July 26, 2025 • 23 mins
Dive into the captivating final journal entries of British naturalist Bruce Frederick Cummings. This poignant narrative stretches from March 1918 to June 1919, a tumultuous period that saw the end of WWI. It’s a book that follows the successful publication of Cummings previous journal, The Journal of a Disappointed Man. In this more concise volume, Cummings offers his contemplative reflections on the end of the war, tinged with the realization that while the world celebrated peace, he was grappling with failing health. His body may have been succumbing to multiple sclerosis, but his emotional and intellectual clarity remained until the end. This journal is not only a vibrant historical document but also a profoundly moving and poetic piece of personal literature. - Summary by Adam Whybray
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Section six of a Last Diary by W. N. P. Barbellion.
This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
visit LibriVox dot org. February thirteenth, nineteen nineteen. I had
(00:25):
a letter from H. G. Wells this morning. He says,
you'll have seen my preface by this time. I haven't.
Prefaces always devastate relationships, but I hope you didn't think
it too horrible. I had to play up to your
standard of frankness. I knew he would be rude, but
(00:45):
I'm afar to see what he says. I'm going be
quite fond of this old nanny. She's always cheerful and
ready to do any mortal thing for me. Across the
frightful abyss that separate rates are two several existences. I
throw this thin line of attachment and appreciation. The difference
(01:08):
between a highly developed human, say like Meredith and his housemaid,
is greater than the difference between the highest ape and
the housemaid. February sixteenth, nineteen nineteen. The publishers this morning
send me a proof of mister Wells's introduction. It is
(01:30):
excellent and not rude at all. I devoured it with avidity.
Can't you see me? The book won't be ready till
about the end of March. The bankruptcy of imagination. Mister
Lloyd George at the Peace conference said that he was
persuaded to the League of Nation's idea when recently he
(01:53):
saw in France the innumerable graves of the fallen covering
acres perpend The statement is worth considering. Note that it
is at the end of the war he is speaking,
that it is the number of graves he is moved by,
and that what moves him to realize the horrors of
(02:16):
war is the graves of dead men. What was mister
Lloyd George's imagination doing before he went to France and
saw the graves? Would it help on the League? Think
you if someone took his child by the hand and
showed him all the acres of all the graves in Europe,
or all the mutilated and the hospitals when their wounds
(02:38):
are being dressed, or all the asylums when the madmen
are having their morning rave, or all the Saint Dustan's
in the world, all the dying and dead babies. The
war has beggared the imagination. If a woman loses five sons,
(03:00):
she is not smitten five times as much as if
she lost only one, or suffering his limits beyond which
the heart is insensible. We are no more appalled at
the death of ten million men f than at that
of ten thousand, or indeed, if it be under our
eyes ten or one, it is the fact that we
(03:27):
are forgetting the war already, those who weren't in it skating, dancing,
political squabbles, all the gobe pigs over in their panage.
If a woman has lost his son, compensations are manifold
e g. Some gigor from the King's hands at Buckingham Palace,
(03:52):
or the some thought or suffered. No one knows, because
he's dead. If he survived, he wants to remain dumb
or lacks capacity to express his thought about the hell
and damnation of war. If he had such capacity, his
hearers would lack the imaginative sympathy to be scalded by
(04:12):
his boiling ink. In this week's Times literary supplement is
a cringing review of a rotten book Notebooks of a
spinster lady obviously a knob, say an El's daughter, True
The reviewer deferentially refers to some of the stories as old,
(04:33):
but hastens to explain that all he means is old
to him. In the same issue as another snobbish review
on the Life of Meredith excellent according to other reviewers,
it is headed small talk about George Meredith, from which
one knows what to expect. The reviewer knew Meredith personally
(04:55):
and explains with delightful naivete the reason why Meredith would
not go to see his first wife on her deathbed,
though she asked him to come was his sensitive horror
of deathbed scenes. As for Meredith being ashamed of being
a tailor's son, the idea is scouted. Yet he was,
(05:15):
and I hate him for it. February fourteenth, nineteen nineteen.
Reading the introduction was like reading my own obituary notice.
Rather moved me all day yesterday. I buzzed over it
like a famished bee, streaks of it at intervals and
showed through my mind. I weighed sentences, measured them, tested them.
(05:41):
I was curious over a certain thread of unpremeditated and
exquisite beauty that runs through the story. This diary tells
Lord in Heaven, what is it? Mister Wells is sympathetic
and almost too generous Wtistically, he concentrates on me as
(06:01):
a biologist, whereas I like to look at myself posthumously
as a writer. He is a good fellow, and I
am most grateful and most pleased. It's milder today, and
the chaffinches are sweetly singing outside my window. Nurse said
to me after breakfast. Well what are you going to do?
(06:23):
I replied, apologetically, Oh, writing, I suppose this, everlasting writing.
She shrugged her shoulders, and I felt it was most
unsociable in me not to satisfy her curiosity. Legs February fifteenth,
(06:43):
nineteen nineteen B to nurse stepping on his toes, seemingly
either my feet or yours are very large? And oh,
but you see it's my legs are so short. I
can't step across easily. It'll be all right if you
go to Eastbourne. Nurse has long legs. B. But what's
(07:07):
the use of her long legs if she can't get
a house? And Aunt Hobart's legs were so bent up
that though she was six feet long, her coffin was
only four feet B. Why were Aunt Hobard's legs bent
up and rheumatism. She was buried at the same time
(07:28):
as her granddaughter b but her legs were not bent up.
And oh no, Bessie was only sixteen and died of
scarlet fever. The water Ousel's Song a memory. I leaned
over the parapet of an old stone bridge, covered with
(07:51):
great old branching woody tangles of ivy and leading from
an oak wood across a stream into a meadow. Beamed
over the parapet and gazed long at the rushing water below.
I will look, I said, as if I am never
going to see this picture again. And so I looked,
(08:11):
And now I am glad I looked like that, for
the memory of the picture, in every detail, comes back,
and indeed has never left me. Along each bank margin
grew a row of olders, and in the bed of
the river were scattered great slabs of rock jutting out
of the water and spotted white with the droppings of
(08:31):
water owsels and kingfishers that loved to pause on them.
A great body of swift, strong and silent water came
sweeping down to the falls, then dropping over in a
solid green bar into a caldron of roaring hissing liquid below,
churning the surface waters into a soapy foam of purest white,
the white of the summer cloud, and the water owsels
(08:55):
breasted outside the foam belt. The water of this salmon
pool ripples away gently in oily eddies and circles. After
the rough passage over the falls. Some of the water
rests a while in little recesses on the periphery of
the pool, but gradually it works round into the current, which,
(09:17):
like the wake of a steamer, cuts dimetrically across the
pool and swishes everything, leaves, twigs, dead, insects on too,
the hurtling shallows. Watch how the vault of water first
bends unbroken, in pure, polished velocity, over the arching rocks
(09:37):
at the brow of the cataract, covering them with a
dome of crystal twenty feet thick, so swift that its
motion is unseen except when a foam globe from above
darts over it like a fallen star. This is from
Rushkin's description of the falls of Schaufhausen. Note that it
(10:00):
is equally applicable to my little thoughts. If we banished
the phantom's size, it may be only sour grapes for
my part, But why go gallivanting with the nations? Round
leaved Robert Browning beggars, fleas and vines leave to mournful
(10:21):
rushkin popish apennines. Where's the mighty credit in admiring alps?
Any goose sees glory in their snowy scalps. A water
ousel alighted on the boulder and bowed to me. He
and his little white shirt front, continually bobbing, were like
(10:41):
a concert room artist acknowledging the plaudits of an enthusiastic audience.
I was pleased with him, but his excess of ecstasy
at sight of me made my own pleasure seem dull
and lethargic. Then he hopped a little higher on to
the stump of an older and, being twilight now and
the day's food hunt over, he poured out his quivering
(11:03):
soul in an ecstasy of song, like a solo violin
with orchestra accompaniment. It blended in harmony with the voluminous
sound of the water, now rising above it, now overwhelmed
by it. Then, as if suddenly shy and nervous of
his self revelation, the little bird gave one or two
(11:24):
short bobs and flew swiftly away up stream. Such spiritual
ecstasy made me feel very poor indeed and soul, and
I went home with a sense of humiliation. February twentieth,
nineteen nineteen. My blooded wife spent the night here, then
(11:45):
returned to Brighton. Do you feel my heart on my lips? Dear?
I love you? And her tears trickled on to my beard,
two poor grief stricken things. She shook with the anguish
at the moment withdrew and again flung herself on my breast.
(12:06):
I sat motionless in my chair. Ah, my god, how
I longed to be able to stand and pick up
press to me and hide away in the shelter of
strong arms. That's sweet, dear fluttering spirit. It is cruel,
(12:26):
cruel to her and cruel to me. I thought, my
heart must break. There comes a time when evil circumstances
squeeze you out of this world. There is no longerly room.
Oh why did she marry me? They ought not to
(12:47):
have let her do it. Fabruary twenty first, nineteen nineteen.
I sometimes fancy I am not weaned from life, and
now pictures in the paper make me agonize. Oh for
(13:09):
a little happiness for her and me together, just a
short respite. What agony it is to have a darling
woman fling herself into your arms, pressed you to her
dear bosom, and ask you desperately to try to get
well when you know it is hopeless. She knows it
(13:29):
is hopeless. Yet every now and then she pictures me
in a study in her flat, all her own, walking
on two sticks. And already the tendons of my right
leg are drawing in permanently. I am not weaned, because
(13:50):
my curiosity is not dead. When I think of dying,
I am tantalized to know all that will happen after.
I want to be at my funeral and see who's there,
and see if they are very sorry, Who sheds a
friendly tear? What sort of service? Et cetera. Oh I
(14:11):
wish I were dead and forgotten. February twenty second, nineteen nineteen.
Mister Wells, in his preface, refers to my watching bats
in a cave. They were deserted manganese mind borings, and
the evening flights of starlings, which were described in separate articles.
(14:35):
I sent him herewith is my adventure among the bats?
A first class field naturalist who had made some remarkable
studies in the habits of that elusive and little known animal,
the mole, said to me at the conclusion of his investigations. Yes,
I have lived two years with the mole, and have
(14:55):
arrived only on the fringe of the subject. He was
a melancholy fellow, and two absorbed in his studies, even
to shave his face of the morning. I arrived only
on the outside of the fringe in my study of
the habits of the greater horseshoe bat. But I got
a lot of enjoyment out of the risky adventure of
exploring the disused mines. The wooden struts were rotten, and
(15:19):
the walls and roofs of the galleries had fallen in
here and there, so he had sometimes to crawl on
hands and knees to get past. All the borings were
covered with a red slime, so we wore engineers overalls,
which by the time we had finished changed from blue
to red, speckled with grease dropping from our candles. Occasionally,
(15:43):
in turning a corner, a sudden draft would blow the
candles out, and in one rather lofty boring we were
stopped by deep water and boylike meditated the necessity of
removing clothes and swimming on with candles fastened on our forehead.
One boring opened the side of a hill by a small,
(16:04):
insignificant and almost invisible hole at the bottom of a
steep slide. We slid down with a rope, and once
inside the little hole at the bottom, found a big
passage with a narrow gorge line, and abandoned truck great excitement.
Another entrance to the mines was by way of a
shaft no bigger than an ordinary man hole in a
(16:26):
drain pipe, its mouth being overgrown with brambles. We fixed
a rope round the trunk of a tree and went
down hand over hand. We crawled along a narrow passage,
three of us, leaving no one at the top to
guard the rope, and at intervals a spied our game,
hanging to the roof by the hind legs. We boxed
(16:47):
three altogether, gently unfixing the hind legs and laying the
little creatures in a tin carefully lined with wool. The
horse to you bat is the strangest sight in the
world to come upon one in a dark cave hanging
upside down from the roof like an enormous chrysalis in shape.
For when roosting, this bat puts its two thin hind
(17:10):
legs and feet very close together, making a single delicate pedacal,
and wraps its body entirely in its wings, head and
ears included. When disturbed, it gently draws itself up a
little by bending its legs. When thoroughly awakened, it unfolds
its wings and becomes a picture of trembling animation. The
(17:34):
head is raised, it looks at you nervously with its little, beady,
dark glittering eyes, the large ears, all the while vibrating
as swiftly as a tuning fork. These with the grotesque
and mysterious leaflike growth around its nose, not to mention
the centerpiece that stands out like a door knocker, make
(17:55):
a remarkable vision by candle light in a dark cave.
February twenty third, nineteen nineteen. Despite of the unfathomable en
wei and creeping slowness of the hours in the living
through of each day, the days of the past month
or two, by reason of their dull sameness seen when
(18:17):
viewed in retrospect by the telegraph poles on a railway journey,
and always rolling through my head is the accompaniment of
some tune Shepard Fennels dance funeral marches. I want to
hear Burlio's's requiem. Poor Burlios, how I sympathize with you.
(18:41):
February twenty fifth, nineteen nineteen. I'm feeling rather queer these
last few days, and full of forebodings, dear ease, struggles
harrow me, and worst of all, I anticipated this as
from December nineteen fifth, and I showed my terrible gloom.
(19:03):
Then one person laughed gaily. Too much imagination, ability to
foresee in detail and pre construct is a curse for
I've lived through all this time before, yet the actual
loses none of its poignancy. February twenty sixth, nineteen nineteen.
(19:27):
The doctor came today and recommended petroleum. All right, here's
a decent sort and knows his business. I'm feeling muzzy,
horas non numeral nissi serenas. This should make us nineteen
nineteen a's smile February twenty seventh, nineteen nineteen, a little
(19:53):
easier in mind. Posted proofs of my journal to R.
I'm very much perturbed from me mayly tolerate me as
a poor, wretched mannikin. I fear it will not bring
me any increase of affection from anyone, And some a
(20:18):
load of sadness settled on me this afternoon. As I
lay resting down in bed for no reason, I can
discover the memory of the evening prayers my mother taught
me flashed over my mind, and because steep to memory
seemed very beautiful. Here they are, gentle Jesus, meek and mild,
look upon a little child. Hity, my simplicity. Suffer me
(20:42):
to come to thee then the Lord's prayer. Then keep
us faithful, keep us pure, keep us ever more of
Thine own help, Oh, help us to endure, fit us
for the promised crown. Then hopped into bed and was asleep.
In a moment. I went on mechanically saying these prayers
(21:06):
when I was grown to a big boy, and subconsciously
felt that the first verses were quite unsuitable. But I
never had, like some an instinct for prayer. I don't
suppose I ever prayed, only raced through some rhind requests
learnt by rote. I can remember very clearly the topography
(21:27):
these dresses to the Almighty assumed to my brain. Thus
arrow a dash dash dash dash dash oppose arrow swiggle
b dash dash dash c A. I began here in
a horizontal direction with gentle Jesus, the successive verses being
(21:52):
so many hurdles to leap over. Then I turned abruptly
to the left and ran up a tall, narrow, squiggly
piece like a pagoda. The had a noster B, finishing
off with the tael piece C. The single verse of
four lines. I never had till recently any religious sense
(22:14):
at all. I was a little skeptic before I knew it,
with no one to direct me, had a nose about
agnostic literature. And when I found Hackle and Hume, I
whooped with satisfaction. I thought, so, I said to myself, beautiful,
did I say, why, no Scottish doggerel? The Pathos of
(22:38):
an Innocent child, repeating it February twenty eighth, nineteen nineteen.
I first I thirst for a little music to replenish
by jaded spirit. It is difficult to keep one's soul
alive in such an atmosphere. The end of section six
(23:04):
of a last diary by W. N. P. Barbellion
Section six of a Last Diary by W. N. P. Barbellion.
This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
visit LibriVox dot org. February thirteenth, nineteen nineteen. I had
(00:25):
a letter from H. G. Wells this morning. He says,
you'll have seen my preface by this time. I haven't.
Prefaces always devastate relationships, but I hope you didn't think
it too horrible. I had to play up to your
standard of frankness. I knew he would be rude, but
(00:45):
I'm afar to see what he says. I'm going be
quite fond of this old nanny. She's always cheerful and
ready to do any mortal thing for me. Across the
frightful abyss that separate rates are two several existences. I
throw this thin line of attachment and appreciation. The difference
(01:08):
between a highly developed human, say like Meredith and his housemaid,
is greater than the difference between the highest ape and
the housemaid. February sixteenth, nineteen nineteen. The publishers this morning
send me a proof of mister Wells's introduction. It is
(01:30):
excellent and not rude at all. I devoured it with avidity.
Can't you see me? The book won't be ready till
about the end of March. The bankruptcy of imagination. Mister
Lloyd George at the Peace conference said that he was
persuaded to the League of Nation's idea when recently he
(01:53):
saw in France the innumerable graves of the fallen covering
acres perpend The statement is worth considering. Note that it
is at the end of the war he is speaking,
that it is the number of graves he is moved by,
and that what moves him to realize the horrors of
(02:16):
war is the graves of dead men. What was mister
Lloyd George's imagination doing before he went to France and
saw the graves? Would it help on the League? Think
you if someone took his child by the hand and
showed him all the acres of all the graves in Europe,
or all the mutilated and the hospitals when their wounds
(02:38):
are being dressed, or all the asylums when the madmen
are having their morning rave, or all the Saint Dustan's
in the world, all the dying and dead babies. The
war has beggared the imagination. If a woman loses five sons,
(03:00):
she is not smitten five times as much as if
she lost only one, or suffering his limits beyond which
the heart is insensible. We are no more appalled at
the death of ten million men f than at that
of ten thousand, or indeed, if it be under our
eyes ten or one, it is the fact that we
(03:27):
are forgetting the war already, those who weren't in it skating, dancing,
political squabbles, all the gobe pigs over in their panage.
If a woman has lost his son, compensations are manifold
e g. Some gigor from the King's hands at Buckingham Palace,
(03:52):
or the some thought or suffered. No one knows, because
he's dead. If he survived, he wants to remain dumb
or lacks capacity to express his thought about the hell
and damnation of war. If he had such capacity, his
hearers would lack the imaginative sympathy to be scalded by
(04:12):
his boiling ink. In this week's Times literary supplement is
a cringing review of a rotten book Notebooks of a
spinster lady obviously a knob, say an El's daughter, True
The reviewer deferentially refers to some of the stories as old,
(04:33):
but hastens to explain that all he means is old
to him. In the same issue as another snobbish review
on the Life of Meredith excellent according to other reviewers,
it is headed small talk about George Meredith, from which
one knows what to expect. The reviewer knew Meredith personally
(04:55):
and explains with delightful naivete the reason why Meredith would
not go to see his first wife on her deathbed,
though she asked him to come was his sensitive horror
of deathbed scenes. As for Meredith being ashamed of being
a tailor's son, the idea is scouted. Yet he was,
(05:15):
and I hate him for it. February fourteenth, nineteen nineteen.
Reading the introduction was like reading my own obituary notice.
Rather moved me all day yesterday. I buzzed over it
like a famished bee, streaks of it at intervals and
showed through my mind. I weighed sentences, measured them, tested them.
(05:41):
I was curious over a certain thread of unpremeditated and
exquisite beauty that runs through the story. This diary tells
Lord in Heaven, what is it? Mister Wells is sympathetic
and almost too generous Wtistically, he concentrates on me as
(06:01):
a biologist, whereas I like to look at myself posthumously
as a writer. He is a good fellow, and I
am most grateful and most pleased. It's milder today, and
the chaffinches are sweetly singing outside my window. Nurse said
to me after breakfast. Well what are you going to do?
(06:23):
I replied, apologetically, Oh, writing, I suppose this, everlasting writing.
She shrugged her shoulders, and I felt it was most
unsociable in me not to satisfy her curiosity. Legs February fifteenth,
(06:43):
nineteen nineteen B to nurse stepping on his toes, seemingly
either my feet or yours are very large? And oh,
but you see it's my legs are so short. I
can't step across easily. It'll be all right if you
go to Eastbourne. Nurse has long legs. B. But what's
(07:07):
the use of her long legs if she can't get
a house? And Aunt Hobart's legs were so bent up
that though she was six feet long, her coffin was
only four feet B. Why were Aunt Hobard's legs bent
up and rheumatism. She was buried at the same time
(07:28):
as her granddaughter b but her legs were not bent up.
And oh no, Bessie was only sixteen and died of
scarlet fever. The water Ousel's Song a memory. I leaned
over the parapet of an old stone bridge, covered with
(07:51):
great old branching woody tangles of ivy and leading from
an oak wood across a stream into a meadow. Beamed
over the parapet and gazed long at the rushing water below.
I will look, I said, as if I am never
going to see this picture again. And so I looked,
(08:11):
And now I am glad I looked like that, for
the memory of the picture, in every detail, comes back,
and indeed has never left me. Along each bank margin
grew a row of olders, and in the bed of
the river were scattered great slabs of rock jutting out
of the water and spotted white with the droppings of
(08:31):
water owsels and kingfishers that loved to pause on them.
A great body of swift, strong and silent water came
sweeping down to the falls, then dropping over in a
solid green bar into a caldron of roaring hissing liquid below,
churning the surface waters into a soapy foam of purest white,
the white of the summer cloud, and the water owsels
(08:55):
breasted outside the foam belt. The water of this salmon
pool ripples away gently in oily eddies and circles. After
the rough passage over the falls. Some of the water
rests a while in little recesses on the periphery of
the pool, but gradually it works round into the current, which,
(09:17):
like the wake of a steamer, cuts dimetrically across the
pool and swishes everything, leaves, twigs, dead, insects on too,
the hurtling shallows. Watch how the vault of water first
bends unbroken, in pure, polished velocity, over the arching rocks
(09:37):
at the brow of the cataract, covering them with a
dome of crystal twenty feet thick, so swift that its
motion is unseen except when a foam globe from above
darts over it like a fallen star. This is from
Rushkin's description of the falls of Schaufhausen. Note that it
(10:00):
is equally applicable to my little thoughts. If we banished
the phantom's size, it may be only sour grapes for
my part, But why go gallivanting with the nations? Round
leaved Robert Browning beggars, fleas and vines leave to mournful
(10:21):
rushkin popish apennines. Where's the mighty credit in admiring alps?
Any goose sees glory in their snowy scalps. A water
ousel alighted on the boulder and bowed to me. He
and his little white shirt front, continually bobbing, were like
(10:41):
a concert room artist acknowledging the plaudits of an enthusiastic audience.
I was pleased with him, but his excess of ecstasy
at sight of me made my own pleasure seem dull
and lethargic. Then he hopped a little higher on to
the stump of an older and, being twilight now and
the day's food hunt over, he poured out his quivering
(11:03):
soul in an ecstasy of song, like a solo violin
with orchestra accompaniment. It blended in harmony with the voluminous
sound of the water, now rising above it, now overwhelmed
by it. Then, as if suddenly shy and nervous of
his self revelation, the little bird gave one or two
(11:24):
short bobs and flew swiftly away up stream. Such spiritual
ecstasy made me feel very poor indeed and soul, and
I went home with a sense of humiliation. February twentieth,
nineteen nineteen. My blooded wife spent the night here, then
(11:45):
returned to Brighton. Do you feel my heart on my lips? Dear?
I love you? And her tears trickled on to my beard,
two poor grief stricken things. She shook with the anguish
at the moment withdrew and again flung herself on my breast.
(12:06):
I sat motionless in my chair. Ah, my god, how
I longed to be able to stand and pick up
press to me and hide away in the shelter of
strong arms. That's sweet, dear fluttering spirit. It is cruel,
(12:26):
cruel to her and cruel to me. I thought, my
heart must break. There comes a time when evil circumstances
squeeze you out of this world. There is no longerly room.
Oh why did she marry me? They ought not to
(12:47):
have let her do it. Fabruary twenty first, nineteen nineteen.
I sometimes fancy I am not weaned from life, and
now pictures in the paper make me agonize. Oh for
(13:09):
a little happiness for her and me together, just a
short respite. What agony it is to have a darling
woman fling herself into your arms, pressed you to her
dear bosom, and ask you desperately to try to get
well when you know it is hopeless. She knows it
(13:29):
is hopeless. Yet every now and then she pictures me
in a study in her flat, all her own, walking
on two sticks. And already the tendons of my right
leg are drawing in permanently. I am not weaned, because
(13:50):
my curiosity is not dead. When I think of dying,
I am tantalized to know all that will happen after.
I want to be at my funeral and see who's there,
and see if they are very sorry, Who sheds a
friendly tear? What sort of service? Et cetera. Oh I
(14:11):
wish I were dead and forgotten. February twenty second, nineteen nineteen.
Mister Wells, in his preface, refers to my watching bats
in a cave. They were deserted manganese mind borings, and
the evening flights of starlings, which were described in separate articles.
(14:35):
I sent him herewith is my adventure among the bats?
A first class field naturalist who had made some remarkable
studies in the habits of that elusive and little known animal,
the mole, said to me at the conclusion of his investigations. Yes,
I have lived two years with the mole, and have
(14:55):
arrived only on the fringe of the subject. He was
a melancholy fellow, and two absorbed in his studies, even
to shave his face of the morning. I arrived only
on the outside of the fringe in my study of
the habits of the greater horseshoe bat. But I got
a lot of enjoyment out of the risky adventure of
exploring the disused mines. The wooden struts were rotten, and
(15:19):
the walls and roofs of the galleries had fallen in
here and there, so he had sometimes to crawl on
hands and knees to get past. All the borings were
covered with a red slime, so we wore engineers overalls,
which by the time we had finished changed from blue
to red, speckled with grease dropping from our candles. Occasionally,
(15:43):
in turning a corner, a sudden draft would blow the
candles out, and in one rather lofty boring we were
stopped by deep water and boylike meditated the necessity of
removing clothes and swimming on with candles fastened on our forehead.
One boring opened the side of a hill by a small,
(16:04):
insignificant and almost invisible hole at the bottom of a
steep slide. We slid down with a rope, and once
inside the little hole at the bottom, found a big
passage with a narrow gorge line, and abandoned truck great excitement.
Another entrance to the mines was by way of a
shaft no bigger than an ordinary man hole in a
(16:26):
drain pipe, its mouth being overgrown with brambles. We fixed
a rope round the trunk of a tree and went
down hand over hand. We crawled along a narrow passage,
three of us, leaving no one at the top to
guard the rope, and at intervals a spied our game,
hanging to the roof by the hind legs. We boxed
(16:47):
three altogether, gently unfixing the hind legs and laying the
little creatures in a tin carefully lined with wool. The
horse to you bat is the strangest sight in the
world to come upon one in a dark cave hanging
upside down from the roof like an enormous chrysalis in shape.
For when roosting, this bat puts its two thin hind
(17:10):
legs and feet very close together, making a single delicate pedacal,
and wraps its body entirely in its wings, head and
ears included. When disturbed, it gently draws itself up a
little by bending its legs. When thoroughly awakened, it unfolds
its wings and becomes a picture of trembling animation. The
(17:34):
head is raised, it looks at you nervously with its little, beady,
dark glittering eyes, the large ears, all the while vibrating
as swiftly as a tuning fork. These with the grotesque
and mysterious leaflike growth around its nose, not to mention
the centerpiece that stands out like a door knocker, make
(17:55):
a remarkable vision by candle light in a dark cave.
February twenty third, nineteen nineteen. Despite of the unfathomable en
wei and creeping slowness of the hours in the living
through of each day, the days of the past month
or two, by reason of their dull sameness seen when
(18:17):
viewed in retrospect by the telegraph poles on a railway journey,
and always rolling through my head is the accompaniment of
some tune Shepard Fennels dance funeral marches. I want to
hear Burlio's's requiem. Poor Burlios, how I sympathize with you.
(18:41):
February twenty fifth, nineteen nineteen. I'm feeling rather queer these
last few days, and full of forebodings, dear ease, struggles
harrow me, and worst of all, I anticipated this as
from December nineteen fifth, and I showed my terrible gloom.
(19:03):
Then one person laughed gaily. Too much imagination, ability to
foresee in detail and pre construct is a curse for
I've lived through all this time before, yet the actual
loses none of its poignancy. February twenty sixth, nineteen nineteen.
(19:27):
The doctor came today and recommended petroleum. All right, here's
a decent sort and knows his business. I'm feeling muzzy,
horas non numeral nissi serenas. This should make us nineteen
nineteen a's smile February twenty seventh, nineteen nineteen, a little
(19:53):
easier in mind. Posted proofs of my journal to R.
I'm very much perturbed from me mayly tolerate me as
a poor, wretched mannikin. I fear it will not bring
me any increase of affection from anyone, And some a
(20:18):
load of sadness settled on me this afternoon. As I
lay resting down in bed for no reason, I can
discover the memory of the evening prayers my mother taught
me flashed over my mind, and because steep to memory
seemed very beautiful. Here they are, gentle Jesus, meek and mild,
look upon a little child. Hity, my simplicity. Suffer me
(20:42):
to come to thee then the Lord's prayer. Then keep
us faithful, keep us pure, keep us ever more of
Thine own help, Oh, help us to endure, fit us
for the promised crown. Then hopped into bed and was asleep.
In a moment. I went on mechanically saying these prayers
(21:06):
when I was grown to a big boy, and subconsciously
felt that the first verses were quite unsuitable. But I
never had, like some an instinct for prayer. I don't
suppose I ever prayed, only raced through some rhind requests
learnt by rote. I can remember very clearly the topography
(21:27):
these dresses to the Almighty assumed to my brain. Thus
arrow a dash dash dash dash dash oppose arrow swiggle
b dash dash dash c A. I began here in
a horizontal direction with gentle Jesus, the successive verses being
(21:52):
so many hurdles to leap over. Then I turned abruptly
to the left and ran up a tall, narrow, squiggly
piece like a pagoda. The had a noster B, finishing
off with the tael piece C. The single verse of
four lines. I never had till recently any religious sense
(22:14):
at all. I was a little skeptic before I knew it,
with no one to direct me, had a nose about
agnostic literature. And when I found Hackle and Hume, I
whooped with satisfaction. I thought, so, I said to myself, beautiful,
did I say, why, no Scottish doggerel? The Pathos of
(22:38):
an Innocent child, repeating it February twenty eighth, nineteen nineteen.
I first I thirst for a little music to replenish
by jaded spirit. It is difficult to keep one's soul
alive in such an atmosphere. The end of section six
(23:04):
of a last diary by W. N. P. Barbellion
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