next to you, let me shake your hand,’ and then he realized and said, ‘No, I’ll wash my hands and then we can shake.’ I lost my concentration and had to stop peeing. And then more and more people started coming in and saying, ‘Is it really you?’ I got out.
Andy Warhol
24 February
1916 [Russia]
Yesterday I was commissioned to buy some coarse white cloth; accordingly, I walked to town and went into a small draper’s shop. The Jewish owner was cleaning away the snow from the pavement, but seeing a customer, he put down his spade. Just as he was pulling down a roll of the material from the shelf, the shop-door opened and a fierce, bearded Russian face, with a fierce, thundering Russian voice, ordered him out into the street – ‘immediately!’ to continue sweeping the snow. I was annoyed at the Russian’s rude interference; so I, too, suddenly became loud and rude. Facing the infuriated soldier, I told him that I would not allow the Jew to leave the shop until my purchase was made. ‘Durak [fool!]’ I cried. ‘What right have you to interfere? I am carrying out an official commission. When I am ready, and not before, this man shall leave the shop.’ It worked! The soldier turned and walked out into the street. Thinking it over afterwards, I was puzzled to decide what I should have done if it had not worked!
Florence Farmborough
1934
Tonight I danced in my room with the furniture pushed back, in my bathing suit. Jazz, Ravel, Mozart, Jazz. The compelling rhythms. You must dance. Abandon all else.
Elizabeth Smart
1981
The papers tell us that Prince Charles’s engagement to Lady Diana Spencer will be announced today. [His wife] Elizabeth’s book on the Queen Mother will be out in June; there will be just time to insert a statement that the engagement will give special pleasure to Prince Charles’s grandmother. It all fits in very well with Elizabeth’s conception of the Queen as a sublime exemplar of the family principle. We learn that Lady Diana’s parents have a house next door to Sandringham and that her father was an equerry of King George VI. Elizabeth thinks of saying in her book that ‘Lady Diana will fit into the royal family like a hand into a glove.’ This, however, is too much of a cliché – can I think of another, better simile? I rack my brains hopelessly. She then comes up with this: ‘She will fit in like a royal crest into its nest.’ It is this which gives Elizabeth, in addition to all her academic qualities, the edge on other biographers.
Lord Longford
25 February
1808
Since the last entry I’ve killed three hares, the first quadrupeds in my life.
Stendhal
1942
Heart hurt for first time in years.
Dawn Powell
1942 [Holland]
It is now half-past seven in the morning. I have clipped my toenails, drunk a mug of genuine Van Houten’s cocoa, and had some bread and honey, all with what you might call abandon. I opened the Bible at random, but it gave me no answers this morning. Just as well, because there were no questions, just enormous faith and gratitude that life should be so beautiful, and that makes this a historic moment, that and not the fact that we are on our way to the Gestapo this morning.
Etty Hillesum
1957
Ted’s book of poems – The Hawk in the Rain – has won the first Harper’s publication contest under the 3 judges: W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender & Marianne Moore! Even as I write this, I am incredulous. The little scared people reject. The big unscared practising poets accept. I knew there would be something like this to welcome us to New York! We will publish a bookshelf of books between us before we perish! And a batch of brilliant healthy children! I can hardly wait to see the letter of award (which has not yet come) & learn details of publication. To smell the print off the pages!
Sylvia Plath
1970
Today was Gladwyn’s [Sir Gladwyn Jebb, her husband] motion in the Lords on the changes in the BBC’s radio programmes, particularly in the Third Programme, which I urged him to table and so felt very responsible about the success of the debate. It went very well, there were seventeen speakers. G spoke very well, so I felt gratified. What a strange man Lord Annan is. Anxious to keep in with the government, he rose to his feet to state that he wondered why the BBC had bothered to announce the changes, since had they not done so they might have got away with it; a most deplorable argument, as orchestras might have been disbanded without anyone knowing. I could see the jaw of that philistine and uninspiring figure, Lord Hill, who had been responsible for it all, drop in astonishment.
Cynthia Gladwyn
1981
Norah [Baroness] Phillips joined us at lunch . . . She has a great deal to do with the Palace and hopes that her place is assured for the royal wedding [of Prince Charles and Princess Diana]. Elizabeth and I were (admittedly to my surprise) not asked to the wedding of Princess Anne. I being a Knight of the Garter to which order Prince Charles belongs, we might have a chance this time.
No doubt it all depends partly on whether it is a State occasion or a private wedding. Partly also on where it takes place. Most people seem to be assuming that it will be in Westminster Abbey. But Elizabeth sat next at dinner last night to the Dean of Westminster, Edward Carpenter. He said that they ‘had heard nothing’ which makes them fear that it will be in St Paul’s. The latter holds an extra four hundred. Our chances of squeezing in would then be improved.
Lord Longford
26 February
1832
This day arrived, for the first time indeed, answer to last post end of December, arrived an epistle from Caddell full of good tidings. Castl[e] Dangerous and Sir Robert of Paris, neither of whom I deemd sea worthy have performed 2 voyages, that is each sold off about £3400 and the same of the curr[e]nt year. It proves what I have thought almost impossible, that I might write myself [clear]. But as yet my spell holds fast. I have besides two or three good things in which I may advance with spirit. And with palmy hopes on the part of Caddell and myself. He thinks he will so[o]n cry victoria on the bet about the bet on his hat. He was to get a new one when I had paid off all my debts. And I, uncorrected by misfortune, supposed our who[le] plan had gone to the Devil and seriously thought of thinking [shrinking?] from the affair of my own exertions. Yet even when I was meditating all this I had sure enough to remark that it was a base cowardly think and that I should lose all the insurances which must come to £20,000 if I die without self Agency. I can hardly, now that I am assured that all is well again, form an idea to myself that I could think it was otherwise.
Sir Walter Scott
1985
I don’t understand why Jackie O[nassis] thinks she’s so grand that she doesn’t owe it to the public to have another great marriage to somebody big. You’d think she’d want to scheme and connive to get into history
