The Journal of a Disappointed Man Part 14

This Diary reads for all the world as if I were not living in mighty London. The truth is I live in a bigger, dirtier city--ill-health.

Ill-health, when chronic, is like a permanent ligature around one's life. What a fine fellow I'd be if I were perfectly well. My energy for one thing would lift the roof off....

We conversed around the text: "To travel hopefully is better than to arrive and true success is to labour." She is--well, so graceful. My G.o.d! I love her, I love her, I love her!!!

_February_ 3.

_A Confession_

H---- B---- invited me to tea to meet his fiancee.

Rather pleased with the invitation--I don't know why, for my idea of myself is greater than my idea of him and probably greater than his idea of himself.

Yet I went and got shaved, and even thought of buying a new pair of gloves, but poverty proved greater than vanity, so I went with naked hands. On arriving at Turnham Green, I removed my spectacles (well knowing how much they damage my personal appearance). However, the beauty of the thing was that, tho' I waited as agreed, he never turned up, and so I returned home again, crestfallen--and, with my spectacles on again.

_February_ 9.

... "Now, W----, talk to me prettily," she said as soon as the door was closed on them.

"Oh! make him read a book," whined her sister, but we talked of marriage instead--in all its aspects. Bless their hearts, I found these two dear young things simply sodden with the idea of it.

In the middle I did a knee-jerk which made them scream with laughing--the patellar reflex was new to them, so I seized a brush from the grate, crossed to Her and gently tapped: out shot her foot, and ----cried: "Oh, do do it to me as well." It was rare fun.

"Oh! pretty knee, what do I see?

And he stooped and he tied up my garter for me."

_February_ 10.

News of Scott's great adventure! Scott dead a year ago!! The news, when I saw it to-night in the _Pall Mall Gazette_ gave me cold thrills. I could have wept.... What splendid people we humans are! If there be no loving G.o.d to watch us, it's a pity for His sake as much as for our own.

_February_ 15.

Tried to kiss her in a taxi-cab on the way home from the Savoy--the taxi-cab danger is very present with us--but she rejected me quietly, sombrely. I apologised on the steps of the Flats and said I feared I had greatly annoyed her. "I'm not annoyed," she said, "only surprised"--in a thoughtful, chilly voice.

We had had supper in Soho, and I took some wine, and she looked so bewitching it sent me in a fever, thrumming my fingers on the seat of the cab while she sat beside me impa.s.sive. Her shoulders are exquisitely modelled and a beautiful head is carried poised on a tiny neck.

_February_ 16.

Walking up the steps to her flat to-night made me pose to H---- (who was with me) as Sydney Carton in the picture in _A Tale of Two Cities_ on the steps of the scaffold. He laughed boisterously, as he is delighted to know of my last evening's misadventure.

At supper, a story was told of a man who knocked at the door of his lady's heart four times and at last was admitted. I remarked that the last part of the romance was weak. She disagreed. H---- exclaimed, "Oh!

but this man has no sentiment at all!"

"So much the worse for him," chimed in the others.

"He was 66 years of age," added Mrs.----.

"Too old," said P. "What do you think the best age for a man to marry?"

H.: "Thirty for a man, twenty-five for a woman."

She: "That's right: it still gives me a little time."

P.: "What do _you_ think?" (to me).

I replied sardonically,--

"A young man may not yet and an old man not at all."

"That's right, old wet blanket," chirruped P----.

"You know," I continued, delighted to seize the opportunity to a.s.sume the role of youthful cynic, "Cupid and Death once met at an Inn and exchanged arrows, since when young men have died and old men have doted."

H---- was charming enough to opine that it was impossible to fix a time for love. Love simply came.

We warned him to be careful on the boat going out.

"Yes, I know," said H---- (who is in love with P----).

"My brother had a dose of moonlight on board a boat when he sailed and he's been happy ever since."

P.: "How romantic!"

H.: "A great pa.s.sion!"

"The only difference," I interjected in a sombre monotone, "between a pa.s.sion and a caprice is that the caprice lasts a little longer."

"Sounds like a book," She said in contempt.

It was--Oscar Wilde!

P---- insisted on my taking a biscuit. "Don't mind me," she said. "Just think I'm a waitress and take no notice at all."

H.: "Humph! I never see him taking no notice of a waitress."

(Sneers and Curtain.)

_February_ 24.

H---- came home last night and told me that she said as he came away, "Tell W---- I hate him." So it's all right. I shall go over to-morrow again--Hurrah! My absence has been felt then.

_March_ 7.

Came home, lay on my bed, still dressed, and ruminated....

First a suspicion then a conviction came to me that I was a cad--a callous, selfish, sensation-hunting cad.... For the time being the bottom was knocked out of my smug self-satisfaction. For several long half-hours I found myself drifting without compa.s.s or stars. I was quite di orientated, temporarily thrown off the balance of my _amour propre_.

Then I got up, lit the gas and looking at myself in the mirror, found it was really true,--I was a mean creature, wholly absorbed in self.

As an act of contrition, I ought to have gone out into the garden and eaten worms. But the mirror brought back my self-consciousness and I began to crawl back into my recently discarded skin--I began to be less loathesome to myself. For as soon as I felt interested or amused or curious over the fact that I had been really loathesome to myself I began to regain my equilibrium. _Now_, I and myself are on comparatively easy terms with one another. I am settled on the old swivel.... I take a lot of knocking off it and if shot off soon return.