a real diary, has been left blank. The overriding principle of inclusion was enjoyment. Each of the 1800 or so entries was chosen because we believe it to be complete in itself, though some contribute to running stories which unfold as the year progresses. The book may be read continuously or dipped into as the days drift by. You pays your money and you takes your choice, but it’s worth bearing in mind that pleasure delayed is pleasure doubly heightened.
All the diarists have been published commercially, whether or not that was their intention, but some are now out of print. Having sampled them, readers may like to seek them out in their original context. Every attempt has been made to keep the scope of the anthology as wide as possible. Diverse nationalities, ranging in date from the seventeenth century to the present day, are represented but not out of any sense of duty. Nor was there any thought of who made the ideal diarist. Here be cads and countrymen, wits and drones, neurotics, nymphomaniacs and narcissists.
All human life is here. But not every diarist. Some were excluded because they are dull (George Gissing and Søren Kierkegaard being notable examples) others because their diaries are not dated (John Cheever and Fyodor Dostoyevsky to name but two who are conspicuous by their absence) and therefore proved unsuitable for extraction. Still others, while diarists of a high order, such as Anne Frank, have fewer entries than might be expected because their diaries work as complete entities whose potency is diminished when quoted selectively. A few fictional diaries, including Adrian Mole and George and Weedon Grossmith’s classic Diary of a Nobody, have been used, but sparingly.
The diary, as Thomas Mallon concluded, is a genre to which ‘it is impossible to ascribe formulas and standards’. Ultimately, any attempt at definition is defeated by the diarists themselves, who are the most singular of species. More than any other branch of literature, diaries revel in otherness. Like a chameleon, a diary can change its colour to suit the mood of its keeper. It can be whatever the diarist wants it to be. Kafka used his to pour out his angst and limber up for his novels and short stories; Dorothy Wordsworth brought her botanical eye to the landscape of the Lake District, providing rich source material which her brother William mined for his poetry; Virginia Woolf spoke to hers as she might to an intimate friend, in so doing etching a portrait of the artist on the edge of the abyss.
All contributed to the mosaic that is life. But one keeps coming back to William Soutar, lying on his back in bed as his health evaporated. His diary is an inspiration; it may be the work of a dying man but he lived for the moment. Soutar sagely realised better than most the ambiguous potential of a diary, imbued as it inevitably is with secrecy, and all it implies. A diary may be like drink, but it is also only as reliable as the diarist, who may be honest or corrupt or deceitful or a self-delusionist. Not only can it persuade us to betray the self, wrote Soutar, ‘it tempts us to betray our fellows also, becoming thereby an alter ego sharing with us the denigrations which we would be ashamed of voicing aloud; a diary is an assassin’s cloak which we wear when we stab a comrade in the back with a pen. And here is this diary proving its culpability to its own harm — for how much on this page is true to the others?’
Alan Taylor
August 2000
Acknowledgements
Many people have contributed to this anthology, sometimes unsuspectingly. Throughout its long genesis countless suggestions have been made. Some bore fruit; others were added to the compost heap of rejection; all were very welcome. Two newspapers, Scotland on Sunday and The Scotsman, were enlightened enough to run diary columns for some years and their then editors deserve our thanks. In an enterprise such as this libraries play an essential role, none more so than Edinburgh City Libraries, principally the Central Lending Library whose long-suffering staff were unfailingly helpful. From the outset, our publisher, Canongate, provided enthusiasm, commitment and ideas, many of which have significantly improved the quality of the book. In particular, Jamie Byng and Judy Moir ferreted out diarists we had overlooked or never heard of and were a constant source of advice. Our biggest debt of gratitude, however, is to the diarists whose personal revelations and indiscreet observations made this anthology such fun to compile.
Irene and Alan Taylor
August 2000
JANUARY
‘The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with that he vowed to make it.’
J. M. BARRIE
1 January
1662
Waking this morning out of my sleep on a sudden, I did with my elbow hit my wife a great blow over her face and nose, which waked her with pain, at which I was sorry, and to sleep again.
Samuel Pepys
1763
I went to Louisa at one. ‘Madam, I have been thinking seriously.’ ‘Well, Sir, I hope you are of my way of thinking.’ ‘I hope, Madam, you are of mine. I have considered this matter most seriously. The week is now elapsed, and I hope you will not be so cruel as to keep me in misery.’ (I then began to take some liberties.) ‘Nay, Sir – now – but do consider–’ ‘Ah, Madam!’ ‘Nay, but you are an encroaching creature!’ (Upon this I advanced to the greatest freedom by a sweet elevation of the charming petticoat.) ‘Good heaven, Sir!’ ‘Madam, I cannot help it. I adore you. Do you like me?’ (She answered me with a warm kiss, and pressing me to her bosom, sighed, ‘O Mr Boswell!’) ‘But, my dear Madam! Permit me, I beseech you.’ ‘Lord, Sir, the people may come in.’ ‘How then can I be happy? What time? Do tell me.’ ‘Why, Sir, on Sunday afternoon my landlady, of whom I am most afraid, goes to church, so you may come here a little after three.’ ‘Madam, I thank you a thousand times.’
James Boswell
1829
Having omitted to carry on my diary for two or three days, I lost heart to make it up, and left it unfilld for many a month and day. During this period nothing has happend worth particular notice. The same occupations, the same amusements, the same occasional alterations of spirits, gay or depressd, the same absence of all sensible or rational cause for the one or the other – I half grieve to take up my pen, and doubt if it is worth while to record such an infinite quantity of nothing. But hang it! I hate to be beat so here goes for better behaviour.
Sir Walter Scott
1866
Travelling in France, it is a misfortune to be a Frenchman. The wing of the chicken at a table d’hôte always goes to the Englishman. He is the only person the waiter serves. Why is this? Because the Englishman does not look upon the waiter as a man, and any servant who feels that he is being regarded as a human being despises the person considering him in that light.
The Brothers Goncourt
1902
What I have to write today is terribly sad. I called on Gustav – in the afternoon we were alone in his room. He gave me his body – & I let him touch me with his hand. Stiff and upright stood his vigour. He carried me to the sofa, laid me gently down and swung himself over me. Then – just as I felt him penetrate, he lost all strength. He laid his head on my breast, shattered – and almost wept for shame. Distraught as I was, I comforted him.
We
