a little more cheerful. Then I broke down, had to weep, weep on his breast. What if he were to lose – that! My poor, poor, husband!
I can scarcely say how irritating it all was. First his intimate caresses, so close – and then no satisfaction. Words cannot express what I today have undeservedly suffered, and then to observe his torment – his unbelievable torment!
My beloved!
Alma Mahler-Werfel
1914
What a vile little diary! But I am determined to keep it this year.
Katherine Mansfield
1915
We were kept awake last night by New Year Bells. At first I thought they were ringing for a victory.
Virginia Woolf
1970 [Ardnamurchan, Scotland]
As I was up long before the other members of the household I carried out the old ritual of going out by the back door, and bringing in a lump of coal by the front door. After that I did my usual daily stint of lighting the fire and making their morning tea for the sleepers! Some showers before daylight. Forenoon damp with intermittent smirr and hill fog. Wind Westerly, light to moderate, at first but veered Northwesterly in the evening. Showers from mid-day onwards. Afternoon and evening raw and cold. No sunshine. Apart from [his wife] Eliz’s illness, the year just ended was a good one for us in every way. No post tonight.
Ian Maclean
1983
New Year’s Day
These are my New Year resolutions:
1. I will revise for my ‘O’ levels at least two hours a night.
2. I will stop using my mother’s Buff-Puff to clean the bath.
3. I will buy a suede brush for my coat.
4. I will stop thinking erotic thoughts during school hours.
5. I will oil my bike once a week.
6. I will try to like Bert Baxter again.
7. I will pay my library fines (88 pence) and rejoin the library.
8. I will get my mother and father together again.
9. I will cancel the Beano.
Adrian Mole
2 January
1763
I got dinner to be at two, and at three I hastened to my charmer.
Here a little speculation on the human mind may well come in. For here was I, a young man full of vigour and vivacity, the favourite lover of a handsome actress and going to enjoy the full possession of my warmest wishes. And yet melancholy threw a cloud over my mind. I could relish nothing. I felt dispirited and languid. I approached Louisa with a kind of an uneasy tremor. I sat down. I toyed with her. Yet I was not inspired by Venus. I felt rather a delicate sensation of love than a violent amorous inclination for her. I was very miserable. I thought myself feeble as a gallant, although I had experienced the reverse many a time. Louisa knew not my powers. She might imagine me impotent. I sweated with anxiety, which made me worse. She behaved extremely well; did not seem to remember the occasion of our meeting at all. I told her I was very dull. Said she, ‘People cannot always command their spirits.’ The time of church was almost elapsed when I began to feel that I was still a man. I fanned the flame by pressing her alabaster breasts and kissing her delicious lips. I then barred the door of her dining-room, led her all fluttering into her bedchamber, and was just making a triumphal entry when we heard her landlady coming up. ‘O Fortune why did it happen thus?’ would have been the exclamation of a Roman bard. We were stopped most suddenly and cruelly from the fruition of each other. She ran out and stopped the landlady from coming up. Then returned to me in the dining-room. We fell into each other’s arms, sighing and panting, ‘O dear, how hard this is.’ ‘O Madam see what you can contrive for me.’ ‘Lord, Sir, I am so frightened.’
Her brother then came in. I recollected that I had been at no place of worship today. I begged pardon for a little and went to Church . . . I heard a few prayers then returned and drank tea . . . I went home at seven. I was unhappy at being prevented from the completion of my wishes, and yet I thought that I had saved my credit for prowess, that I might through anxiety have not acted a vigorous part; and that we might contrive a meeting where I could love with ease and freedom.
James Boswell
1926
I went to tea at Sumner Place and we went on to dinner at a new restaurant called Favas which Richard has discovered which is very cheap indeed. I gave Richard the ties I had bought in Paris. I enjoyed the evening very much.
On Sunday I was bored.
On Monday I went to luncheon at Sumner Place and to a cinema in Shaftesbury Avenue to see the new Harold Lloyd film. Richard found an harlot who took us to drink at a club called John’s in Gerard Street where there was a slot machine which gave me a lot of money and Alfred Duggan who gave me a lot of brandy. We went to dinner again at Favas with Anthony Russell. He brought me back and I made him drunk.
Evelyn Waugh
1926 [Paris]
Talk turned largely on mutual acquaintances: Diaghilev, Cocteau, Radiguet. When I spoke about the Russian Ballet’s miraculous salvation and rejuvenation through war and revolution, Misia told us how badly off Diaghilev had been during the war. In Spain he nearly starved. It took months before the French Government granted him an entry permit, but at last Sert was able to fetch him from Barcelona. On the way to the frontier he asked Diaghilev whether he had anything compromising on him. No, nothing at all, he never carried anything compromising on him. Well, at any rate look whether you haven’t anything in your pockets, Sert urged him. Only a few old letters. Yes, but what letters? Finally Diaghilev brought out a fat wad of papers, including two letters from Mata Hari. The French had just arrested her for espionage. There was barely time to destroy the correspondence before they reached the frontier.
Count Harry Kessler
1952
After tea I went to visit Khalid’s surgery, where he treats the poor of Baghdad for free – a really horrifying experience which I could hardly bear to watch. Half the men were suffering from stab wounds and broken heads, but there were also wretched women with ulcerous breasts and babies with rickets. Khalid was examining a woman who had some problem with her womb when her mother burst in screaming and shouting and dragged her out of the surgery. Apparently because the operation might mean she could bear no more sons, it was forbidden, so she will probably die in childbirth.
Maurice’s students at the college are much more emancipated. They arrive shrouded in black abbas which they throw off to reveal tight-fitting skirts and sweaters with ‘Wisconsin’ printed on them. All the girls are in love with Mo because he is tall and blond. Unfortunately he has an awful habit of scratching his crotch when carried away by his own eloquence, and halfway through a lecture on Chaucer he’ll notice fifty pairs of beady eyes glued to his trousers. Their work is excellent
