1903 [Discovery expedition to Antarctica]
Epiphany Sunday. Good juicy brown beef dripping is one thing I long for, and a large jugful of fresh creamy milk in Crippetts dairy. Killed another dog today as he was too weak to walk. We turned out at 6 a.m., had breakfast and were on the march by 8.30 a.m. And though the surface was very heavy with ice crystals, soft and deep and smooth, there being no sun to glaze the surface, we did 4 and a half miles by lunch time, when the Captain [Scott] took a sight, but it was too overcast all over the land for me to sketch. We had an hour’s rest and then made 3 and a half miles more in the afternoon. We have now only 8 dogs and they are good for no work at all. We camped at 4.30 p.m., when sky cleared over the land, but a cold breeze from the north made sketching impossible. We are all now pulling on foot in finnesko all day, heavy work for 7 hours or more, soft ice crystals with no crust. The sledges go very heavily when there is no sun, but run easily as soon as the sun comes out. I think much on the march of our return to the ship, when we shall I hope, find all our letters waiting for us. Le bon temps viendra.
Edward Wilson
1922
The snow is thicker, it clings to the branches like white new-born puppies.
Katherine Mansfield
1935
Now that I am growing older and can see young folks isolated from me by a number of years, I am sometimes halted by the thought, when looking on them: ‘Is it a fact that my own youth ended at 24?’ This, of course, is a time when the joys of physical freedom are emphasized, and the pleasures that gather around a home of one’s own. And with this emphasis comes the thought that we are but human once, and that to be able to joy in action is a great privilege. The thought, of course, is but fleeting – for it is folly to brood: and has not one known the joy – which is enough; and are there not many who have never known it?
William Soutar
1953
I think that people who manifest their love for you, physically, when they know your lack of reciprocation, are abominably selfish. Sooner or later, the relationship must suffer, however noble its beginnings. I must be comparatively under sexed or something for I have never particularly wanted to make physical love to anybody. All this touching and kissing which seems so popular among others passes me by. Denis Goacher knows I’m virgin, and is always saying that I make up for it by flirting continually. He says I should do something. He can’t believe I could be abnormal. To him, everyone must do something or die! Perhaps I am dead.
Kenneth Williams
1958
New year four days gone, along with resolutions of a page a day, describing mood, fatigue, orange peel or color of bathtub water after a week’s scrub. Penalty, and escape, both: four pages to catch up. Air lifts, clears. The black yellow-streaked smother of October, November, December, gone and clear New Year’s air come – so cold it turns bare shins, ears and cheeks to a bone of ice-ache. Yet sun, lying low on the fresh white paint of the storeroom door, reflecting in the umber-ugly paint coating the floorboards, and shafting a slant on the mauve-rusty rosy lavender rug from the west gable window. Changes: what breaks windows to thin air, blue views, in a smother-box? A red twilly shirt for Christmas: Chinese red with black-line scrolls and oriental green ferns to wear every day against light blue walls. Ted’s job chance at teaching just as long and just as much as we need. $1000 or $2000 clear savings for Europe. Vicarious joy at Ted’s writing which opens promise for me too: New Yorker’s 3rd poem acceptance and a short story for Jack and Jill. 1958: the year I stop teaching and start writing. Ted’s faith: don’t expect: just write: what? It will take months to get my inner world peopled, and the people moving. How else to do it but plunge out of this safe scheduled time-clock wage-check world into my own voids. Distant planets spin: I dream too much of fame, posturings, a novel into print. But with no job, no money worries, why, the black lid should lift. Look at life with humor: easy to say: things open up: know people: horizons extend . . .
Sylvia Plath
5 January
1821 [Ravenna]
Rose late – dull and drooping – the weather dripping and dense. Snow on the ground, and sirocco above in the sky, like yesterday. Roads up to the horse’s belly, so that riding (at least for pleasure) is not very feasible. Read the conclusion, for the fiftieth time (I have read all W. Scott’s novels at least fifty times) of the third series of ‘Tales of my Landlord’, – grand work – Scotch Fielding, as well as great English poet – wonderful man! I long to get drunk with him.
Dined versus six o’the clock. Forgot that there was a plum-pudding, (I have added, lately, eating to my ‘family of vices,’) and had dined before I knew it. Drank half a bottle of some sort of spirits – probably spirits of wine; for what they call brandy, rum, &c. &c., here is nothing but spirits of wine, coloured accordingly. Did not eat two apples which were placed by way of dessert. Fed the two cats, the hawk, and the tame, (but not tamed) crow. Read Mitford’s History of Greece – Xenophon’s Retreat of the Ten Thousand. Up to this present moment writing, 6 minutes before eight o’ the clock – French hours, not Italian.
Hear the carriage – order pistols and great coat, as usual – necessary articles. Weather cold – carriage open, and inhabitants somewhat savage – rather treacherous and highly inflamed by politics. Fine fellows, though, – good materials for a nation. Out of chaos God made a world, and out of high passions comes a people.
Clock strikes – going out to make love. Somewhat perilous, but not disagreeable. Memorandum – a new screen put up to-day. It is rather antique, but will do with a little repair.
Lord Byron
1918
We went to Hampton Court. We walked across Bushby park, and along a raised bank beneath trees to the river. It was cold, but still. Then we took a tram to Kingston and had tea at Atkinsons, where one may have no more than a single bun. Everything is skimped now. Most of the butcher’s shops are shut; the only open shop was besieged. You can’t buy chocolates, or toffee; flowers cost so much I have to pick leaves instead. We have cards for most foods. The only abundant shop windows are the drapers. Other shops parade tins, or cardboard boxes, doubtless empty. (This is an attempt at the concise, historic style.) I suppose there must be some undisturbed pockets of luxury somewhere still; but the general table is pretty bare. Papers, however, flourish, and by spending sixpence we are supplied with enough to light a week’s fires.
Virginia Woolf
1940
So far as politics and the war are concerned, everything is quiet as the grave. But Roosevelt has spoken to the House of Representatives. Covert but very malicious jibes against our regime and the Reich. He says he still hopes to keep America out of the war. That sounds anything but hopeful.
. . . The Russians are making absolutely no progress in Finland. The Red Army really does seem to be of very little military worth.
In London there is great outrage about our radio broadcasts in English. Our announcer has been given the nickname ‘Lord Haw-Haw’. He is causing talk, and that is already half the battle. The aim in London is to create an equivalent figure for the German service. This would be the best thing that could happen. We should make mincemeat of him.
