SPICE OF HISTORY

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 7, 10 January 1938, Page 16

SPICE OF HISTORY

RECORDS IN DIARIES

WHY PEPYS STANDS

SUPREME

A DIFFICULT TASK

How many people keep diaries? Lord Ponsonby. in his introduction to his book, "English Diaries," states that he made an inquiry among 100 persons (56 males and 44 females), of whom 65 were over 30 years of age, declares a writer in the Melbourne "Age." He ascertained that 24 of them (12 of each sex), of whom 16 were over 30 years, were diarists.. And 26 of the remaining 76 had kept diaries, but had given up the habit. He considers that these figures may be considered fairly representative—that among the educated classes in England abNit 25 per cent, of them keep diaries of some sort. He repeated that opinion some years later in his study of Samuel Pepys, which he contributed to the English Men of Letters series. '

Lord Fonsonby is the foremost authority in England on diaries and diary writing. He has edited four volumes of extracts from English, Scottish, and Irish diaries, and has written a book on John Evelyn, as well as the one on Samuel Pepys. Moreover, he has read a great many other diaries in manuscript. He confesses that diaries are his favourite reading,' and modestly claims to have read more of them than anybody. And he thinks that the diary habit should be encouraged. "Let them (i.e., the diarists) realise that no special talent and no high position or favourable circumstances ■will necessarily make their diary more important and interesting," he' writes: "In fact};;;its interest and importance need not concern them. . > * Notwithstanding the immense store of facts compiled in newspapers, books, registers, and official,records with regard to "the history of bur own times, the privately written records •of an individual, spontaneously scribbled1 and so reproducing the mood, the atmosphere, and, so to speak, the particular aroma oi the moment, are priceless, and can be regarded as the spice of history." A CLEAR DISTINCTION. He declares that there is a very clear distinction between diary writing and other forms of writing. "A consciousness of some literary capacity, however meagre it may be, or however unjustified any sueh rr assumptioh may be, stands behind.every' other form of writing except letter writing. In diary writing no such consciousness need exist, nor, indeed, is any literary capacity necessary. Diary writing is within the reach of everybody who can put pen to paper, and no one is in a more advantageous position ' than another. The value of a diary need not suffer from the diarist's literary incapacity. On the contrary, literary talent may be a barrier to complete sincerity. In diary writing no pause is needed for modelling phrases, no attention need be given to form, even grammar may go to the winds." He points out that the style of Samuel Pepys, the best diarist in the literature of any country, is not what is called literary, that his grammar is faulty and his phrasing clumsy. "All this does not matter in the least in diary writing," he states. "There are excellent diaries, in which phrasing and even grammar, spelling, and punctuation are all execrable. Charles Russell (1898), a foreman riveter, shows in an unpublished diary that he had no conception of grammar or spelling, but his lively narrative of his adventures in Africa could not be improved. Your literary man, who thinks about his English, his style, his balance, and his epigrams, is very unlikely to be a good diarist. There are, indeed, not many literary men even, who are capable of the terse powers of lucid expression sometimes displayed by Pepys.= Without sententious epigram he can epitomise an event,;a.situation; or a character in: phrases which would •be spoilt by the alteration of a single word." QUALIFICATIONS NEEDED. What are the chief qualifications of a' good diarist? Taking Pepys as the • supreme ; example, Lord Ponsonby writes:—'.'Pepys can hold his own and surpass all others by merits which some of the others have, ..-and by merits which none of the oth'eps have. He was a.regular daily writer, and his impressions are therefore fresh; his candour is a proof of his honesty, and he had no thought of publication. The genius appears ?ji his power of selecting the incidents and epitomising situations, in the casual jotting of humorous opinions, the marvellous observation of intriguing situations, the restraint in handling the larger events and the delicacy in which he can lighten them by a whimsical word or phrase, the keen enjoyment in which he reports his good fortune, the optimism and joy which always chases away the gloom of despondency, and the introduction of the intimate, the secret, nay, even the obscene, in their proper place with disarming ingenuousness We laugh with him, we laugh at him, and we are always entertained. . . . When a man can give you a vivid picture of events and personalities, and convey to you his sense of living through his life, with all his passing hopes and misgivings, joys and sorrows, petty irritations, and high aspirations, and at the same tune never weary you, but invariably entertain you, his style must have some supreme merit, however, much it may violate the orthodox standards to which writers are supposed to conform." _ PATRONISING PEOPLE. "There is sometimes a tendency to adopt towards Pepys's Diary an attitude of patronising amusement, to regard it merely as the effusion of an entertaining scribbler," continues Lord Ponsonby. "Such critics seem to suggest that we could all write diaries of this sort if we wanted to, or if we tried, and that after a couple of hundred years our records would be read with as much interest and amusement as we find in reading Pepys. Let anyone try! Many have tried within the last two or three hundred years, and how few in their efforts come within any measurable distance of comparison with Pepys? To write regularly requires discipline. Not all are capable of this to begin with. Always to feel inclination requires a peculiar sort of effort. To epitomise your day so as to give a true picture of it requires special discrimination and powers of selection. By powers of selection we mean the choice of incident. Amere recital of consecutive incidents is not enough. Certain thoughts and deeds must be detached, which may be trivial, and not immediately relevant, but they may reflect the outward atmosphere and inward mood, and make a reader feel present. This requires skill. After all, every minute of everyone's day is filled. Strother, the York shop assistant, endeavoured to write down everything that happened in the day. Of course, it was impossible, and he gave up the attempt after two or three days. A sentence or two would have given him in his old age just as vivid an impression of those days as his laborious and' almost unreadable effort. But selection, which is perhaps the most important element in a diarist's outfit, cannpt be learned. No fcaßdV'Tawk, 'iOT'.pr£paration*orrstud»»

will make a man into a good diarist. It is not a matter of conforming to recognised standards. There are none; A good diarist is born, not made. There is no question of taking adyice, or of thinking out and cultivating an ingenious method. It all rests with the attitude of mind, the disposition and the instinctive inclination of the writer. Although almost every effort at diary writing has peculiar interest, success depends more on temperament than equipment." DIARISTS ARE SECRETIVE. Why do people write diaries? Sometimes the impulse comes from the feeling that one is passing through exceptional times, t concerning which it would be interesting to have a personal record. The World War, gave a great impulse to diary writing, because the war years were filled with momentous events, and brought to millions of people new and startling experiences, which will seldom be repeated in the life of a generation. Many of these experiences were so strange, so sensational, so thrilling in their emotional aspects, as well as in their revolutionary effects on the lives of those who participated, that there was a natural impulse to keep a personal record of them. / Hundreds of soldiers kept diaries (in, defiance of military regulations), and many of these diaries formed,the basis of some of the most interesting war 4 books that were subsequently published.

But as a general rule it is egotism which prompts a person to keep a diary. This, however, is not in itself a sufficient explanation, for we are all egotists, whereas not all of us are diarists. And the more egotistical a person is the more likely is he to, regard diary writing as too reserved and unobtrusive a method of self-expression. The pronounced egotist usually prefers to give voice to his egotism, and to make himself a bore by constantly talking about himself. Nevertheless; some pronounced egotists have been diarists of the first rank. This is because they reveal themselves in their diaries so frankly, if unconsciously. \ .'•■-.• • THE DIARY OF HAYDON. Benjamin Hay don, a painter of historical subjects, kept a diary .for 60 years, which he intended should be published after his death. It was'not published in full, but seven years after his death his autobiography, consisting mainly of extracts from his diary, was published in three volumes. Lord Ponsonby regards Haydon's diary as "one of the most remarkable of English diaries," and declares:—"Haydon carries his reader along in amusement at his unrestrained tirades and violent polemics, and in amazement at his brilliant pen-portraits of his contemporaries. Known to his friends as a bad painter, a mad eccentric, and an importunate beggar, he was discovered by posterity to be, in the midst of all his craziness, a very shrewd observer and skilful recorder of the events of his life."

It is a remarkable fact that the confirmed diarist who fills many manuscript volumes with the record of his life Seldom destroys them before he dies, or leaves any instructions in his will concerning them. "The great majority of diarists just leave 'their record without a word of guidance to their immediate, successors," writes Lord Ponsonby. "When in their most destructive mood, convinced perhaps of their own insignificance, they may throw papers, letters, nay deeds and wills, into the fire, but something makes them hesitate when their hand stretches out to the series of diary volumes. Their destruction is an amputation they cannot face; the diary is part o." themselves with the life still in it. They seem to realise that they themselves cannot possibly judge of the merits of what they have written. So diaries escape; they survive with the writer's motive in leaving them undisclosed. . HABIT KEPT SECRET. But during their lifetime few diarists let it be known among their friends that they keep diaries. Is this because the diarist feels that there is something almost underhand in keeping a diary, and entering in it criticisms of friends and relations to which these injured persons will never be able to .reply? To criticise people in a diary seems almost as bad <as saying things about them behind their a Sir Walter Scott and Thomas Moore both kept diaries, and both made entries . concerning one another, .but neither knew that the other kept a 'diary. Samuel Pepys and John^Evelyn kept diaries, and each wrote in his diary some complimentary things about the other, and esteemed him.as a friend, but neither confided m his friend that he kept a .diary. Only once did Samuel Pepys disclose to a friend that he kept, a dairy, and this confession was the result of impulse on finding that his friend was a diarist. Under the date of March 9,1669, Pepys wrote in his diary:—"Up, and to the Tower, and there find Sir W. Coventry alonef writing down his journal, which, he tells me, he now keeps of tne material things; upon which I told him, and he is the only man I, ever told it to, I think, that I kept it most strictly these eight ten years and I am sorry almost that I told it him, it not being necessary, nor may be convenient, to have it known." .