tailieunhanh - A Last Diary

THE opening entry in A Last Diary was made on March 21, 1918; the closing sentence was written on June 3, 1919. In The Journal of a Disappointed Man the record ended on October 21, 1917, with the one word "Self-disgust." An important difference between the first diary and that now published lies in the fact that the first embodies a carefully selected series of extracts from twenty post- quarto volumes of manuscript in which Barbellion had recorded his thoughts and his observations from the age of thirteen without any clearly defined intention, except towards the end of his life, of discovering them to any. | 1 A Last Diary By W. N. P. Barbellion With A Preface by Arthur J. Cummings We are in the power of no calamity while Death is in our own. --Religio Medici. LONDON CHATTO WINDUS 1921 First published November 25 1920 Second impression December 14 1920 All rights reserved The Life and Character of Barbellion 2 THE opening entry in A Last Diary was made on March 21 1918 the closing sentence was written on June 3 1919. In The Journal of a Disappointed Man the record ended on October 21 1917 with the one word Self-disgust. An important difference between the first diary and that now published lies in the fact that the first embodies a carefully selected series of extracts from twenty post- quarto volumes of manuscript in which Barbellion had recorded his thoughts and his observations from the age of thirteen without any clearly defined intention except towards the end of his life of discovering them to any but one or two of his intimate friends. He often hinted to me that some parts of his diary would make good reading if they could be printed in essay form and I think he then had in mind chiefly those passages which applied the inspiration of Enjoying Life the volume of essays that revealed him more distinctively in the character of a naturalist and a man of letters. Still the diary was primarily written for himself. It was his means of self-expression the secret chamber of his soul into which no other person however deep in his love and confidence might penetrate. More than once I asked him to let me look at those parts which he thought suitable for publication but shyly he turned aside the suggestion with the remark Some day perhaps but not now. All I ever saw was a part of the first essay in Enjoying Life and an account of his wanderings in a spirit of burning exultation over the great stretch of sandy burrows at the estuary of that beautiful Devonshire river the Taw where in long days of solitude he first taught himself with the zeal and patience of the born .