one's mouth. Dinner is the last thing to be considered, it is quickly polished off like some disagreeable duty. Nothing cordial or good-natured about it. The fragile glasses — an idiotic refinement! I cannot touch my glass without making it shake and spilling half the contents over the cloth. I get away as quickly as I can.
~ Eugene Delacroix
1930
When we made up our six months accounts, we found I had made about ,C3,020 last year — the salary of a civil servant; a surprise to me, who was content with C2oo for so many years. But I shall drop very heavily I think. The Waves won't sell more than 2,000 copies.
~ Virginia Woolf
1938
For no reason at all I hated this day as if it was a person — it's wind, it's insecurity, it's flabbiness, it's hints of an insane universe.
~ Dawn Powell
1941
Sibyl [Lady Colefax] comes to stay. As usual she is full of gossip. She minds so much the complete destruction of London social life. Poor Sibyl, in the evenings she goes back to her house which is so cold since all the windows have been broken. And then at nine she creeps round to her shelter under the Institute for the Blind and goes to sleep on her palliasse. But all of this leaves her perfectly serene. We who have withstood the siege of London will emerge as Lucknow veterans and have annual dinners.
We have not yet taken Derna but we have invaded Italian Somaliland ... Eritrea has been badly pierced, and we are within striking distance of Massawa. But all this is mere chicken-feed. "We know that the Great Attack is impending. We know that ... we may be exposed to the most terrible ordeal that we have ever endured. The Germans have refrained from attacking us much during the last ten days since they do not wish to waste aeroplanes and petrol on bad weather. But when the climate improves they may descend upon us with force such as they have never employed before. Most of our towns will be destroyed.
I sit here in my familiar brown room with my books and pictures round me, and once again the thought comes to me that I may never see them again. They may well land their parachute and airborne troops behind Sissinghurst and the battle may take place over our bodies. Well, if they try, let them try. We shall win in the end.
~ Harold Nicolson
1977
Sitting in a bus in London last week, it being a raw day I took out of my pocket my white lip salve and applied it to my chapped lips. An elderly woman sitting opposite put on a strongly disapproving face, and said, 'Well!' in a long-drawn-out tone. I paid not the slightest notice.
~ James Lees-Milne
1979
Got my pay cheque today. Thought I would celebrate by taking myself to a good restaurant. Walked home; thought about so many things. One of them was how some weeks ago in London I walked along Long Acre from Covent Garden where I had seen Gotterdammerung – alone as I thought, along the street I farted. It was much louder, after five hours of Wagner, than I had dreamed it could possibly be! Some boys and girls, rather charming, whom I had scarcely noticed, overheard me, or it, and started cheering. In the darkness I was more amused than embarrassed. Then a self-important thought came in my mind. Supposing they knew that this old man walking along Long Acre and farting was Stephen Spender? What would they think? Anyway, for some reason a bit difficult for me to analyse, it would be embarrassing. Then I saw how an incident like this divides people one knows into categories – those who would laugh and those who would be shocked (shocked anyway at me writing this down). I don't think E R. Leavis would have been amused. But Forster, Auden, Isherwood, Connolly, Ackerley, and Matthew, my son, would be.
~ Stephen Spender
1988 [after a Hollywood film premiere]
We convertible down to the Hard Rock Cafe where Irv [his American agent] wedges me between big bellies and bozooms and the rhetoric of 'YOU'R-E AN ACTOR? DOYOU DIRECT? WHO'SYOUR AGENT? PUBLICIST? MANAGER? GURU? SAW YOU IN WITHNAAALE AND AY. SO WHADDYA THINK OF THE MOVIE, HUH?
Double-glazed eyes – either drunk, disappointed or dumb. Can there really be as many stupid people here as I think there are?
`Gotta remember this is not an A-list event, but kinds gives you a taster. Fun, huh?' Young women with piles of peroxided hair switch on like megawatt bulbs when an agent or director is radared. I meet an English agent who is trying to itemize it all with irony, but before I can mutter Davey Crockett, Irv is at my side and reacting like the Brit has lured me away.
`Beware of the people poachers,' he whispers in my ear.
I gasp for some fresh air outside, pocketing the traitorous card clipped me by the English agent, and am delivered back to the hotel by Irv. Get a room service sandwich that must have taken four grown men to prepare. I haven't yet asked how you're s'posed to get your jaw wide enough for a bite without double jointing.
It's impossible to imagine what this place does to your psyche and soul if you aren't working. The divide is ruthless. Every waiter seems to be an actor and they deliver the menu like an audition speech.
'HI, MY NAME'S WARREN AND I'LL BE YOUR WAITER FOR THE NIGHT. NOW THE SPECIALS GO LIKE THIS: TONIGHT WE HAVE CLAMS ON THE HALF SHELL, SHARK STEAK WITH A PIQUANT LIME AND DILL SAUCE, OR SAUTE OF LAMB'S BRAIN WITH A GUACAMOLE ACCOMPANIMENT AND I KNOW I SHOULDN'T BE SAYING THIS BUT THANKS FORYOUR PERFORMANCE IN THAT MOVIE.'
~ Richard E. Grant
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Blunderov
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Re:The Assassin's Cloak
« Reply #54 on: 2011-01-30 16:02:37 » |
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27 January
1658
After six fitts of a Quartan Ague it pleased God to visite my deare Child Dick with fitts so extreame, especiale one of his sides, that after the rigor was over and he in his hot fits, he fell into so greate and intollerable a sweate, that being surpriz'd with the aboundance of vapours ascending to his head, he fell into such fatal Symptoms, as all the help at hand was not able to recover his spirits, so as after a long and painefull Conflict, falling to sleepe as we thought, and coverd too warme (though in midst of a severe frosty season) and by a greate fire in the roomer he plainely expird, to our unexpressable griefe and affliction. We sent for Physitians to Lond, whilst there was yet life in him; but the river was frozen ullp, and the Coach brake by the way ere it got a mile from the house; so as aartificial help failing, and his natural strength exhausted, we lost the prettiest, and dearest Child, that ever parents had, being but 5 yeares and 3 days old in years but even at that tender age, a prodigie for Witt, and understanding; for beauty of body a very Angel, and for endowments of mind, of incredible and rare hopes.
John Evelyn
1831
So fagd by my frozen vigils that I slept till after ten. When I lose the first two hours in the morning I can seldom catch them again during the whole day. A friendly visit from Ebenezer Clarkson of Selkirk, a medical gentleman in whose experience and ingenuity I have much confidence as well as his personal regard to myself. He is quite sensible of the hesitation of speech of which I complain, and thinks it arises from the stomach. Recommends the wild mustard as an aperient. But the brightest ray of hope is the chance that I may get some mechanical aid made by Fortune at Broughton Street which may enable me to mount a pony with ease, and to walk without torture. This would indeed be almost a restoration of my youth, at least of a green old age full of enjoyment – the shutting one out from the face of living nature is almost worse than sudden death.
~ Sir Walter Scott
1897
At a City branch of a certain bank yesterday morning two golden-haired girls, with large feathered hats, presented a piece of paper bearing a penny stamp and the words 'Please pay the bearer 2 io/- Henry T. Davies.'The cashier consulted his books and had to inform the ladies that Henry T. Davies had no account there. 'I don't know about that; said one of them, 'but he slept with me last night, and he gave me this paper because he hadn't any cash. Didn't he, Clara?' 'Yes; said Clara, 'that he did, and I went out this morning to buy the stamp for him.' The cashier commiserated with them, but they were not to be comforted.
~ Arnold Bennett
1933
I resent in a clipping, `Father of the dead child.' Dead child – a waxen child stretched out. No – the child who died.
I resent, 'They lost a child too' – as though that were the same. It is never the same. Death to you is not death, not obituary notices and quiet and mourning, sermons and elegies and prayers, coffins and graves and worldly platitudes. It is not the most common experience in life – the only certainty. It is not the oldest thing we know. It is not what happened to Caesar and Dante and Milton and Mary Queen of Scots, to the soldiers in all the wars, to the sick in the plagues, to public men yesterday. It never happened before – what happened today to you. It has only happened to your little boy ...
~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh
28 January
1661
To the Theatre, where I saw again 'The Lost Lady,' which do now please me better than before; and here I sitting behind in a dark place, a lady spit backward upon me by a mistake, not seeing me; but after seeing her to be a very pretty lady, I was not troubled at it at all.
~ Samuel Pepys
1780
We had for dinner a Calf's Head, boiled Fowl and Tongue, a Saddle of Mutton rosted on the Side Table, and a fine Swan rosted with Currant Jelly Sauce for the first Course. The Second Course a couple of Wild Fowl called Dun Fowls, Larks, Blamange,Tarts, etc., etc. and a good Desert of Fruit after amongst which was a Damson Cheese. I never eat a bit of Swan before, and I think it good eating with a sweet sauce. The swan was killed 3 weeks before it was eat and yet not the lest bad taste in it.
~ Rev. James Woodforde
1829
Burke the Murderer hangd this morning. The mob which was immense demanded Knox and Hare but though greedy for more victims received with shouts the solitary wretch who found his way to the gallows out of five or six who seem not less guilty than He. But the story begins to be stale insomuch that I believe a doggerel ballad upon it would be popular how brutal soever the wit.
~ Sir Walter Scott
1891
How surprised and shocked I am to hear that Ellie Emmet, whose heart, I had been led to suppose, was seared by sorrow, is contemplating marriage again, – Poor Temple's devotion, his tragic death, his fatherhood of her six children, all forgotten; not even his memory sacred, for she says she 'never loved before! What ephemerae we all are; to be sure, experience leaves no permanent furrow, but like writing on sand is washed out by every advancing ripple of changing circumstance. 'Twould seem to the inexperienced that one happy 'go' at marriage would have given the full measure of connubial bliss, and all the chords of maternity have vibrated under the manipulation of six progeny; but man lives not to assimilate knowledge of the eternal essence of things, and only craves a renewal of sensation.
~ Alice James
1920
I shall not remember what happened on this day. It is a blank. At the end of my life I may want it, may long to have it. There was a new moon: that I remember. But who came or what I did — all is lost. It's just a day missed, a day crossing the line.
~ Katherine Mansfield
1932 [France]
Alarming rumours are going about; country people are getting worried; tradesmen cannot get payment ...
'Is it true what they say, that we are going to have war again?'
Three times in the last four days this question has been asked of Em. [his wife], who hastens to reassure as best she can.
`No country is in a state to make war today,' she replies.
`But then why have matches gone up two sous?'
~Andre Gide
1975
Yesterday I had three letters from three friends, so different in every way that it was startling to find the same problem making for depression. One is a young married woman with two small children and a husband who is a company man. She feels shut out by his work, resents his cavalier way of bringing 'friends', meaning clients, home without warning, but especially their lack of communication because there is never time. He is also away a lot on business. The second is a friend whose husband retired recently; on his retirement they moved away from the town where they had always lived to be near the ocean. He is at a loose end and she feels caught, angry and depressed without being able to define why. The third is a woman professor, quite young, who lives happily with a woman colleague but speaks of her 'bone loneliness'
`Loneliness for me is associated with love relationships. We are lonely when there is not perfect communion. In solitude one can achieve a good relationship with oneself. It struck me forcibly that I could never speak of 'bone loneliness' now, though I have certainly experienced it when I was in love. And I feel sure that poignant phrase would have described my mother often.
~ May Sarton
1978
At Temple Meads Station in Bristol waiting for the late train back to London, I went to the buffet on the platform and bought a sandwich, a Fry's chocolate bar, some Wrigley's spearmint gum and an apple. I was about to pay when an old man in a raincoat pushed forward and thrust a pound note at the girl. I thought he was trying to get ahead of me and I was going to say, `Excuse me', but it turned out that he was paying for my food, which came to 54 pence. He turned to me and said, `I know you, I know who you are: left the money and disappeared. I did not know what to do, but thought it was very touching.
~ Tony Benn
1988 [New York]
Friends of Alan's [Parker] invite us to dinner at an Italian restaurant called La Primavera, which they are trying out for the first time. More like La Prima Donnas. Hair in here is a real 'do', faces taut, diamonds sharp, toupees fixed and ties sapphire-pinned. New money, old flesh. Child-sized pasta portions clock in at thirty dollars. Talk is all deals and dollars and dumping money here to dough it up there. The artistic endeavour of making movies is relegated to a corner of minor irritation and inconvenience. Yet it seems everyone wants to know the stars. Meanwhile Alan is getting major attention from everyone in the place — maitre d', waiters, other guests, and we cannot work out why. Until the owner 'compliments' him with 'You have lost so much weight Mr Kissinger.' We were taken aback long enough not to dispel the mistake and settled back for the five-star service, laughing all the way through complimentary dessert and liqueurs. Must be these new glasses.
~ Richard E. Grant
29 January
1660
Spent the afternoon in casting up my accounts, and do find myself to be worth £40 or more, which I did not think, but am afraid that I have forgot something.
~ Samuel Pepys
1837
Had a Lady to dinner here today. The Lady's maid is taken very sick today: I sopose she has been eating too much or something of the kind. But she is very subject to sickness. Last summer, when we were coming home from Canterbury, she actually spewed all the way, a distance of sixty miles and not less time than eight hours. The people stared as we passed through the towns and villages as she couldent stop even then. It amused me very much to see how the country people stood stareing with their mouthes half open and half shut to see her pumping over the side of the carriage and me sitting by, quite unconserned, gnawing a piece of cake or some sandwiches or something or other, as her sickness did not spoil my apatite. It was very bad for her but I couldent do her any good as it was the motion of the carriage that caused her illness. I gave her something to drink every time we changed horses but no sooner than it was down it came up again, and so the road from Canterbury to London was pretty well perfumed with Brandy, Rum, Shrub, wine and such stuff. She very soon recovered after she got home and was all the better for it after. It's eleven o'clock. My fire is out and I am off to bed.
~ William Tayler
1860
Saw Barriere who told us this striking anecdote. On the Place de Greve he had seen a condemned man whose hair had visibly stood on end when he had been turned to face the scaffold. Yet this was the man who, when Dr. Pariset had asked him what he wanted before he died, had answered: 'A leg of mutton and a woman.'
~ The Brothers Goncourt
1950
A lovely, remote time at Murphys'. They spoke of Elsa Maxwell and how she raised money for Russian Ambulance in World War i, absconded with money, then returned to social success after three years. How a friend, Lily Havemeyer, had a caller who brought Miss Maxwell to lunch. Elsa looked over the place – marvelous for party – said to Lily (first meeting) 'You go shopping for the day and leave me your servants, your house and carte blanche and at night you will find yourself with a party all Paris will talk about." No' was all Lily said.
~Dawn Powell
1969
At Lindy Dufferin's party for Duncan Grant I'd chatted to David Hockney and suggested what a marvellous subject Fred Ashton would make for him. At the time Fred was perching on the arms of a sofa with his fingers exquisitely arranged – the only word for it – around a cigarette. From afar en profile he looked like some exotic parakeet. David was clearly excited by the possibility. At the time he was drawing W H. Auden so I thought that I ought to go and look.
Number 17 Powis Terrace is one of those late-Victorian stucco terraces in Notting Hill Gate with a vast columned portico and every sign that gentility had long since fled. The houses were now tatty tenements and I climbed up what can only be described as a squalid staircase-well to be met by David. Original is the only word one could ever apply to him with his bleached blond hair and owl spectacles. But I couldn't help loving him and admiring his quick logic and unique perception. He's rather large and square, getting fat in fact, and somehow terribly conscious of it. The whole time I was there he kept on feeling beneath his shirt as though checking up on the expansion of the wodges. We sat down in his kitchen together with his slim blond American boy-friend Peter Schlesinger, and lunched off consomme, toast and pate washed down with red wine. After it we went into the studio.
I don't think that I'd ever before encountered anyone so overtly homosexual. Against one wall rested two blown-up photographs of Peter, one in bikini underpants, the other in jeans with his flies left undone. All over the floor were scattered magazines with male nudes. David picked one up and complained how it had been seized by the Customs and then returned. On its cover was stamped `Nudes – semi-erect'. He works from photographs but not when he draws people. He showed me some of Angus Wilson, one of which was very good although he didn't think so. He agreed to draw Fred Ashton for me, although I warned him about the Trustees [of the National Portrait Gallery]. The phone rang. It was a Spanish waiter who wanted to come round and strip for him to draw. The time had come to leave.
~ Roy Strong
30 January
1649
The Villanie of the Rebells proceeding now so far as to Trie, Condemne, and Murder our excellent King [Charles I], the 30 of this Moneth, struck me with such horror that I keep the day of his Martyrdom a fast, and would not be present, at that execrable wickednesse; receiving that sad [account] of it from my Bro: Geo: and also by Mr Owen, who came to Visit this afternoone, recounting to me all the Circumstances.
~ John Evelyn
1871
In a newspaper giving the news of the capitulation, I read the news of King William's enthronement as Emperor of Germany at Versailles, in the Hall of Mirrors, under the nose of the stone Louis XIV in the courtyard outside. That really marks the end of the greatness of France.
~ The Brothers Goncourt
1915
Preparations for my departure are well under way. I am breathlessly impatient to be off, but there is much to be done and the [Red Cross] Unit itself is not yet fully organised. My nurse's dresses, aprons and veils have been made already, and I have bought a flannel-lined, black leather jacket. An accessory to this jacket is a thick sheepskin waistcoat, for winter wear, whose Russian name, dushegreychka, means `soul-warmer'. I hear that our unit will be stationed for a time on the Russo-Austrian Front in the Carpathian Mountains and that we will have to ride horseback, as direct communication can be established there only by riding; so high boots and black leather breeches have been added to my wardrobe. At the moment of my departure, Anna Ivanovna, my Russian 'mother', bade me kneel before 'her. Taking from her pocket a little chain, she fastened it round my neck. Then she blessed me, kissed me three times, 'In the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit', and wished me 'God speed'. I, too, was a soldier, going to war, for thus did all Russian mothers to their soldier sons. The little chain, with a small icon and cross attached to it, has already been blessed by a priest.
~ Florence Farmborough
1921
J. accused me of always bagging his books as soon as he had begun to read them. I said: 'It's like fishing. I see you've got a bite. I want your line. I want to pull it in.'
~ Katherine Mansfield
1938
I have advised the Duce not to let Biseo [Italian airman] continue his flight to Argentina, where some kind of hostile demonstration against our airmen was being prepared. There is really no point in exposing equipment and men to the not inconsiderable wear and tear of a three thousand kilometres' flight, in order to give the rabble of a second-class country like Argentina a chance to insult us. The Duce agrees – they will not go. Of all the countries in which I have lived Argentina is certainly the one I loved least – indeed I felt a profound contempt for it. A people without a soul and a land without colour – both failed to exercise any kind of charm on me. For several decades, when all sorts of human wrecks were making their way to South America, the worst of all used to stop at the first place they came to. That was the beginning of Buenos Aires, a city as monotonous and turbid as the river on whose banks it lies. In recent years there has been added to this unpleasant mixture a very plentiful Jewish element. I don't believe that can have improved things.
~ Count Ciano
1943
The first refugee children have arrived. They were due yesterday evening at seven – after a twelve hours' journey from Genoa – but it was not until nine p.m. that at last the car drew up and seven very small sleepy bundles were lifted out. The eldest is six, the others four and five – all girls except one, a solemn little Sardinian called Dante Porcu. We carry them down into the play-room of the nursery-school (where the stove is burning, and supper waiting) and they stand blinking in the bright light, like small bewildered owls. White, pasty faces – several with boils and sores – and thin little sticks of arms and legs.
The Genoese district nurse who has brought them tells me that they have been chosen from families whose houses have been totally destroyed, and who, for the last two months, have been living in an underground tunnel beneath the city, without light or sufficient water, and in bitter cold. Their fathers are mostly dock-labourers; two of them have been killed.
The children eat their warm soup, still too bewildered fully to realize where they are – and then, as they gradually thaw and wake up, the first wail goes up – 'Mamma, Mamma, I want my Mamma!' We hastily produce the toys which we have prepared for just that moment; the little girls clutch their dolls, Dante winds up his motor, and for a few minutes tears are averted. Then we take them upstairs and tuck them up in their warm beds. Homesickness sets in again – and two of them, poor babies, cry themselves to sleep.
~ Iris Origo
1948
Gandhi has been assassinated. In my humble opinion, a bloody good thing but far too late.
~ Noel Coward
1969 [on the Monte Anaga, sailing to Las Palmas]
We were up to the sweet at lunch when the ship shuddered with an impact and the captain rushed from his table in the dining room and shot up to the bridge. A lot of passengers went running up to the deck, and practically emptied the room. I stayed for the coffee. Later it transpired that we'd hit a fishing boat amidships, cutting it in half & sinking it. We lowered a lifeboat and circled for survivors, and picked up four. There was one dead, and a further four missing. Another fishing boat hove to, and the crew shouted obscenities at our ship. Now, with the survivors on board, we have turned round and are making for Corunna, which is where the fishermen hail from. Obviously this will wreak havoc with our holiday plans. This fellow Bill on board organised a fund for the survivors of the disaster with the help of a priest and between 65 passengers we raised a measly 23 pounds which was quite shame-making. The radio officer said that you couldn't see the bows of the ship because we were sailing into the sun and it was blinding.
~ Kenneth Williams
1973
We were bidden to a dinner with Olive and Denis Hamilton given in honour of Harold Macmillan and turned out to be the only other guests and I'm still left wondering why they alighted upon us.... I suppose it was important and fascinating to meet the former Prime Minister, but I think that I would have to place him as one of the rudest men that I have ever met. He looks exactly like his own cartoons. Now about eighty, I would have thought, he's a bit geriatric with a runny nose, and his speech is a stream of consciousness interspersed with occasional lucid flashes. He was a pattern of memories, all of them political, and the Hamilton kept on feeding him with memory questions. I was swatted down regularly if I ever attempted to open my mouth, never allowed to contribute one thing to the conversation, and if I even began a sentence he interrupted it. For most of the evening Julia and I sat in bored amazement. The only remarks tossed my way took the form of periodic incoherent denunciations of the Gallery's purchase of the Hill-Adamson albums: 'What do you want them for? Got drawer-loads of old photographs at home.' He really wasn't human and there was not a single comment he made which wasn't about himself. He was a caricature arch-reactionary, enough to make me want to vote Communist.
~ Roy Strong
1975
The sixties are marvelous years, because one has become fully oneself by then, but the erosions of old age, erosion of strength, of memory, of physical well-being have not yet begun to frustrate and needle. I am too heavy, but I refuse to worry too much about it. I battle the ethos here in the USA, where concern about being overweight has become a fetish. I sometimes think we are as cruel to old brother ass, the body, as the Chinese used to be who forced women's feet into tiny shoes as a sign of breeding and beauty. `Middle-aged spread' is a very real phenomenon, and why pretend that it is not? I am not so interested in being a dazzling model as in being comfortable inside myself. And that I am.
~ May Sarton
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Blunderov
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Re:The Assassin's Cloak
« Reply #55 on: 2011-01-31 16:51:44 » |
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31 January
1932
There is a dead and drowned mouse in the lily-pond. I feel like that mouse static, obese and decaying. Vita [Sackville-West, his wife] is calm, comforting and considerate. And yet (for have I not been reading a batch of insulting press-cuttings?) life is a drab and dreary thing. I have missed it. I have made a fool of myself in every respect.
Surely there was a time I might have trod The sunlit heights, and from life's dissonance Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God?
Very glum. Discuss finance. Vita keeps on saying that we have got enough to go on with. Buts when one goes into it, that represents only two months. I must get a job. Yet all the jobs which pay humiliate. And the decent jobs do not pay. Come back to Long Barn. Arrange my books sadly. Weigh myself sadly. Have put on eight pounds. Feel ashamed of myself, my attainments, and my character. Am I a serious person at all? Vita thinks I should make £2,000 by writing a novel. I don't. The discrepancy between these two theories causes me some distress of mind.
~ Harold Nicolson
1938
As was to be expected, criticism of the parade step [the 'Ron-tan step', similar to the German goose-step] has started up. The old soldiers are particularly against it, because they choose to regard it as a Prussian invention. The Duce is very angry – he has read me the speech he is going to make to-morrow, explaining and extolling the innovation. It seems that the King too has expressed himself unfavourably. The Duce's comment was: 'It is not my fault if the King is half size. Naturally he won't be able to do the parade step without making himself ridiculous. He will hate it for the same reason that he has always hated horses – he has to use a ladder to climb on to one. But a physical defect in a sovereign is not a good reason for stunting, as he has done, the army of a great nation. People say the goose-step is Prussian. Nonsense. The goose is a Roman animal – it saved the Capital. Its place is with the eagle and the she-wolf.'
~ Count Ciano
1947
What makes daily life so agreeable in America is the good humour and friendliness of Americans. Of course, this quality has its reverse side. I'm irritated by those imperious invitations to 'take life easy', repeated in words and images throughout the day. On advertisements for Quaker Oats, Coca-Cola, and Lucky Strike, what displays of white teeth – the smile seems like lockjaw. The constipated girl smiles a loving smile at the lemon juice that relieves her intestines. In the subway, in the streets, on magazine pages, these smiles pursue me like obsessions. I read on a sign in a drugstore, 'Not to grin is a sin.
Everyone obeys the order, the system. 'Cheer up! Take it easy.' Optimism is necessary for the country's social peace and economic prosperity. If a banker has generously lent fifty dollars without guarantee to some Frenchman in financial straits, if the manager of my hotel takes a slight risk by cashing his customers' cheques, it's because this trust is required and implied by an economy based on credit and expenditure.
~ Simone de Beauvoir
1947 [New York]
I went to the drugstore and asked for Dial [sleeping pill]. I learned later that New York State has lately become alarmed at the suicides and has enforced a strict ban on the sale of barbiturates. The chemist said I must have a doctor's prescription.
`I am a foreigner here. I have no American prescription:
`We have a doctor on the 17th floor.'
`I have to go out. I can't go and see him.'
`I'll fix it for you.
He telephoned the doctor, `Dere's a guy here says he can't sleep. OK to give him Dial, doc?' Was given a box of twenty tablets `to the prescription of Dr Hart'. '$3 medical attention! That was the best piece of service I have yet met in the USA.
~ Evelyn Waugh
1987
Eddie Brown [barber] and Mrs Wilson, manicurist, were amused in the morning when I told them a true story about Enoch Powell. There is a very chatty barber in the Commons who never stops telling MPs whose hair he cuts about politics and what his views are on the world. Enoch Powell went to have his hair cut by him one day, sat down and the barber said, 'How would you like your hair cut, sir?' `In silence' he replied.
~ Woodrow Wyatt
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Blunderov
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Re:The Assassin's Cloak
« Reply #56 on: 2011-02-01 04:41:58 » |
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FEBRUARY
`I always say, keep a diary and someday it'll
keep you.'
MAE WEST
1 February
1857 [New York]
An epidemic of crime this winter. `Garotting' stories abound, some true, some no doubt fictitious, devised to explain the absence of one's watch and pocketbook after a secret visit to some disreputable place, or to put a good face on some tipsy street fracas. But a tradesman was attacked the other afternoon in broad daylight at his own shop door in the Third Avenue near Thirteenth Street by a couple of men, one of whom was caught, and will probably get his deserts in the State prison, for life – the doom of two of the fraternity already tried and sentenced. Most of my friends are investing in revolvers and carry them about at night, and if I expect to have to do a great deal of late street-walking off Broadway, I think I should make the like provision; though it's a very bad practice carrying concealed weapons. Moreover, there was an uncommonly shocking murder in Bond Street (No. 31) Friday night; one Burdell, a dentist, strangled and riddled with stabs in his own room by some person unknown who must have been concealed in the room. Motive unknown, evidently not plunder.
~ George Templeton Strong
1867
Tennyson is unhappy from his uncertainty regarding the condition and destiny of man. Is it dispiriting to find a great poet with no better grounds of comfort than a common person? At first it is. But how should the case be otherwise? The poet has only the same materials of sensation and thought as ordinary mortals; he uses them better; but to step outside the human limitations is not granted even to him. The secret is kept from one and all of us. We must turn eyes and thoughts to the finer and nobler aspects of things, and never let the scalpel of Science overbear pen, pencil and plectrum. A Poet's doubts and anxieties are more comforting than a scientist's certainties and equanimities.
~ William Allingham
1944 [Algiers]
We went to Hospital No.95. Incredible place, ex-boys' school, miles and miles of it, vaulted, monastic, cool in summer and cold right n0W. 2500 there. Far grimmer than 94. How lucky the boys were at Taplow – air, light, space,newness and even gaiety. In the first ward (we did all orthopaedics yesterday) there were two of the illest men I have ever seen, I think. Just skulls but with living wide, very clear eyes. It was a huge ward and difficult to know where to put the piano. We put it in the centre in the end which meant that I had to keep spinning round as I sang. I tried a monologue, but it was no good in there – too big, too decentralised. While I was walking around talking before we began I said to the illest of the two very ill ones that I hoped he'd excuse my back when I had to turn it on him and he said he would if I'd excuse him for not being shaved. Oh, gosh. [He died two days later.]
~ Joyce Grenfell
1952 [Egypt]
We were at the El Mansur race course by 7a.m. to watch the trials from Colonel 'Dickie' Bird's flat inside the grandstand. . . . 'The person we must find is Madame Paris,' Desmond said later as he shepherded us toward the betting hall: 'All the jockeys slept last night at her brothel and she knows which horses are being pulled or doped!' .. We soon spotted Madame Paris, a short, fat woman with hennaed hair and puffy white cheeks, her red mouth a gash. She was shovelling money through the hatch with scarlet claws covered in rings. Desmond waylaid her and she whispered something in his ear. He came back beaming. 'Don't bet the favourite on the first race!' he announced. `Madame P. says Mustapha is going to pull the horse!' Mustapha is one of the older jockeys, a great frequenter of Madame P's brothel and a drug addict. He is riding a horse belonging to Tariq, a senior government official's son, who doesn't want it to win – he is betting heavily on the second favourite.
There was a wild cry of 'Zerroffl' and the little horses disappeared in a cloud of dust, the Jockeys hanging on to the britches of the one in front -except of course for the ones who had been paid to lose, and they were pulling on the reins like mad. Inexplicably Mustapha seemed to be winning. . . .'Oh dear,' said Desmond, 'poor Mustapha will be in trouble! He wasn't pulling near hard enough, and Tariq will have lost a packet: '
Sure enough, just as we were about to go, there was a wild outcry from the bar, where Tariq was drowning his sorrows with drink. He had struck Mustapha and Mustapha had struck him back. As two soldiers dragged the jockey from the grandstand and manhandled him through the crowds, he shouted obscenities against the government, reserving his choicest language for Tariq, a well-known queer. 'OH FATHER OF PRICKS,' he yells, 'so many times has thine arse been breeched that ...'The rest is so awful I really can't write it! . . .'Not much like old Epson is it dear?" said Desmond as we drove back in his car. 'No' I said, 'But much more fun!'
~ Joan Wyndham
1971
Yesterday evening ... Eardley and I spend some time goggling at the television – partly at yet another American moon shot, partly at a film about Anne of Cleves. The moon shots disgust me in some curious way; there seem such wide disparities involved – between the boredom of listening to a flat American voice reciting figures and distances, mixed with 'OKs' and 'ERs', and the horrifying human tensions and anxieties lying behind them – and between the courage and danger of the astronauts and the cowardly Eardley's enjoyment of that courage and danger. Perhaps I malign him or exaggerate the nature of his emotion, but I take his feelings as typical of many people's. So what is left but dismay and semi-disbelief as I loll back gazing with a sort of distaste at the infinitely brilliant mastery of space by men's minds.
~ Frances Partridge
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Blunderov
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Re:The Assassin's Cloak
« Reply #57 on: 2011-02-02 14:35:26 » |
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2 February
1751
Having received a full answer from Mr P— [Vincent Perronet], I was clearly convinced that I ought to marry. For many years I remained single, because I believed I could be more useful in a single, than in a married state. And I praise God, who enabled me so to do. I now as fully believe, that in my present circumstances, I might be more useful in a married state; into which, upon this clear conviction, and by the advice of my friends, I entered a few
days after.
~ John Wesley
1821
I have been considering what can be the reason why I always wake, at a certain hour in the morning, and always in very bad spirits – I may say, in actual despair and despondency, in all respects – even of that which pleased me over night. In about an hour or two, this goes off, and I compose either to sleep again, or, at least, to quiet. In England, five years ago, I had the same kind of hypochondria, but accompanied with so violent a thirst that I have drank as many as fifteen bottles of soda-water, in one night, after going to bed, and been still thirsty – calculating, however, some lost from the bursting out and effervescence and overflowing of the soda-water, in drawing the corks, or striking off the necks of the bottles from mere thirsty impatience. At present, I have not the thirst; but the depression of spirits no less violent.
~ Lord Byron
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Re:The Assassin's Cloak
« Reply #58 on: 2011-02-03 17:11:57 » |
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3 February
1826
This is the first morning since my troubles that I felt at awaking
I had drunken deep
Of all the blessedness of sleep.*
I made not the slightest pause nor dreamd a single dream nor even changed my side. This is a blessing to be grateful for. There is to be -a meeting of the Creditors to-day but I care not for the issue. If they drag me into the Court obtorto collo ['by the throat'] instead of going into this scheme of arrangement they will do themselves a great injury and perhaps eventually do me good though it would give me much pain.
*Coleridge's 'Christabel', Pt. 2, 11. 375-6•
~ Sir Walter Scott
1973
Still reading Walter Scott's journal. He, the least valetudinarian of men, recorded the incipient signs of his old age: 'Terrible how they increase the last year'.
He clearly had little strokes, yet was not sure whether they were strokes or not. Found he could not marshal his words, and thought it was fear or nerves which caused this; that he must pull himself together and snap out of it. Reminders of mortality are indeed painful.
~ James Lees-Milne
1977 [Brussels]
Dinner at a very good fish restaurant enlivened, if that is the word, on the way out by sensing a slight feeling of embarrassment amongst the staff, which was indeed well founded, as we saw on the ground floor – we had been eating on the first floor – the upturned soles of a Japanese who seemed at least unconscious and possibly dead. When we got outside an ambulance drew up and a stretcher was rushed in. We asked Ron Argen, our inimitable driver, whether he knew what was happening. He said: `Oh, yes, certainly, oyster poisoning. Quite often happens, but the restaurant is insured against it, so there is no need to worry'
~ Roy Jenkins
1989
For two months after moving here I spent hours each day picking up fragments of countless smashed bottles, china plates, pieces of rusty metal. There was a bike, cooking pots, even an old bedstead. Rubbish had been scattered over the whole landscape. Each day I thought I had got to the end of the task only to find the shingle had thrown up another crop overnight.
Sunny days were the best for clearing up, as the glass and pottery glinted. I buried the lot on the site of an old bonfire at the bottom of the garden in a large mound, which I covered with the clumps of grass I dug out when I built the shingle garden.
I was describing the garden to Maggi Hambling at a gallery opening. And said I intended to write a book about it.
She said: 'Oh, you've finally discovered nature, Derek.'
`I don't think it's really quite like that,' said, thinking of Constable and Samuel Palmer's Kent.
`Ah, I understand completely. You've discovered modern nature!
~ Derek Jarman
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Blunderov
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Re:The Assassin's Cloak
« Reply #59 on: 2011-02-04 07:52:51 » |
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4 February
1777
Dined at Lord Monboddo's with a good deal of company; drank rather too much. Called in on my way home at Mr. John Syme's to consult the cause, Cuttar against Rae. He followed the old method, and read over my paper from beginning to end. I was intoxicated to a certain degree. Met in the street with a coarse strumpet, went to the Castle Hill, was lascivious with her, but had prudence enough to prevent me from embarking. Was vexed that I had begun bad practices in 1777. Home and finished a paper.
~ James Boswell
1939
Vita and I go round to the Beales [tenant farmers on Nicolson estate] where there is a Television Set lent by the local radio-merchant. We see a Mickey Mouse, a play and a Gaumont British film. I had always been told that the television could not be received above 25 miles from Alexandra Palace. But the reception was every bit as good as at Selfridge's. Compared with a film, it is a bleary, flickering, dim, unfocused, interruptible thing, the size of a quarto sheet of paper as this on which I am typing. But as an invention it is tremendous and may alter the whole basis of democracy.
~ Harold Nicolson
1947
During the night, New York was covered with snow. Central Park is transformed. The children have cast aside their roller skates and taken up skis; they rush boldly down the tiny hillocks. Men remain bareheaded, but many of the young people stick fur puffs over their ears fixed to a half-circle of plastic that sits on their hair like a ribbon — it's hideous.
~ Simone de Beauvoir
1953
What could be funnier than the Goncourts' exclamation when they learned that the earth would not last more than a few thousand centuries: 'And what will become of our books? 'Yet after all, it wasn't so stupid. Unless you write to eat, or to 'succeed' in the here and now, you wonder what impels you to exhaust yourself in the void and why you bother to seek distant friends, since you have them here at hand, the kind who read you like an open book without any need of paper and ink.
~ Jean Cocteau
1975
Thinking so much these days about what it is to be a woman, I wonder whether an ingrained sense of guilt is not a feminine characteristic. A man who has no children may feel personally deprived but he does not feel guilty, I suspect. A woman who has no children is always on the defensive.
~ May Sarton
1975
Late this afterhoon in the House someone said to me, 'Have you heard the news? Margaret Thatcher has swept to the top in the leadership poll.' I fear that I felt a sneaking feminist pleasure. Damn it, that lass deserves to win. Her cool and competent handling of the cheaper mortgages issue in the last election campaign gave us our only moment of acute anxiety. All right, it was a dishonest nonsense as a policy, but she dealt with it like a professional.
~ Barbara Castle
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