I’ve just been reflecting for two hours on my father’s conduct toward me, being deplorably worn down by a strong attack of the slow fever I’ve had for more than seven months. I haven’t been able to recover from it: first, because I didn’t have the money to pay the doctor; in the second place, because, having my feet constantly in the water in this muddy city owing to lack of boots, and suffering in every way from the cold owing to lack of clothing and wood for the fire, it was useless and even harmful to wear down my body with remedies to get rid of an illness which poverty would have given me even if I hadn’t had it already.
If you add to this all the moral humiliations and the worries of a life passed continually with twenty sous, twelve, two, and sometimes nothing in my pocket, you’ll have a slight idea of the state in which that virtuous man has left me.
For two months I’ve been planning to put a description of my condition here; but, in order to describe it, you must regard it, and my only resource is to distract my attention from it.
Just calculate the effect of eight months of slow fever, fed by every possible misfortune, on a temperament which is already attacked by obstructions and weakness in the abdomen, and then come and tell me that my father isn’t shortening my life!
Were it not for my studies, or rather the love of glory that has taken root in my breast in spite of him, I should have blown out my brains five or six times.
Stendhal
1824
I have been reading about an English judge who desired to live to a great age and accordingly proceeded to question every old man he met about his diet and the kind of life he led – whether his longevity had any connexion with food, alcoholic liquor, and so forth. It appears that the only thing they had in common was early rising and, above all, not dozing off once they were awake. Most important.
Eugène Delacroix
1940 [Amsterdam]
Ed [Murrow] and I are here for a few days to discuss our European coverage, or at least that’s our excuse. Actually, intoxicated by the lights at night and the fine food and the change of atmosphere, we have been cutting up like a couple of youngsters suddenly escaped from a stern old aunt or a reform school. Last night in sheer joy, as we were coming home from an enormous dinner with a fresh snow drifting down like confetti, we stopped under a bright street-light and fought a mighty snow-ball battle. I lost my glasses and my hat and we limped back to the hotel exhausted but happy. This morning we have been ice-skating with Mary Marvin Breckinridge, who has forsaken the soft and dull life of American society to represent us here. The Dutch still lead the good life. The food they consume as to both quantity and quality (oysters, fowl, meats, vegetables, oranges, bananas, coffee – the things the warring peoples never see) is fantastic. They dine and dance and go to church and skate on canals and tend their business. And they are blind – oh, so blind – to the dangers that confront them. Ed and I have tried to do a little missionary work, but to no avail, I fear. The Dutch, like everyone else, want it both ways. They want peace and the comfortable life. But they won’t make the sacrifices or even the hard decisions which might ensure their way of life in the long run. The Queen, they say, stubbornly refuses to allow staff talks with the Allies or even with the Belgians. In the meantime, as I could observe when I crossed the border, the Germans pile up their forces and supplies on the Dutch frontier.
William L. Shirer
1977
I worked until 2, then up at 6.30 to go off to begin my tour of European capitals as President of the Council of Energy Ministers.
I took my own mug and lots of tea bags. When we arrived in Paris we were met by the Ambassador, Nico Henderson, a tall, grey-haired, scruffy man, almost a caricature of an English public schoolboy who got to the top of the Foreign Office. I don’t think I had ever met him before; he was rather superior and swooped me up in his Rolls Royce.
The end of a day of negotiations, and I enjoyed it very much. In a way it’s very relaxing not to be a British Minister, just a European one.
But I must admit that the standard of living of, for example, the Ambassador – a Rolls Royce, luxurious house, marvellous furniture, silver plate at dinner – is indefensible. Ours is a sort of corporate society with a democratic safety valve. What a long time it will take to put it right. And how do you get measured steps in advance? Undoubtedly openness is one, and negotiations and discussions with the trade unions is another. Nobody should have power unless they are elected.
Tony Benn
19 January
1938 [Senegal]
Night of anguish. Went to bed early, very sleepy; but stifling. Stomach churning; never again take that frightful soft and sticky meat which is called ‘fish’ in this country.
At midnight I decide to have recourse to Dial. Badly closed tubes, which open and scatter the lozenges in my valise. In the bathroom, where I go to get some distilled water (but a mistake was made; the bottle contains syrup), I surprise cockroaches in the act of copulating. I thought they were wingless; but some (probably the males), without taking flight, unfold enormous trembling wings. When I am ready to go back to bed, I notice rising above the top of the wardrobe opposite my bed the erect head of a python, which soon becomes but an iron rod.
Got up at dawn. The main road, which passes our veranda, becomes active: a whole nation is going to market. Very ‘road to India.’
André Gide
1959 [Paris]
The evening finished with a blonde lady (French) pounding the piano and everyone getting a trifle ‘high’. Princess Sixte de Bourbon was definitely shocked when the Duke [of Windsor] and I danced a sailor’s hornpipe and the Charleston, but there was no harm in it, perhaps a little sadness and nostalgia for him and for me a curious feeling of detached amusement, remembering how beastly he had been to me and about me in our earlier years when he was Prince of Wales and I was beginning. Had he danced the Charleston and hornpipe with me then it would have been an accolade to cherish. As it was, it looked only faintly ridiculous to see us skipping about with a will. The Princess needn’t have been shocked, it was merely pleasantly ridiculous.
Noël Coward
1976
This morning there arrived by post from Switzerland a Xerox sent by Ali Forbes of a letter written to him by Stephen Spender, abusing me. In it Stephen says he has always loathed the sight of me, and disliked my very appearance, which is that of a sinister undertaker who with his spade thrusts moribund, not yet dead corpses into the grave. That he sees my soul as a brown fungus upon a coffin, etc. That he has never spoken more than a dozen sentences to me in his life. Now this is pretty mischievous of Ali Forbes, I consider. I am affected by Spender’s letter. No, not gravely, because I do not like him and know that what he writes is pretentious tripe, yet affected by the knowledge that there is someone alive who can write such disagreeable things about me.
James Lees-Milne
1995
We fly to West Cork where Liam (Neeson) is waiting and go to meet the Collins family. Welcomed at the home of Liam Collins, Michael’s nephew, and his wife, with old-fashioned rural courtesy. Visit the old farmhouse at Woodfield which has been landscaped quite beautifully into a fitting monument.
