The Journal of a Disappointed Man

Excerpt: ... and held me in a soft warm embrace. I shut my eyes and whistled the saccharine melody for solo violin in Chopin's Funeral March. I wanted the moment prolonged for hours. Ill-health chases the soul out of a man. He becomes a body, purely physical. November 29. This evening she promised to be my wife after a long silent ramble together thro' dark London squares and streets! I am beside myself! December 6. I know now-I love her with passion. Health and ambition and sanity are returning. Projects in view:- (1) To make her happy and myself worthy. (2) To get married. (3) To prepare and publish a volume of this Journal. (4) To write two essays for Corn hill which shall surely induce the Editor to publish and not write me merely long complimentary and encouraging letters as heretofore. Wired to A--, "The brave little pennon has been hauled down." December 7. Have so many projects in view and so little time in which to get them done! Moreover I am always haunted by the fear that I may never finish them thro' physical or temperamental disabilities-a breakdown in health or in purpose. I am one of those who are apt to die unexpectedly and no one would be surprised. An inquest would probably be unnecessary. I badly want to live say another twelve months. Hey! nonny-no! a man's a fool that wants to die. Pg 159 December 9. . I shook her angrily by the shoulders to-night and said, "Why do I love you?-Tell me," but she only smiled gently and said, "I cannot tell." I ought not to love her, I know-every omen is against it. Then I am full of self-love: an intellectual Malvolio proud of his brains and air of distinction. Then I am fickle, passionate, polygamous . I am haunted by the memory of how I have sloughed off one enthusiasm after another. I used to dissect snails in a pie-dish in the kitchen while Mother baked the cakes-the unravelling of the internal economy of a Helix caused as great an emotional storm as...