The pleasures of this life

’If this had been begun ten years ago, and faithfully kept!!! - heigho! there are too many things I wish never to have remembered, as it is.’ This is George Gordon Byron, who died, aged only 36, two centuries ago today, writing about his decision to start keeping a diary. Popularly known as Lord Byron, he was the most flamboyant and colourful of romantic figures, and is considered one of Britain’s greatest poets. Unfortunately, he only kept up the diary habit for a few months, and though he wrote a journal at three more periods in his life, each one lasted but a short while.

Byron was born in London in 1788, physically disabled by a clubfoot, but was taken to live in Scotland when young by his mother, Catherine Gordon. At the age of 10, he inherited the title, house and grounds of Newstead Abbey from his great-uncle, who had been granted them by Henry VIII. Thereafter, he was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he formed a close friendship with John Cam Hobhouse. In January 1809, he took his seat in the House of Lords, but then embarked on a tour of Europe, often accompanied by Hobhouse, which included a sojourn in Greece.

Byron returned to England in 1811, and to Newstead where his ailing mother had just died. In 1812, his book Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage made him a society celebrity and brought him into contact with Lady Caroline Lamb, who became one of his many mistresses (and who wrote of him, he was ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’). It is widely accepted, also, that Byron had an affair with his married half-sister Augusta Leigh, and that he fathered her daughter Elizabeth. Though Byron married Anne Isabella Milbanke in early 1815, partly to try and shake off scandal, his relationship with Leigh continued. (Milbanke’s daughter, Augusta Ada, and Byron’s only legitimate child, became a mathematician but died young, at the same age as her father, 36).

Much encumbered by debts and with his wife accusing him of incest, Byron left England in 1816 never to return. He journeyed to Switzerland first, and then Italy where he lived for six years - in Venice, Ravenna, Pisa, Genoa - selling Newstead Abbey to pay off his debts. He continued writing his long satiric poem, Don Juan, which was first published in 1819. Famously, he was friends in Italy with Percy Bysshe Shelley (and his sister, Mary), and together they started a newspaper The Liberal. Shelley drowned in 1922, and the following year, Byron, bored with his life, bought a boat and sailed to Greece to help with the nationalist fight against the Ottoman empire. He spent thousands of pounds of his own money for the cause, and began to lead a rebel army, only to fall sick and die of a fever, on 19 April 1824.

There is no shortage of information about Byron available on the internet, at Wikipedia, for example, the English History website, The Literature Network, and the BBC. Thomas Moore’s early biography (Byron had named the Irish poet as his literary executor in 1822), Letters and Journals of Lord Byron, published in 1830, is also widely available, at Internet Archive, or more accessibly at Virginia Tech’s Lord Byron website. Confusingly, at Internet Archive, one can also find 17 volumes of Moore’s The Works of Lord Byron: with his letters and journals, and his life, all published in the 1930s too.

For years, Byron had been writing an autobiographical memoir, but on his death, this was deemed too scandalous for publication, and his publisher, John Murray along with several of Byron’s friends burned the manuscript. However, four of Byron’s journal/diary jottings were edited by Moore and published in his voluminous works (and can be found through the links above). Though fragmentary, the diaries sparkle with Byron’s literary skill. The diaries of others, of course, also contain much about Byron, not least those written by Hobhouse, Mary Shelley and Thomas Moore (see also Doomed to sing).

There are four separate, but rather short, periods for which Byron’s journals survive (Peter Cochran’s website provides accessible pdfs for each diary): between November 1813 and April 1814 (the London Journal); in September 1816 (the Alpine Journal); in January and February 1821 (the Ravenna Journal); and between June and December 1823 (the Cephalonia Journal). Here are a few extracts, all taken from Moore’s Letters and Journals.

14 November 1813
’If this had been begun ten years ago, and faithfully kept!!! - heigho! there are too many things I wish never to have remembered, as it is. Well, - I have had my share of what are called the pleasures of this life, and have seen more of the European and Asiatic world than I have made a good use of. They say ‘virtue is its own reward,’ - it certainly should be paid well for its trouble. At five-and-twenty, when the better part of life is over, one should be something; - and what am I? nothing but five-and-twenty - and the odd months. What have I seen? the same man all over the world, - ay, and woman too. Give me a Mussulman who never asks questions, and a she of the same race who saves one the trouble of putting them. But for this same plague - yellow-fever - and Newstead delay, I should have been by this time a second time close to the Euxine. If I can overcome the last, I don’t so much mind your pestilence; and, at any rate, the spring shall see me there, - provided I neither marry myself nor unmarry any one else in the interval. I wish one was - I don’t know what I wish. It is odd I never set myself seriously to wishing without attaining it - and repenting. I begin to believe with the good old Magi, that one should only pray for the nation, and not for the individual; - but, on my principle, this would not be very patriotic.

No more reflections. - Let me see - last night I finished ‘Zuleika,’ my second Turkish Tale. I believe the composition of it kept me alive - for it was written to drive my thoughts from the recollection of -

“Dear, sacred name, rest ever unreveal’d.”

At least, even here, my hand would tremble to write it. This afternoon I have burned the scenes of my commenced comedy. I have some idea of expectorating a romance, or rather a tale, in prose; - but what romance could equal the events - [. . .]

To-day Henry Byron called on me with my little cousin Eliza. She will grow up a beauty and a plague; but, in the mean time, it is the prettiest child! dark eyes and eyelashes, black and long as the wing of a raven. I think she is prettier even than my niece, Georgina, - yet I don’t like to think so neither; and, though older, she is not so clever. [. . .]

I have declined presenting the Debtor’s Petition, being sick of parliamentary mummeries. I have spoken thrice ; but I doubt my ever becoming an orator. My first was liked; the second and third - I don’t know whether they succeeded or not. I have never yet set to it con amore; one must have some excuse to oneself for laziness, or inability, or both, and this is mine. ‘Company, villanous company, hath been the spoil of me;’ - and then, I have ‘drunk medicines,’ not to make me love others, but certainly enough to hate myself.

Two nights ago, I saw the tigers sup at Exeter ‘Change, Except Veli Pacha’s lion in the Morea, - who followed the Arab keeper like a dog, - the fondness of the hyaena for her keeper amused me most. Such a conversazione! There was a ‘hippopotamus,’ like Lord ____ in the face; and the ‘Ursine Sloth’ hath the very voice and manner of my valet - but the tiger talked too much. The elephant took and gave me my money again - took off my hat - opened a door - trunked a whip - and behaved so well, that I wish he was my butler. The handsomest animal on earth is one of the panthers; but the poor antelopes were dead. I should hate to see one here: - the sight of the camel made me pine again for Asia Minor. “Oh quando te aspiciam?” ’

19 April 1814
There is ice at both poles, north and south - all extremes are the same - misery belongs to the highest and the lowest only, - to the emperor and the beggar, when unsixpenced and unthroned. There is, to be sure, a damned insipid medium - an equinoctial line - no one knows where, except upon maps and measurement.

“And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death.”

I will keep no further journal of that same hesternal torch-light; and, to prevent me from returning, like a dog, to the vomit of memory, I tear out the remaining leaves of this volume, and write, in ipecacuanha, - “that the Bourbons are restored!!!” “Hang up philosophy.” To be sure, I have long despised myself and man, but I never spat in the face of my species before - “O fool! I shall go mad.” ’

17 September 1816
‘Rose at five; left Diodati about seven, in one of the country carriages (a char-a-banc), our servants on horseback. Weather very fine; the lake calm and clear; Mont Blanc and the Aiguille of Argentines both very distinct; the borders of the lake beautiful. Reached Lausanne before sunset; stopped and slept at __. Went to bed at nine; slept till five o’clock.’

18 September 1816
‘Called by my courier; got up. Hobhouse walked on before. A mile from Lausanne, the road overflowed by the lake; got on horseback, and rode till within a mile of Vevay. The colt young, but went very well. Overtook Hobhouse, and resumed the carriage, which is an open one. Stopped at Vevay two hours (the second time I had visited it); walked to the church; view from the churchyard superb; within it General Ludlow (the regicide’s) monument - black marble - long inscription - Latin, but simple; he was an exile two-and-thirty years - one of king Charles’s judges. Near him Broughton (who read King Charles’s sentence to Charles Stuart) is buried, with a queer and rather canting, but still a republican, inscription. Ludlow’s house shown; it retains still its inscription - ‘Omne solum forti patria.’ Walked down to the lake side; servants, carriage, saddle -horses - all set off and left us plantes la, by some mistake, and we walked on after them towards Clarens; Hobhouse ran on before, and overtook them at last. Arrived the second time (first time was by water) at Clarens. Went to Chillon through scenery worthy of I know not whom; went over the Castle of Chillon again. On our return met an English party in a carriage; a lady in it fast asleep - fast asleep in the most anti-narcotic spot in the world - excellent! I remember at Chamouni, in the very eves of Mom Blanc, hearing another woman, English also, exclaim to her party, ‘Did you ever see anything more rural?’ - as if it was Highgate, or Hampstead, or Brompton, or Hayes - ‘Rural!’ quotha? - Rocks, pines, torrents, glaciers, clouds, and summits of eternal snow far above them - and ‘rural!’

After a slight and short dinner we visited the Chateau de Clarens; an English woman has rented it recently (it was not let when I saw it first); the roses are gone with their summer; the family out, but the servants desired us to walk over the interior of the mansion. Saw on the table of the saloon Blair’s Sermons, and somebody else (I forget who’s) sermons, and a set of noisy children. Saw all worth seeing, and then descended to the ‘Bosquet de Julie,’ &c. &c.; our guide full of Rousseau, whom he is eternally confounding with St. Preux, and mixing the man and the book. Went again as far as Chillon to revisit the little torrent from the hill behind it. Sunset reflected in the lake. Have to get up at five to-morrow to cross the mountains on horseback; carriage to be sent round; lodged at my old cottage - hospitable and comfortable; tired with a longish ride on the colt, and the subsequent jolting of the char-a-banc, and my scramble in the hot sun.

Mem. The corporal who showed the wonders of Chillon was as drunk as Blucher; he was deaf also, and thinking every one else so, roared out the legends of the caste so fearfully. However, we saw things from the gallows to the dungeons (the potence and the cachots), and returned to Clarens with more freedom than belonged to the fifteenth century.’

19 September 1816
‘Rose at five. Crossed the mountains to Montbovon on horseback, and on mules, and, by dint of scrambling, on foot also; the whole route beautiful as a dream, and now to me almost as indistinct. I am so tired; for though healthy, I have not the strength I possessed but a few years ago. At Montbovon we breakfasted; afterward, on a steep ascent, dismounted; tumbled down; cut a finger open; the baggage got loose and fell down a ravine, till stopped by a large tree; recovered baggage; horse tired and drooping; mounted mule. At the approach of the summit of Dent Jument dismounted again with Hobhouse and all the party. Arrived at a lake in the very bosom of the mountains; left our quadrupeds with a shepherd, and ascended farther; came to some snow in patches, upon which my forehead’s perspiration fell like rain, making the same dints as in a sieve; the chill of the wind and the snow turned me giddy, but I scrambled on and upwards. Hobhouse went to the highest pinnacle; I did not, but paused within a few yards (at an opening of the cliff). In coming down, the guide tumbled three times; I fell a laughing, and tumbled too - the descent luckily soft, though steep and slippery: Hobhouse also fell, but nobody hurt. The whole of the mountains superb. A shepherd on a very steep and high cliff playing upon his pipe; very different from Arcadia, where I saw the pastors with a long musket instead of a crook, and pistols in their girdles. Our Swiss shepherd’s pipe was sweet, and his tune agreeable. I saw a cow strayed; am told that they often break their necks on and over the crags. Descended to Montbovon; pretty scraggy village, with a wild river and a wooden bridge. Hobhouse went to fish - caught one. Our carriage not come; our horses, mules, &c. knocked up; ourselves fatigued.

The view from the highest points of to-day’s journey comprised on one side the greatest part of Lake Leman; on the other, the valleys and mountain of the canton of Fribourg, and an immense plain, with the lakes of Neufchatel and Morat, and all which the borders of the Lake of Geneva inherit; we had both sides of the Jura before us in one point of view, with Alps in plenty. In passing a ravine, the guide recommended strenuously a quickening of pace, as the stones fall with great rapidity and occasional damage; the advice is excellent, but, like most good advice, impracticable, the road being so rough that neither mules, nor mankind, nor horses, can make any violent progress. Passed without fractures or menace thereof.

The music of the cow’s bells (for their wealth, like the patriarch’s, is cattle) in the pastures, which reach to a height far above any mountains in Britain, and the shepherds shouting to us from crag to crag, and playing on their reeds where the steeps appeared almost inaccessible, with the surrounding scenery, realized all that I have ever heard or imagined of a pastoral existence: much more so than Greece or Asia Minor; for there we are a little too much of the sabre and musket order, and if there is a crook in one hand, you are sure to see a gun in the other: but this was pure and unmixed - solitary, savage, and patriarchal. As we went, they played the ‘Rans des Vaches’ and other airs, by way of farewell. I have lately repeopled my mind with nature.’

4 January 1821
‘ “A sudden thought strikes me.” Let me begin a Journal once more. The last I kept was in Switzerland, in record of a tour made in the Bernese Alps, which I made to send to my sister in 1816, and I suppose that she has it still, for she wrote to me that she was pleased with It. Another, and longer, I kept in 1813-1814, which I gave to Thomas Moore in the same year.’

The Diary Junction

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 19 April 2014.

Breeches have vanished!

‘Tide low, big lumbering vessels crowding up the little dock, a juvenile Celt waiting there, perchance in the desperate hope that some one intent on bathing might also appear, and keep him company. Getting on a bit of a floating raft we undressed placing clothes on the edge of a large clumsy vessel beside. Our swim over & pleasant enow, out we got, Celtic boy dressed & left; we mounting from raft to the bank side leisurely prepare to do the same. But ere long I discover that my pants are not! Breeches have vanished! Then ensued much searching & speculation, groping in the black recesses of the vessel below & finally I get into the water again & grope by the ships side, thinking that the breeks have fallen in.’ This is from the diaries of comic illustrator, Thomas Butler Gunn, who died 120 years ago today. Although English born, he spent a good deal of his adult life in New York, where he joined a set of characters loosely associated with Pfaff’s, a drinking establishment known for its literary and artistic clientele.

Gunn was born in 1826 in Banbury but moved with his family to the St. Pancras area of London in the 1830s and then to New Kent Road. He was articled to an architectural practise in Soho Square and he began contributing illustrations to various publications, not least Punch. Backed by his father, in 1949, he sailed to New York with two cousins, and began looking for work as an illustrator. While building up a network of potential customers, he also took poorly-paid work as an architect’s draughtsman. Moreover, he began to work as an editor and to write himself, publishing, in 1857, the comic Physiology of New York Boarding-Houses.

In 1854, Gunn returned to England to see his family and to propose to his childhood friend Hannah Bennett, though they did not marry at the time. He returned to New York in 1855. As the country moved towards civil war, in 1860 Gunn was sent to Charleston, South Carolina, as an artist-reporter by John Bigelow, editor of the New York Evening Post. And then, in 1962, he was engaged as correspondent by Charles Anderson Dana of the New-York Tribune. He joined General Heintzelman’s military camp, and reported on the Yorktown and Williamsburg battles. Further assignments followed, but in 1963, on receiving news from Hannah about his father’s ill-health, he returned to England.

Gunn’s father died in November that same year, and in December, finally, Hannah and Gunn married. They set up home on the outskirts of Banbury, and had one child who was still born. Gunn continued to write for newspapers often on historical themes, his articles sometimes being published in America; and he wrote verse. He died on 7 April 1904. A little further information is available from Wikipedia, Lehigh University, or the Missouri History Society.

Throughout his years in the US, Gunn kept diaries, indeed it is thanks to these diaries that his name is remembered today. Some 22 volumes are held by the Missouri History Society, and every page of every the volume is available as an image with a transcription: see Lehigh University, Digital Public Library of America, and Wikimedia Commons.

According to The Vault at Pfaff’s (An Archive of Art and Literature by the Bohemians of Antebellum New York): ‘The diaries . . . contain a wealth of information about the New York literary scene in general and the Pfaff’s bohemians in particular.’ Mentioned in the diaries, among others, are Frank Bellew, Sol Eytinge Jr., Fanny Fern, Thomas Nast, James Parton, Fitz James O'Brien, Alfred Waud and Walt Whitman. Here are several extracts.

2 September 1852
‘Thursday. Over to New York with Barth, quitting him at Barnums. To Office & to work. Barth came again at 1 or so. Dined together at Goslings, parting at Castle Garden, he across the bright water and I back to Lantern Office. [John] Brougham returned from Washington. Got no money from them. Returned to Office & [Alfred] Waud coming up, agreed to accompany him to Brooklyn for a bathe in the East River. Fagan called & left. To Brooklyn with Waud, - a dark moonless night. Calling on Davis, he at supped & disinclined to leave, we sought the place. Tide low, big lumbering vessels crowding up the little dock, a juvenile Celt waiting there, perchance in the desperate hope that some one intent on bathing might also appear, and keep him company. Getting on a bit of a floating raft we undressed placing clothes on the edge of a large clumsy vessel beside. Our swim over & pleasant enow, out we got, Celtic boy dressed & left; we mounting from raft to the bank side leisurely prepare to do the same. But ere long I discover that my pants are not! Breeches have vanished! Then ensued much searching & speculation, groping in the black recesses of the vessel below & finally I get into the water again & grope by the ships side, thinking that the breeks have fallen in. All in vain, - much objuration bestowed upon the Celtic boy, self-felecitation that my coat (& its contents,) had not gone also. At length, half an hour having passed thus, [Alfred] Waud is about to start to his room for a pair of his own, when we are horribly startled by a howl from immediately below us, in the dark abysm of the ship. It was Davis! - he had climbed aboard at the stern sailor-like & had possessed himself of my breeks, awaiting the discovery and all that ensued afterwards. [Alfred] Waud crossed to New York with me, we had an oyster stew in Broadway, then each on our several ways to bed.’

15 May 1859
‘Sunday. Reading and [phonography] all the sunny cool morning. [Jesse] Haney came after dinner, about to start for Philadelphia and presently Rawson Gill. Out, & with Haney to the Jersey City terminus, seeing him into the cars. To 16th Street, via 6th Avenue, supped at Mrs [Catharine] Potters with old acquaintances. Out with [William] Leslie, quitted him and to [E.H.] Chapin’s. Walking uptownwards, when nearly opposite Edwards’ was accosted by [Moses] Morse (who Married Mrs [Rebecca] Kidder) and whom I recollected. Strolled to Union Square with him.

He [Moses Morse] told how he had quitted Poughkeepsie and in conjunction with a Mr Wright started a Drawing and Painting Academy in this city, which was prospering. Said he had two children and spake of Master Will Kidder. I asked him of Lotty [Kidder], he told of her living at Westfarms and spake of [Arthur] Alleyne or Granville (his real name they say) as her husband, though he professed not to know whether any divorce had separated her from little [John] Whytal of whom he knew nothing. She had been rather more of a help to Granville than he to her, or late, said Morse, and was “getting on very well,” taught music and singing to a lady and “had a sewing-machine.” The ex-Mrs [Rebecca] Kidder was on a visit to some friends, down east. Exchanging addresses, we parted. A not-satisfactory man this Morse. [Charles] Damoreau used to pronounce him a lazy man, a sort of demi-intellectual sybarite. He (Morse) must have understood Mrs K. pretty thoroughly, wherefore how came he to marry her? Probably she suited him or he might have been unwilling to risk or endure the disagreables of a break-off. Many men, of a sort, drop into matrimony that way, nor care so much about the purity of their wives before marriage.

To Edwards! The Dane, [Carl] Knudsen there. Carrying away Reade’s “Love one little &c” belonging to [James] Parton, I find stray marginal notes, quite unconsciously autobiographical in their self-revelations, by the indomitable Fanny [Fern]. As also phonographic ones by Mort Thomson to the effect of “Gracy [Eldredge] I love you,” “Dear Gracy etc.” penciled wherever the text becomes passionately amorous. Now as [Jesse] Haney as well as I can read [phonography], Mort’s audience is perchance larger than he might desire. It’s understood that Mrs [Sophy] Thomson is very proud of the coming match. [Frank] Cahill, unless specially needed for some purpose, when he is gushingly received, gets the cold shoulder at Fan’s. Mort is on duty pretty well every night. Grace is understood, in stable phrase, to “feel her oats” a good deal - entertains the conviction that she could get married any day she likes. Likely enough. There may be a break-off in the match, yet, though I think it unlikely.’

11 July 1860
‘Wednesday. Writing till 6, queer and sickish in the morning. Phillips (of the Illustrated News) came up at 1, lunched with me and stayed half an hour. At 6 to 16th street, supped with [Jesse] Haney. In his room with him and Larrison subsequently. Out with Haney to Palace Garden; music, singing, dancing, promenading, cigars and lager. Met Eldredge and his wife and Perkins. Leaving, strolled down Broadway and into 745. Sally [Edwards] and Eliza [Edwards] there, the former practising [sic] on the piano, Matty [Edwards] being with Jack [Edwards], on an evening’s visit to Captain Worth and family, whom it appeared on the girl [Matty Edwards] and her brother [Jack Edwards]’s entrance, they had followed to the Rees’ residence in Brooklyn. Jack brought news of a fire at Washington Market, so after staying an hour at the house (we went in at 10) [Jesse] Haney and I set off to witness the conflagration. Dropping in at [132] Bleecker Street to change coat, and pausing at [N.G.] Shepherd’s door to invite his company I saw the evil face of [Fitz James] O’Brien in his room. (He appeared at our breakfast-table next morning.) To the fire. Three acres space of sheds and shanties burning, the top of the market proper covered with human beings, the flames lighting up the figures and faces, the streets, river and shipping with a wondrously picturesque effect. Making our way through the crowd and puddles and over the hose-pipes of the firemen, which lay strewn around like the entrails of megatherii or other extinct monsters, we went aboard the Barclay St ferry-boat and so to Hoboken, getting a fine view of the conflagration, both in crossing and returning. It was a cool, clear night, a tranquil crescent moon in the sky, her luster paling before that of the temporary smoke of the most exquisite colors, here and there diversified by a great wave of ruddy flame marked the scene of the night. The masts of the shipping in front stood out black and ragged, looking curiously irregular out of perpendicular. Disembarking, again on the New York side, we mounted the piles of the ferry-wharf and surveyed the burning area. Not many projecting objects were standing, it appeared a bed of bright fire, a row of men sharp and blackly-defined on a pier before us and more farther on, seemingly in the midst of the conflagration. When we got out into the street again, the steam fire-engines were at work, puffing like a Mississippi steam boat. We made two attempts to get into close quarters with the fire, threading the intricacies of butcher’s shops, amid the suspended carcases [sic] of sheep, by potato sacks, where rough men conversed or boys lay sleeping, through crowds of firemen and lookers-on, but could not penetrate very far, being checked, good-humouredly enough, by the police. Ahead of us was a blur and smother of conflagration, in front, an engine with a row of men, seemingly up in the air, working heavily, the machine rocking to their labour with a ricketty thud, disorderly monotonous to the ear. Homewards by an overcrowded 3rd Avenue Car. The last southward view we had of the fire, presented an ominous, angry, dusky red aspect, volumes of sullen firy smoke, such as might crown the citadel of Dante’s Dis, obscuring all the horizon. Got home about 2. Rawson Gill has gone to Central America again. His brother [Adolphus Gouverneur] is at Niagara with their mother [Elizabeth Gouverneur Griffin].’

I am praying for your death

’The newspapers are attacking me more furiously than ever, for my speech on the 14th, and I have a swarm of abusive letters. One good lady says: “I am praying for your death; I have been very successful in two other cases.” The whole nation seems to be mad with rage and hatred. Nevertheless, on reading my speech again, I think it was rather unwise and provocative.’ This is from a diary kept by William Ralph Inge - who died 70 years ago today - during his time as Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral. He was a prolific author (being nominated three times for a Nobel Prize), and a very popular - if sometimes controversial - speaker.

Inge was born in 1860 in Crayke, Yorkshire, where his father, Rev. William Inge was then curate. He was educated at Eton College and King’s College, Cambridge, where his academic brilliance was evident early on. He worked as an assistant master at Eton from 1884 to 1888, and also a Fellow of King’s College. He was ordained deacon in 1888, and priest in 1892. In 1905, he married Mary Spooner and they had five children.

Inge was a prolific author of articles, lectures, sermons and books. His writing spanned a wide array of subjects, including theology, philosophy, history, and social criticism, earning him the nickname ‘The Gloomy Dean’ due to his pessimistic views on modern civilisation and technology’s impact on society. He is probably best known for his works on Plotinus and neoplatonic philosophy, and on Christian mysticism. He was also a columnist for the Evening Standard for many years, finishing in 1946. 

In 1907, Inge moved to Jesus College, Cambridge, on being appointed Lady Margaret’s Professor of Divinity. However, in 1911, Prime Minister Herbert Asquith appointed him Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral in London, a position he retained until his retirement in 1934. There he became a celebrated preacher - being often outspoken and provocative - who drew large congregations to the cathedral. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature three times; and he was awarded the Order of Merit in 1934, recognising his contributions to literature and philosophy. He died on 26 February 1954. Further information is available from Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Encyclopedia.com.

Inge kept a diary during his time as Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, which Macmillan published in 1950 as Diary of a Dean St Paul’s 1911-1934. This can be digitally borrowed from Internet Archive. Here is Inge’s own explanation for the book’s raison d’être.

‘When I resigned my office in 1934, Messrs. Longman published for me a small book of reminiscences called Vale, which I meant to be my ‘farewell’ to my public. The book was destroyed by enemy action, and several friends have expressed a wish that I would leave some recollection of my life at St. Paul’s. There have been threats that otherwise someone else might seek to draw my frailties from their dead abode, though I begged my family not to allow anything like a memoir to be compiled after my death, apart from the biographical notice which the British Academy prints of its deceased members. I had no suspicion, in 1934, that 1 should still be cumbering the ground fifteen years after my retirement, or I should have known that the cacoethes scribendi, the penman’s itch, is not to be resisted as long as publishers and readers are kind.

It was a strange experiment for a Prime Minister to uproot a shy scholar from his study table, and plunge him into the turmoil of London life. For I have no social gifts. I have inherited from my mother’s family, the Churtons, the faculty of being silent in several languages. I have been further handicapped by slowly increasing deafness, and by a ridiculous inability to remember faces. I have failed to recognise at least three duchesses, and a score of less exalted people. By rights I should have ended my days in college rooms, the world forgetting, by the world forgot. But I am glad to have escaped this fate. It was owing to my dear wife, who was greatly beloved in London, and had a singular power of winning the affection of all who knew her, that we were received into a circle of distinguished and wholly delightful friends, through whom we met many of the leading men and women in the national life.’

Here are several extracts from Inge’s diary.

18 April 1911
‘By the second post arrived a letter of great importance. Asquith tells me that he has the King’s consent to offer me the Deanery of St. Paul’s, vacant by the resignation of Dr. Gregory. I showed the letter to Kitty, and at first we could hardly believe it. I wrote to the Prime Minister to say that I felt rather overwhelmed by so unexpected an honour, and that I should like to consult the Archbishop of Canterbury before making up my mind. I did so, but I had really decided to accept. If the Prime Minister singles out a man who has never stirred a finger for preferment, who has no friends in high places and is not a political supporter, he must think that the choice is right. I ought not to refuse to go where I am sent. Kitty’s parents are in favour of my acceptance. My father-in-law said, “If you have no better reason for refusing than that you would rather live at Cambridge, it is your duty to accept.” ’

3 May 1911
‘I went to London and attended a party at Lambeth. The Archbishop and Mrs. Davidson were most kind. It was not altogether a pleasant beginning of my new work. I was incommoded financially by having to pay one-third of my stipend as pension. My nonagenarian predecessor had taken all the Dean’s appointments for the year in the first four months, so that I had no patronage of preachers till the end of the year. Worse still, he had refused to resign unless he was allowed to occupy the Deanery house till his death. This was a most improper arrangement, which not only put me to the greatest inconvenience, but made it very difficult for me to do my work properly. I went to a hotel; my wife and family remained at Cambridge.

In other ways the prospect seemed equally discouraging. Canon Pearce, afterwards Bishop of Worcester, said, “You have not even a casting vote. No one who is not an Anglo-Catholic has a chance of being appointed to a Chapter living.” I talked to the Archdeacon of London (Sinclair) about one or two things that I hoped to do. He said, “As long as Alexander and Newbolt are both here you are not going to be allowed to do anything.” These two men remained at St. Paul’s till near the end of my time there: one of them indeed much longer.

It is not generally known that Cathedral statutes differ widely. The older statutes give the Dean no independent power; those of the Reformation period give him a great deal. My friend Henson as Dean of Durham was under the statutes of Mary Tudor. He developed quite an affection for Bloody Mary, who would have made short work of him. I explained to Mr. Baldwin that at St. Paul’s the Chapter and not the Dean is what is called the Ordinary. “My dear Dean,” he replied, “nobody could suspect you of being the Ordinary.” I should not advise any man who loves power to accept the Deanery of St. Paul’s. The Dean is like a mouse watched by four cats.’

27 May 1911
‘I dined with the Prime Minister - a very mixed party, from royalties to journalists. Near me were Sir George Lewis the famous solicitor, and Sir John Hare the actor.’

10 June 1911
‘To Windsor, to preach before the King and Queen. I was met by a royal carriage drawn by two white horses, and by an enormous omnibus to carry my handbag. Two magnificent gentlemen escorted me to my apartments. The sitting-room contained portraits of Gladstone, Disraeli, Melbourne and other statesmen. In the evening a ‘page’, a splendid elderly personage, came to fetch me to the Red Drawing Room, where I was introduced to Lord Knollys, Lady Mary Trefusis, Lady Ampthill, and two pretty maids of honour. Then Their Majesties were announced. I took in Lady Ampthill, with the Queen on my left. The Queen, I heard afterwards, said, “What shall I talk about to this learned man?” and she said very little. I ought to have made conversation, though I had been told that it is not etiquette. The King afterwards talked to me mainly about his French tutor Hua, whom I remember as an Eton master. I do not know what they thought of my sermon next day, but they were very gracious to me.’ 

13 February 1912
‘I took the Chair at a meeting of the Sociological Society, where Dr. Saleeby read a paper on Eugenics. All through my time as Dean I took an active interest in Eugenics. I was a friend of Sir Francis Galton until his death. Vital statistics were an old hobby of mine, and I studied the population question in all its branches. After many years on the Council of the Eugenics Society I thought they were becoming too environmental, interested, in Galton’s phrase, in nurture rather than nature; and when they appointed Sir William Beveridge to give the Galton Lecture, I resigned my membership. To subsidise the teeming birth-rate of the slums is not the way to improve the quality of the population.’

19 April 1912
‘A great service for the victims of the Titanic. We were told that thousands were unable to get in.’

12 April 1917
‘I dined with the ‘Pilgrims’, invited by Sir Rider Haggard. I met Sir Charles Parsons, General Smuts, Lord d’Abernon, H. G. Wells, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Page, the American Ambassador, made a fine speech.’ 

7 July 1917
‘We were warned of an approaching raid. During the Second Lesson people began to leave the church, and soon there was a series of tremendous explosions close at hand. The boys sang the anthem most pluckily. The Central Telegraph Office, 150 yards from the cathedral, was wrecked. I went round to the Choir House to thank the boys for their courage.’

30 November 1917
‘I lunched with Lady Vera Herbert, whose house is full of packing-cases for our prisoners in Germany.’

14 December 1917
‘A Meeting of the ‘League for promoting International Friendship through the Churches’. I took the opportunity to tell them some unpopular truths. “We cherish three impossible hopes: (1) that we can destroy German militarism. We cannot; they will only live for revenge. (2) A restoration of the balance of power. This means a mad competition in armaments and the suicide of Europe. (3) That we can force Germany to adopt our democratic system. They do not want government by mass-bribery, and will prefer a military dictatorship.” I do not want to be unduly discouraging. There is a real horror of war among the peoples; but in spite of the proverb it takes only one to make a quarrel.’

17 December 1917
‘The newspapers are attacking me more furiously than ever, for my speech on the 14th, and I have a swarm of abusive letters. One good lady says: “I am praying for your death; I have been very successful in two other cases.” The whole nation seems to be mad with rage and hatred. Nevertheless, on reading my speech again, I think it was rather unwise and provocative.’

31 December 1917
‘So ends another year of protracted nightmare. Whatever is the end of the war, Europe is ruined for my lifetime and longer. Nearly one-fifth of the upper and middle class of military age - the public school and university men, from whom the officers arc chosen, are dead, and there is no rift in the clouds anywhere. Our people, slow and reluctant to enter the war, are now mad with rage and hatred, and will sacrifice anything rather than make terms with the enemy. It is indeed a terrible time.’

A wonderful day of Life

’A wonderful day of Life
Very sunny & fine.
Left Fenton with Willie & E. soon after 10.
at 11 - Glorious King Olaf a magnificent triumph.’
These are a few lines from the diary of the famous English composer Edward Elgar, who died 90 years ago today. Five volumes of his diaries have been published so far, with two more volumes to come. But if the first volume is anything to go by, the majority of diary entries are very short and prosaic, little more than a record of events and meetings.

Elgar was born in 1857, in the small village of Lower Broadheath, outside Worcester, England. His father owned a music shop and was a church organist. Elgar himself had little formal education in music and was largely self-taught, studying classical literature and compositions on his own and learning to play several instruments. Early work experiences included being a teacher, local bandmaster, and a church organist. He composed music for local events and societies, gradually building a reputation. In 1889, he married  Caroline Alice Roberts, a successful novelist. They spent much of their lives in and around Malvern, and Caroline acted as Elgar’s business manager and social secretary. They had one daughter, Carice.

Elgar’s breakthrough came in 1899 with a set of orchestral pieces - Enigma Variations - a composition that established him as a leading figure in British music. The following year, he composed another major work, the oratorio The Dream of Gerontius, which many consider his masterpiece. In 1904, Elgar was knighted, and from 1905 to 1908 he was the University of Birmingham’s first professor of music. His Pomp and Circumstances works were written between 1901 and 1907. 

During World War I, Elgar wrote occasional patriotic pieces. After the death of his wife in 1920, he virtually stopped composing, returning to Worcestershire in 1929. A friendship with George Bernard Shaw is said to have stimulated him to further composition, and at his death - on 23 February 1934 - he left an unfinished a third symphony, a piano concerto, and an opera. Further information is available from Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, or the Edward Elgar website.

Elgar may have been a great composer, but he was not a great diarist. Nevertheless, all his extant diaries - which had been used by generations of biographers but never previously been published - are being published in seven volumes as part of the ‘Collected Correspondence’. Five of the diaries have been transcribed and edited by Martin Bird and published by Elgar Works. Although Bird died in 2019, Paul Chennell has been appointed to conclude the final two volumes.

As Bird explains in his introduction to the first volume - Provincial Musician: Diaries 1857-1896 - the diaries were not kept by Elgar alone.

‘The Elgar family diaries, as we know them today, comprise a series of diaries and notebooks by Edward and Alice Elgar and their daughter Carice, covering a period of fifty years, from 1889 to 1939. This period encompasses the marriage of Edward and Alice through to the death of Carice’s husband. Samuel Blake, just before the outbreak of the Second World War. [. . .]

It seems likely that for much of the time there were multiple diaries in use: a family diary in which was written a retrospective record of the Elgars’ activities; Edward’s appointments diary; Edward’s diary containing his own retrospective record of activities; and a ‘tear off’ diary pad on which daily household appointments could be recorded. Carice, too, kept a diary, though none before 1921 is known to survive.

The first known diary to survive intact, of 1889, is Edward’s. In it he makes brief notes of his daily activities. The 1890 diary is also Edward’s, though here Alice provides the occasional entry. By 1891 the diaries have become very much a joint affair, with the balance of entries shifting gradually from Edward to Alice. From March 1895 entries are almost entirely by Alice, with the occasional comment by Edward. She kept up her recording of Elgarian activities until shortly before her death in 1920. From 1895 to 1920 just two of Edward’s diaries are known to survive, those for 1918 and 1920, and a few for the years after Alice’s death.

There is also a series of Elgar’s notebooks from some of the major holidays he took - to Paris in 1880, to Scotland in 1884. to Bavaria, Alassio, the Mediterranean cruise of 1905 and the West Country tour of 1910.’

The first volume’s contents offer a multitude of very short prosaic diary entries, sometimes combined with an explanatory narrative. Here’s a few examples.

17 August 1880
‘Left Victoria with C.E.P. (travelling 2nd Class) for Newhaven went on board the “Bordeaux”, about 10.30. Rough passage, not very ill, arrd. Dieppe abt. 6.30. Washed, had coffee &c. started for Paris 7.39, arrived there at 1.45, two hours late.’

18 August 1880
‘Wednesday, at Hotel Buckingham, Rue Pasquier, 32. Near the Madeleine, recommended here by Beare. Washed &c. Lunched at 3. Walked down to Notre Dame past the Louvre. Table d’hote at 6, too tired to eat. Strolled up the Boulevards until 10. Then bed. Very fine & hot.’

19 August 1880
‘Thursday. Slept well & comfortable rose at 9.30. started out at 11, saw S. Augustin Madeleine, S. Roch. portion of the Louvre, paintings & sculpture &c, refreshed. Palais Royal, all the shops &c. Charlie went home to write, went alone into Jardin de Tuilleries Place de la Concorde. Cabinet 15c. hair! Home to table d’hote at 6. rain & thunder &c: went into café opposite for billiards with some English, laughed consumedly at two Frenchmen playing. Afterwards, being fine, walked up the Champs Elysees to Arc de Triomphe, back again to Café chantant (programme) rather leggy. Home at 11’

1 January 1890
‘New-year’s day. Very fine & cold.
Miss E. Lander & Mr J. C. Ledlie to luncheon. Music after.’

2 January 1890
‘To the Misses Raikes. 15 Kensington Gardens Terr till Saturday Arrived in time for luncheon.
(E. to Beares)’

3 January 1890
‘at Ken: Gard: Terrace
E. called at Tuckwoods about Voluntaries & song ‘Man’
In afternoon to Farm St then Benediction Music at Ken. Gard: Terr present Genrl. R. Raikes Mr R. & Mrs R. Raikes Mrs & Miss Lambcn & Mr. &c’

4 January 1890
A & E to Tudor exhbn. called Schott’s
After luncheon, called Miss Raikes Talbot Sq & Miss Marshall Home to Oaklands 6.10’

5 January 1890
‘Very dull & wet.
At home all day.’

30 October 1896
‘A wonderful day of Life
Very sunny & fine.
Left Fenton with Willie & E. soon after 10.
at 11 - Glorious King Olaf a magnificent triumph.
D.G.
Back to Fenton about 4.
The Pennys to tea.’

I would like to be a man

Amy Lowell, a colourful and influential personality in American poetry during the first quarter of the 20th century, was born 150 years ago today. Apart from writing her own poetry, she also promoted contemporary and historical poets; and she authored the introduction to an anthology of very early Japanese diaries translated into English. She did not, it seems, keep a diary herself apart from during a few years when still a teenager. These youthful diaries have been used by biographers to show a marked youthful preference for friendship with, and love of, other girls.

Lowell was born on 9 February 1874 into a wealthy and prominent Brookline (Massachusetts) family. She was educated at home and at private schools, travelling widely with her family, but she never attended college. She had two brothers who went on to achieve some fame, one as an astronomer, and one as president of Harvard College. Amy is said to have compensated for a lack of university education by reading avidly, and through collecting books. In her late 20s, she turned to poetry, not publishing, though, until 1910 when a poem of hers appeared in Atlantic Monthly. Two years later she issued her first book of poems, A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass, which was followed by Sword Blades and Poppy Seeds.

From 1912 or so, Lowell and the actress Ada Dwyer Russell were reputed to be lovers, and Russell is said to be the subject of Lowell’s more erotic works. The two women travelled to England together, where Lowell met Ezra Pound, who then became both an influence and a critic of her work. In particular, Lowell is considered to have displaced Pound as leader of the so-called Imagist poets (considered by some to be forerunners of the Modernist movement); and Pound, reportedly, considered suing Lowell over her use of the word ‘Imagist’ in the title of a series of anthologies.

During her later years, Encyclopaedia Britannica says, Lovell was the most striking figure in American poetry: ‘Her vivid and powerful personality, her independence and zest made her conspicuous, as did her scorn of convention in such defiant gestures as smoking cigars.’ Apart from publishing her own poems, Lowell was also a keen promoter of both contemporary and historical poets. She died in 1925; and the following year was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for her collection, What’s O’Clock.

Further biographical information is available from the Poetry Foundation, the Academy of American Poets, Modern American Poetry, or Wikipedia.

Lowell did not leave behind, as far as I can tell, any adult diaries. However, biographers have made good use of a few teenage journals which are held in the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Melissa Bradshaw, for example, in Amy Lowell, Diva Poet (Ashgate Publishing, 2011) says in her introduction (available to read online at Googlebooks):

‘[Lowell’s] adolescent journals show that she regards her friends’ obsessive interest in boys as curious, and their mistaken assumption that a diary entry confessing love for a girl ("Oh my darling!!!!! My darling!!!!!!”) is directed at a boy amusing (“Walter; oh it is too rich”). In the diary entries that follow, however, she concedes that she might marry “if I ever find a man I can love and who will love me equally and will have me,” showing that she does not view marriage as a given but rather a choice predicated on companionate love.’

Towards the end of her first chapter, Bradshaw adds: ‘Entry after entry, however, chronicles her intense, passionate, unrequited love for several female friends. In these entries, Lowell tries to imagine how a life devoted to loving women might unfold and what it might look like. Unable to quite conceptualise this, she instead wishes to be a man: “I can imagine falling in love with a woman, but not with a man, I should like to be a man, and fall in love with a woman.” In one particularly anguished entry, routinely ignored by biographers, Lowell clearly articulates her desire for women, her despair at ever being allowed to fulfil her desires, and her suspicion that others might feel similarly’:

26 January 1890
‘Nobody could ever love me I know. I am but a contemptible being, but I want love, love, love. I know I am making a fool of myself but shurely there are others who have such thoughts. . . If I were a man I’d ask [Patty Storrow, a friend] to be my wife. But I am a woman. I can only ask her to love me and and I cannot do that. . . Men I could not love. My ideal is too high. But I want, need, yearn, for the love of a strong, tender woman. Oh God! Bless her and help me! Amen!’

Elsewhere in Bradshaw’s book this extract is also quoted:

8 January 1889
‘Oh! Wouldn’t I like to be a man . . . [B]eing a man would be fine; no dependence, go where you please, do what you please . . . Oh well, what me be must be. I would like to be a man. Now.’

Amy Lowell, it is also worth noting, wrote the introduction to a 1920 book called Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan, translated by Annie Shepley Omori and Kochi Doi, and published by Houghton Mifflin in the US and Constable in the UK. The full text and illustrations are widely available on the internet, at Internet Archive and at A Celebration of Women Writers hosted by Penn Libraries. The book has twice featured in The Diary Review before - Japan, a millennium ago about Shikibu Murasaki and A lady of Old Japan about the Sarashina Diary.

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 9 February 2014.

Puffins, pipits and plovers

Today marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of the American ornithologist and painter of birds, Louis Agassiz Fuertes. Although there are no published books of his journals, Cornell University, which holds the Fuertes archive, has put online a journal kept by Fuertes while exploring the Alaskan coastline, though it is mostly a list of birds seen or shot at!

Fuertes was born in Ithaca, New York, on 4 February 1874. His father, from a Spanish Puerto Rican family, was a professor of civil engineering at Cornell University, while his mother was of Dutch ancestry. As a child, Louis became very interested in birds, being much influenced by Audubon’s Birds of America, and made his first painting of a bird aged 14; and, at 17, he became an Associate Member of the American Ornithologists’ Union. He studied architecture at Cornell University, but all his enthusiasm and aptitude was  focused on painting birds. While still an undergraduate, he was receiving commissions and having his work exhibited. After Cornell, he went to work with Abbott Handerson Thayer, a well-known American artist and naturalist.

In 1898, Fuertes made his first expedition, with Thayer and his son Gerald, to Florida, and the following year accompanied the railway magnate E. H. Harriman on his famous exploration of the Alaska coastline. In 1904, Fuertes married Margaret Sumner and they had two children. He travelled across much of the US and other countries, mostly in the Americas, always in pursuit of birds. A prolific artist, he produced illustrations abundantly, mostly for ornithological books, popular and scientific. He collaborated with Frank Chapman, curator of the American Museum of Natural History, on many assignments. While on a collecting expedition together in Mexico, Fuertes discovered a species of oriole, which Chapman named Icterus fuertesi, commonly called Fuertes’s Oriole, after his friend.

According to an old version of Encyclopaedia Britannica, Fuertes work ‘is characterised by a fidelity to nature involving not only objective but subjective accuracy. His genius lay in the power to reproduce subtle, fleeting, and intangible qualities of birds that reflected their individuality to a remarkable degree, an ability as much the result of a highly sympathetic and very extensive knowledge of birds in their haunts as it was of technical skill.’ His most extensive work was a series of large plates illustrating The Birds of New York, published by the state and covering practically every species of eastern North America. He died in 1927. Biographical information can be found from Wikipedia, Cornell University’s Guide to the Louis Agassiz Fuertes Papers, or PBS.

Cornell’s guide to Fuertes’ papers mentions diaries and journals, but few, if any, have been published. In 1936, Doubleday, Doran & Co published Artist and Naturalist in Ethiopia, described as diaries kept on the Field Museum-Chicago Daily News Ethiopian Expedition, by Wilfred Hudson Osgood and Fuertes. It’s most likely, though, that Fuertes only provided the illustrations for this book. Otherwise, the Cornell Institute for Digital Collections has made freely available online diary entries written by Fuertes during Harriman’s Alaska expedition in 1899.

5 June 1899
This A.M. at Fort Wrangell, Alaska, got my first raven, & Townsend’s finch, also Stetler’s jay. Saw lutescent W., shot one, but couldn’t find it. Ridgway got a fine Oregon Junco, Fisher a red throated woodpecker, parus rufescens, & Lincoln’s finch. Heard in the forest, by Farragut bay, a hermit-like thrush song, but couldn’t find the author. The ravens made more noise even than usual. Hummers seen & heard by others of the party.

Townsend’s Sparrow in song. Its note is a typical passerella song. very clear and sweet, noticeable for the same deliberation with which the fox sparrow makes its notes. The bird was found on the sunny slope cleared of its bigger growth, facing the bay. Its appearance is somewhat thrush-like due to its heavily spotted breast and uniform brown back, though its attitudes are perfectly typical of its family.

Golden Crowned sparrows were singing at summit-White Pass. They were found in the scrub hemlock in the snow, and occasionally uttered their clear notes. The song was at once recognizable as zonotrichias, consisting of 8 notes, each perfectly distinct and true, and remarkable for the sweetness and purity of their tone: just the kind of a note one would like to find in the frosty air of the mt. tops. The attitudes and flight of the birds were exactly similar to those of the White Crowned, unless perhaps the occipital part of the crest was thrown out farther. Perhaps this appearance was due to the much darker coloration of the whole top of the head.

Mr. Ridgway got two Leucostictes (litoralis) on the R.R. track at the summit, and pipits were seen & taken. Between Juneau and Glacier bay, we saw Marbled Gull.

24 June 1899
Yesterday afternoon we were followed for hours by a large majestic bird that the various sharks aboard disagreed upon. Elliot thought he was a fulmar petrel -- while Fiske + Merriam thought it was a black-footed Albatross. Its wings were very flat -- a little down curved if anything Puffins were continually flying + little bunches from 5 to 20 or 30 would pass nearby at short intervals. They looked very curious, like parrots fore and guillemots aft. Some murrelets and one new kind of guillemots were seen; the latter white-breasted.

7 July 1899
Put off a party at Popof Island this A.M., July 7-99. and Fisher + I went ashore for about one hour, + got a pair of the big Unalaska Song Sparrow. This and the Kadiak form seen to take very kindly to the rocky shores, seldom being seen inland or in the uplands above the shore. Their song seems to preserve to a remarkable degree, its identity with that of the eastern form, tho’ the birds differ in almost every other respect.

12 July 1899
Fisher and I (many others) went ashore on the mainland at Port Clarence Bay, Alaska, and went up the stream where the ship was watering. First bird seen was a pipit (A. Pensilv. ) and soon after saw the yellow wagtail which we had found in Siberia. It turned out to be common, several specimens were obtained. Alice’s thrush was common, + obtained for the first time on the trip. Cole got a Mealy? red poll, and I found a nest with 5 eggs - both redpolls seemed common enough. About the finest sensation we had was a successful hunt after golden plover. I got 3 + F. two, all in more or less perfect summer plumage. The birds have the most beautiful calls + song. They sit at quite a distance from each other in the wet mossy hill meadows and call and answer back + forth. The calls can all be imitated by a full clear whistle, so that the birds answer quite eagerly - whip whee + a shorter note of the same notes, lower, are the common calls, but the song is a rich full warble, of a cadence - repeated - somewhat suggesting a blue-bird song done in R.B. Grosbeak quality.

Dr. F. + I, while separated by quite a distance, saw at the same time a long tailed Jaeger, sitting on a moss tuft way off on a distant hill; and unbeknownst to it and to us, he became the apex of a triangle , where F. + I were doomed to meet. Our sneak became interesting as we neared each other, + became aware of our position. The bird however, relieved us of our responsibility, + let us both out in a sportsmanlike manner by catching sight of me first, and rising with a scream which I took for alarm at first, but when he repeated it came squealing straight at me, I saw that it was defiance, and there was nothing to do but wait for him to get the right distance and shoot in self-defence. When I had come up to the beautiful bird, + was kneeling over it, Fisher’s voice came up the rise -- “let me take the other,” + I looked up to see the mate rising as he approach, at rt [angles] to the course of the first one. Nearer he came, + I itched as he passed over me at nearly 40 ft. I could see him eye me, + his squealing cries were so near that their quality seemed surprising -- very like big hawk’s cries. His long tail feathers oscillated + spread slightly at the tips with each wing stroke. He went right by me, straight on towards Dr. F. + when he got just right -- bang -- and with wings set in a V he came smoothly down into the grass, and we sat together in the mossy hillside and held the first long-tailed jaegers that either of us had ever seen to shoot at. The feet were black, like black rubber, and the rest of the legs light bird blue and the bill black with a “milky flesh color” interior.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 4 February 2014.

Fat alligators in Florida

Andrew Ellicott, one of the most important early surveyors in the United States, was born 270 years ago today. He helped survey borders with Canada and with the Spanish territories, worked on the boundaries of the District of Columbia, and completed the plan for Washington D.C. Unpublished diaries kept by Ellicott on some survey expeditions have been used by biographers, but there is one diary he published himself, concerning his work in ‘determining the boundary between the United States and the possessions of His Catholic Majesty in America’. It is full of well-observed notes on the land he’s passing through, its people, soils, rivers, minerals, and animals, not least the alligators.

Ellicott was born on 24 January 1754 in Buckingham Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, the first child in what would be a large Quaker family. His father, a miller and clockmaker, together with his two brothers, purchased land on the Patapsco River and set up a new milling business there, founding the town of Ellicott’s Mills in 1772. Some three years later Andrew married Sarah Brown and they had nine children that survived childhood. He enlisted as a commissioned officer in the Elk Ridge Battalion of the Maryland militia during the American War of Independence, and rose to the rank of major.

After the war, Ellicott returned home to Ellicott’s Mills until he was appointed, in 1784, to the group tasked with extending the survey of the Mason-Dixon line (this had operated from 1763 tasked with resolving a border dispute between British colonies in Colonial America, but had been stalled since 1767). During the survey, he worked alongside the scientist David Rittenhouse and the educator and bishop James Madison. In 1785, the Ellicotts moved to Baltimore, where Andrew taught mathematics at the Academy of Baltimore. The following year he was elected to the legislature, and was called upon to survey and define the western border of Pennsylvania. This so-called Ellicott Line later became the principal meridian for the surveys of the Northwest Territory.

When Ellicott was subsequently appointed to lead other surveys in Pennsylvania, the family moved again in 1789 to Philadelphia. By recommendation of Benjamin Franklin, he was appointed by the new government under George Washington to survey the lands between Lake Erie and Pennsylvania to determine the border between Western New York and U.S. territory, resulting in the Erie Triangle. This survey, during which he also made the first topographical study of the Niagara River including the Niagara Falls, did much to enhance his reputation as a surveyor.

From 1791 to 1792, Ellicott surveyed the boundaries of the federal Territory of Columbia, which would become the District of Columbia in 1801. His team placed forty boundary stones a mile or so apart, many of which remain today. At the same time, he worked on surveying the future city of Washington, a project that brought much conflict with the French-born architect Pierre Charles L’Enfant. Further major projects followed for Ellicott, planning of the city of Erie, and working with the commission that was surveying the borders, negotiated in the Treaty of San Lorenzo, between the Spanish territories in Florida and the United States.

This latter work took four years, after which the John Adam’s government refused to pay Ellicott, and refused him access to the maps he had submitted, leaving him in serious financial trouble. It took until 1803 for the maps to be released to him, under Thomas Jefferson’s administration, which also offered Ellicott the post of Surveyor Journal. He turned it down, accepting instead a quieter life as Secretary of the Pennsylvania Land Office, and moving with his family to live in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Also in 1803, Jefferson engaged Ellicott to teach Meriwether Lewis, who would later be one of the leaders of the famous Lewis and Clark Expedition (see White bear, drunk Indians).

After being fired by a new administration in Pennsylvania, Ellicott returned to private practice, and was hired to re-survey the border between Georgia and North Caroline. This job also ended acrimoniously, without his fees being paid, and the family moved to West Point where Ellicott worked as a professor of mathematics at the military academy. After one last significant survey, concerning the western border between Canada and the US in 1817, Ellicott died in 1820. Further information is available from Wikipedia, or from biographies freely available at Internet Archive, such as Andrew Ellicott - His Life and Letters by Catharine Van Cortlandt Mathews.

Ellicott was accustomed to keeping a diary on his survey expeditions, at least from the mid-1780s. Mathews says this: ‘Records of his earlier surveys were not kept, and it is not until ten years after his marriage that we have the first of those letters and diaries which tell the story of his life so simply and so unassumingly that the biographer cannot do better than to let them speak for him. They form a clear and fascinating picture of the men and manners, the country and the State of Andrew Ellicott’s day, while through even the briefest of them, shines out the character of the man himself, in all its simplicity, integrity, and kindliness. Between the lines of almost every scrap of manuscript he has left behind him, may be traced the quiet, sensible courage, the quick and keen observation of men and things, the tremendous capacity for hard work, and the complete indifference to the lures of wealth or fame, which seem to have been recognized by all who came in contact with him as the most characteristic qualities of the man.’

In her biography (published in 1908), Mathews quotes from various of Ellicott’s unpublished diaries. The only diary of Ellicott’s that appeared in his own lifetime was the one he kept in the late 1790s while surveying the border between the US and the Spanish territories. He was only able to publish this, finally, in 1803, when allowed access to the survey’s maps. The book, which is freely available at Internet Archive has an impressive title:

The Journal of Andrew Ellicott: late commissioner on behalf of the United States during part of the year 1796, the years 1797, 1798, 1799, and part of the year 1800: for determining the boundary between the United States and the possessions of His Catholic Majesty in America, containing occasional remarks on the situation, soil, rivers, natural productions, and diseases of the different countries on the Ohio, Mississippi, and Gulf of Mexico, with six maps comprehending the Ohio, the Mississippi from the mouth of the Ohio to the Gulf of Mexico, the whole of West Florida, and part of East Florida; to which is added an appendix, containing all the astronomical observations made use of for determining the boundary on a large scale, likewise a great number of Thermometrical Observations made at different times and places.

Here are several extracts.

6 December 1797
‘Spent at work upon our boats. Squalls of snow all day. Thermometer rose from 21° to 28°.’

7 December 1797
‘Finished repairing our boats. Cloudy great part of the day. Thermometer rose from 18° to 26°.’

8 December 1797
‘Detained till evening by our commissary, who was employed in procuring provision. Set off about sun down.’

The town of Louis Ville stands a short distance above the rapids on the east side of the river. The situation is handsome, but said to be unhealthy. The town has improved but little for some years past. The rapids are occasioned by the water falling from one horizontal stratum of lime-stone, to another; in some places the fall is perpendicular, but the main body of the water when the river is low, runs along a channel of a tolerably regular slope, which has been through length of time worn in the rock. In the spring when the river is full, the rapids are scarcely perceptible, and boats descend without difficulty or danger. Thermometer rose from 22° to 29°.’

9 December 1797
‘Floated all night. Stopped in the morning to cook some victuals, and then proceeded on till sunset and encamped.  Thermometer rose from 27° to 35°, Water in the river 53°.’

10 December 1797
‘Left the shore at sunrise. About nine o’clock in the morning discovered a Kentucky boat fast upon a log, and upon examination found that it was deserted, and suspected that the crew were on shore in distress, which we soon found to be the case. The crew consisted of several men, women, and children, who left the boat two days before in a small canoe when they found their strength insufficient to get her off. They were without any shelter, to defend them from the inclemency of the weather, and it was then snowing very fast. We spent two hours in getting the boat off, and taking it to the shore, where we received the thanks of the unfortunate crew, and left them to pursue their journey.

Having a desire to determine the geographical position of the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and the large store boat not being calculated for expedition, I left her with directions to follow with all possible despatch, and pushed on myself for the mouth of the river. Stopped at sun down, to give our men time to cook some victuals: set off at eight o’clock in the evening, and proceeded down the river against a strong head wind till almost midnight, when it became so violent that we had to put to shore. Snow great part of the day. Thermometer rose from 21° to 28°. Water in the river 33°.’

11 Decmber 1797
‘Left the shore at daylight, and worked against a strong head wind till sunset, then went on shore to dress some victuals. Cloudy great part of the day. Thermometer rose from 23° to 29°. Left the shore at eight o’clock in the evening, and worked all night against a strong head wind.’

15 December 1797
‘Much ice in the river. Stopped at an Indian camp, and procured some meat. Dined at the great cave. This cave may be considered as one of the greatest natural curiosities on the river, and I have constantly lamented that I could not spare time to make a drawing of it, and take its dimensions. It is situated on the west side of the river. The entrance is large and spacious, and remarkably uniform, the dome is elliptical, and the uniformity continues to its termination in the hill.

Stopped about sunset to take in some wood. Set off in half an hour and floated all night. Cloudy part of the day. Thermometer rose from 21° to 41°.’

16 December 1797
‘At eight o’clock in the morning, one of our boats unfortunately ran on the roots of a tree, which were under water, and bilged. We spent till near one o’clock in the afternoon in repairing her, and then proceeded down the river till about sunset and encamped. The weather that day was very pleasant. Thermometer rose from 35° to 51°. Passed Cumberland river at 3 o’clock in the afternoon.’

19 December 1797
‘Set up the clock, and prepared to make some astronomical observations for the purpose of determining the latitude and longitude of the confluence of those great, and important rivers: for those, and the thermometrical observations made at this place, see the Appendix.

The map of the Ohio river which accompanies this work, is laid down from the best materials I could procure, a number of the latitudes between Pittsburgh and the rapids, were taken by myself: from thence down to the Mississippi, the latest charts have been used, except in a few places which have been corrected by my friend Don Jon Joaquin de Ferrer, an ingenious Spanish astronomer. The map is divided into two parts, that it may not be too large to fold in a quarto volume, and at the same time of such a size, as to shew distinctly the errors that may hereafter be discovered, and serve as a basis for future corrections.

The Ohio river, is formed by the junction of the Allegany and Monongahela rivers, at Pittsburgh, which name it retains till it falls into the Mississippi. It may not be improper here to observe, that all the Indians residing on the Allegany, ever since my acquaintance with the western country, have called that branch, as well as the main river, the Ohio, and appeared to know it by no other name.

The Ohio is certainly one of the finest rivers within the United States, whether considered as to magnitude, the great extent of its course, or the outlet it affords to an immense and fertile country rapidly filling with inhabitants.

The bottom and sides of the river are stony, from Pittsburgh down to the low country, which is generally supposed to be about eight hundred miles. The strata of stone are horizontally disposed, and principally consist of either freestone, or limestone. This horizontal disposition of the strata of stone, is observable through a very large extent of the United States. I have traced it from Oswego, up Lakes Ontario and Erie, with all the waters falling into them, and through all the western parts of Pennsylvania, and down the Ohio, wherever hills or mountains are to be seen.

The flat, or bottom lands on the Ohio, are not surpassed by any in the United States for fertility; but in many places they are small, and inconsiderable; being limited by hills or mountains, on one side, and the river on the other. A large proportion of the hills, and mountains, are unfit for agricultural purposes, being either too steep, or faced with rocks. The hills and mountains on the east side of the river, generally increase in magnitude, till they unite with the great ridge, commonly called the Allegany: but on the west side they decrease, till the country becomes almost a dead level.

The country produces all the immediate necessaries, of life in abundance, and far beyond the present consumption of the inhabitants; the residue, with many other articles, such as hemp, cordage, hard-ware, some glass, whisky, apples, cider, and salted provisions, are annually carried down the river to New Orleans, where they find a ready market. Mines of pit coal (lithanthrax), are not only abundant, but inexhaustible from Pittsburgh many miles down the river.

The inhabitants of no part of the United States are so much interested in establishing manufactories, as of this. They possess the raw materials, and can export their produce with ease, but their imports are attended with difficulty, great risk, and expense. And so long as they receive neither bounties, nor uncommon prices for their articles of exportation, and depend upon the Atlantic states for their supplies of European manufactures, the balance of trade will constantly be against them, and draw off that money, which should be applied to the improvement of the country, and the payment of their taxes. To this source, may in some degree be traced, the character the inhabitants have too generally had bestowed upon them of insurgents, and disorganizers; to a few individuals these epithets may be applied, but not to the body of the people. In order to judge fairly on this question, it will be necessary to take into view the local situation of the inhabitants. In the Atlantic states every article however minute, if a necessary of life, will not only find a ready market, but command cash. On the Ohio, and its waters, almost the only article, which has heretofore found a ready market at home, and would command cash, was their own distilled spirits. The taxing of this article would therefore be but little different from taxing every article in the Atlantic states, which commanded cash. Such a tax as the latter, I am inclined to believe, would be collected with difficulty, and probably with the same propriety, give the same turbulent character to a great majority of the nation.

I am far from justifying any opposition by force, to the execution of laws constitutionally enacted, they must either expire, or be constitutionally repealed; a contrary proceeding must terminate in the destruction of all order, and regular government, and leave the nation in a state of nature: but at the same time, it is a duty incumbent on the legislature, to attend to the local situations of the several constituent, or component parts of the union, and not pass laws, which are feebly felt in one part, and be oppressive in another. That some turbulent persons are to be met with on our frontiers, every person possessed of understanding and reflection, must be sensible, will be the case so long as we have a frontier, and men are able to fly from justice, or their creditors; but there are few settlements so unfortunate as to merit a general bad character from this class of inhabitants.

The people who reside on the Ohio and its waters, are brave, enterprising, and warlike, which will generally be found the strongest characteristical marks of the inhabitants of all our new settlements. It arises from their situation; being constantly in danger from the Indians, they are habituated to alarms, and acts of bravery become a duty they owe to themselves, and to their friends. But this bravery, too frequently when not checked by education, and a correct mode of thinking, degenerates into ferocity.

Vessels proper for the West India trade, may be advantageously built on the Ohio, and taken with a cargo every annual rise of the waters down to New Orleans, or out to the islands. The experiment has already been made, and attended with success.

The climate on the Ohio, does not appear to be inferior to that of any part of the union. The inhabitants enjoy as much health, as they do on any of the large rivers in the Atlantic states. At Pittsburgh, and for a considerable distance down the river, bilious complaints are scarcely known; but they are frequent at Cincinnati, and still more so at Louisville near the rapids.’

7 February 1800
‘We began our observatory, and sent a party to examine whether there was any communication between the river and Okefonoke Swamp, which after our arrival at St. Mary’s to our surprise, we found doubtful. The same day a number of canoes were sent down to the vessel to bring up some of our instruments and other articles, we were under the necessity of leaving behind.

On the 12th the instruments and other articles arrived, and a course of observations was began as soon as the weather permitted. In the evening the party that was sent to explore the source of the river, or its communication with the Okefonoke Swamp returned; but without making any satisfactory discovery, and the day following another party was despatched on the same business.

This being the season that the Alligators, or American Crocodiles were beginning to crawl out of the mud and bask in the sun, it was a favourable time to take them, both on account of their torpid state, and to examine the truth of the report of their swallowing pine knots in the fall of the year to serve them, (on account of their difficult digestion,) during the term of their torpor, which is probably about three months. For this purpose two Alligators of about eight or nine feet in length were taken and opened, and in the stomach of each was found several pine and other knots, pieces of bark, and in one of them some charcoal; but exclusive of such indigestible matter, the stomachs of both were empty. So far the report appears to be founded in fact: but whether these substances were swallowed on account of their tedious digestion, and therefore proper during the time those animals lay in the mud, or to prevent a collapse of the coats of the stomach, or by accident owing to their voracious manner of devouring their food, is difficult to determine.

The Alligator has been so often, and so well described, and those descriptions so well known, that other attempts have become unnecessary. It may nevertheless be proper to remark, that so far as the human species are concerned, the Alligators appear much less dangerous, than has generally been supposed, particularly by those unacquainted with them. And I do not recollect meeting with but one well authenticated fact of any of the human species being injured by them in that country, (where they are very numerous,) and that was a negro near New Orleans, who while standing in the water sawing a piece of timber, had one of his legs dangerously wounded by one of them. My opinion on this subject is founded on my own experience. I have frequently been a witness to Indians, including men, women and children, bathing in rivers and ponds, where those animals are extremely numerous, without any apparent dread or caution: the same practice was also pursued by myself and people, without caution, and without injury.

Some of the Alligators we killed were very fat, and would doubtless have yielded a considerable quantity of oil, which is probably almost the only use that will ever be made of them; however their tails are frequently eaten by the Indians and negroes, and Mr. Bowles informed me that he thought them one of the greatest of delicacies.

The Alligators appear to abound plentifully in musk, the smell of which is sometimes perceptible to a considerable distance, when they are wounded or killed; but whether the musk is contained in a receptacle for that purpose, and secreted by a particular gland or glands, or generally diffused through the system appears somewhat uncertain: and I confess their appearance was so disagreeable and offensive to me, that I felt no inclination to undertake the dissection of one of them.

The second party which had been sent to ascertain the connexion (if any,) between the river St. Mary’s and the Okefonoke Swamp returned on the 17th, having discovered the communication, and the day following a traverse was began, to connect the observatory with that part of the Swamp from whence the water issued, in order to determine its true geographical position.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 24 January 2014.

Luminous shards

Edvard Munch, one of Norway’s most famous sons, and the painter of one of the world’s most famous paintings, The Scream, died 80 years ago today. His so-called ‘private journals’ were published a decade or so ago by the University of Wisconsin Press. The book's editor has described the text as full of ‘luminous shards’ but, nevertheless, this work is not a journal/diary but a book of poetry. 

Munch was born in 1863, in Loten, Norway, though the family soon moved to Oslo (then called Christiania and renamed to Kristiania in 1877). His childhood was much affected by the ill health of those around him: his mother died from tuberculosis when he was just five, and some years later his sister also died from the same disease; moreover his father, a doctor, suffered from mental illness. 

Munch enrolled in a technical college in 1879 to study engineering but soon left to take up painting. From 1881, he studied at the Royal School of Art and Design, where he was exposed to a bohemian lifestyle, a stark contrast to his Lutheran upbringing. In 1883, he took part in his first public exhibition. According to Wikipedia, a full-length portrait of Karl Jensen-Hjell, a notorious bohemian-about-town, earned some scathing criticism: ‘It is impressionism carried to the extreme. It is a travesty of art.’

During visits to Paris in the late 1880s, he was exposed to Post-Impressionism styles; and in the 1890s he involved himself with the Symbolist movement in Berlin, often spending his winters in the city. His most famous painting - The Scream - is said to encapsulate the existential angst and despair that were central to his oeuvre. Throughout his life, he faced numerous personal challenges, including alcoholism and, in 1908, a nervous breakdown, which led him to seek therapy and adopt a more balanced lifestyle. 

Munch’s later years were marked by increasing recognition and numerous exhibitions, particularly in Germany, where he had a significant impact on the development of German Expressionism. Although he had several relationships with women, none seems to have lasted more than a few years. He died on 23 January 1944, leaving more than 20,000 works to the City of Oslo. See Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica and the official Munch website for more information.

There are tantalising references (in biographies) to diaries kept by Munch, especially when he was younger - see, for example, Edvard Munch: Paintings, Sketches, and Studies by Arne Eggum (available to view at Internet Archive). However, the only published diary/journal that I can find is The Private Journals of Edvard Munch: We Are Flames Which Pour Out of the Earth, as edited and translated by J. Gill Holland (University of Wisconsin Press, 2005). This can be sampled at Googlebooks.

The blurb gives some information about the book’s text: ‘. . . Munch considered himself a writer as well as a painter. [In Paris and Berlin . . .] he evolved a highly personal style in paintings and works on paper. And in diaries that he kept for decades, he also experimented with reminiscence, fiction, prose portraits, philosophical speculations, and surrealism. [. . .] The journal entries in this volume span the period from the 1880s, when Munch was in his twenties, until the 1930s, reflecting the changes in his life and his work. [. . .] Though excerpts from these diaries have been previously published elsewhere, no translation has captured the real passion and poetry of Munch’s voice. This translation lets Munch speak for himself and evokes the primal passion of his diaries.’

And here is a helpful paragraph from Holland’s introduction: ‘What general claims can be made for these pages from Munch’s journals? It is clear that passages in the journals are imaginary. It should also be obvious that a range of moods and tones colors his entries. His journals were for decades a laboratory in which he recorded scenes, visions, stories, and meditations. I have not tried to follow any chronological order in organizing the sections. The entries are seldom dated; Munch’s memory often reached far back into the past. Perhaps these passages should be read not as biographical items strung along a time line but instead like William Wordsworth’s “spots of time,” magical moments to which the English poet returned for four decades but that were never published in his lifetime. Munch’s journal entries “can be appreciated as luminous shards picked from the mountain of colors lying outside the glasscutter’s workshop” ’.

That said, the work is better described as a collection of poetry than a journal, and has no dated entries. Here for example is one famous extract - describing how he came to paint The Scream. 

One evening I was walking
out on a hilly path
near Kristiania —
with two
comrades. It
was a time when life
had ripped my
soul open.
The sun was going down—had
dipped in flames below the horizon.
It was like
a flaming sword
of blood slicing through
the concave of heaven.
The sky was like
blood — sliced with
strips of fire
— the hills turned
deep blue
the fjord — cut in
cold blue, yellow, and
red colors —

The exploding
bloody red — on
the path and hand railing
—my friends turned
glaring yellow white—
—I felt
a great scream
— and I heard,
yes, a great
scream —
the colors in
nature — broke
the lines of nature
— the lines and colors
vibrated with motion
—these oscillations of life
brought not only
my eye into oscillations,
it brought also my
ears into oscillations —
so I actually heard
a scream—
I painted
the picture Scream then.