The Journal of a Disappointed Man Part 38

a desiccated epidermis.

_August_16.

_Lice or "Creeping Ferlies"_[5]

I probably know more about Lice than was ever before stored together within the compa.s.s of a single human mind! I know the Greek for Louse, the Latin, the French, the German, the Italian. I can reel off all the best remedies for Pediculosis: I am acquainted with the measures adopted for dealing with the nuisance in the field by the German Imperial Board of Health, by the British R.A.M.C., by the armies of the Russians, the French, the Austrians, the Italians. I know its life history and structure, how many eggs it lays and how often, the anatomy of its brain and stomach and the physiology of all its little parts. I have even pursued the Louse into ancient literature and have read old medical treatises about it, as, for example, the _De Phthiriasi_ of Gilbert de Frankenau. Mucius the lawgiver died of this disease so also did the Dictator Scylla, Antiochus Epiphanes, the Emperor Maximilian, the philosopher Pherecydes, Philip II. of Spain, the fugitive Ennius, Callisthenes, Alcman and many other distinguished people including the Emperor Arnauld in 899. In 955, the Bishop of Noyon had to be sewn up in a leather sack before he could be buried. (See _Des Insectes reputes venimeux_, par M. Amoureux Fils, Doctor of Medicine in the University of Montpellier, Paris, 1789.) In Mexico and Peru, a poll-tax of Lice was exacted and bags of these treasures were found in the Palace of Montezuma (see Bingley, _Animal Biog_., first edition, iii.). In the _United Service Magazine_ for 1842 (clix., 169) is an account of the wreck of the _Wager_, a vessel found adrift, the crew in dire straits and Captain Cheap lying on the deck--"like an ant-hill."

So that as an ancient writer puts it, "you must own that for the quelling of human pride and to pull down the high conceits of mortal man, this most loathesome of all maladies (Pediculosis) has been the inheritance of the rich, the wise, the n.o.ble and the mighty--poets, philosophers, prelates, princes, Kings and Emperors."

In his well-known _Bridgewater Treatise_, the Rev. Dr. Kirby, the Father of English Entomology, asked: "Can we believe that man in his pristine state of glory and beauty and dignity could be the receptacle of prey so loathesome as these unclean and disgusting creatures?" (Vol. I., p. 13).

He therefore dated their creation _after_ the Fall.

The other day a member of the staff of the Lister Inst.i.tute called to see me on a lousy matter, and presently drew some live Lice from his waistcoat pocket for me to see. They were contained in pill boxes with little bits of muslin stretched across the open end thro' which the Lice could thrust their little hypodermic needles when placed near the skin. He feeds them by putting these boxes into a specially constructed belt and at night ties the belt around his waist and all night sleeps in Elysium. He is not married.

In this fas.h.i.+on, he has bred hundreds from the egg upwards and even hybridised the two different species!

In the enfranchised mind of the scientific naturalist, the usual feelings of repugnance simply do not exist. Curiosity conquers prejudice.

_August_ 27.

Am spending my summer holidays in the Lakes at Coniston with G---- and R----.... I am simply consumed with pride at being among the mountains at last! It is an enormous personal success to have arrived at Coniston!

_August_ 29.

Climbed a windy eminence on the other side of the Lake and had a splendid view of Helvellyn--like a great hog's back. It is fine to walk over the elastic turf with the wind bellowing into each ear and swirling all around me in a mighty sea of air until I was as clean-blown and resonant as a sea-sh.e.l.l. I moved along as easily as a disembodied spirit and felt free, almost transparent. The old earth seemed to have soaked me up into itself, I became dissolved into it, my separate body was melted away from me, and Nature received me into her deepest communion--until, UNTIL I got on the lee side of a hedge where the calm brought me back my gaol of clay.

_September_ 1.

Fourteen days hence I shall be a married man. But I feel most dejected about it. When I fell down the other day, I believe I slightly concussed my spinal column, with the result that my 1913 trouble has returned, but this time on the _left_ side! paralysis and horrible vertigo and presentiments of sudden collapse as I walk.

_September_ 2.

I fear I have been overdoing it in this tempting mountain region.

Walking too far, etc. So I am slacking. It was fortunate I did not get concussion of the brain--I came within an inch of it: the hair of my head brushed the ground.

_A Buxom Rogue in Earthenware_

I knocked at the door of Sunbeam Cottage the other morning to know if they had a boat for hire. The door was promptly opened by a plump, charming little wench of about 17, and I caught a glimpse of the kitchen with its gunrack holding two fowling pieces, a grandfather clock in one corner and a dresser full of blueish china.

"We don't let our boat out for hire," she answered with a smile so honest and natural and spontaneous that I was already saying to myself I had never met with anything like it at all when she stretched up her bare, dairy-maid arm--strong, creamy and soft, just reached a big key strung to a wooden block and lying on the top shelf of the dresser and at once handed it to me with:

"But you are quite welcome to use it and here is the key to the boathouse."

I now felt certain that she was one in a million and thanked her most awfully. I have never met such swiftly-moving generosity.

"It's very nice on the Lake just now," she said. "I like to lie in the boat with a book and let her drift."

I asked her if she would not come too, but this tight little fairy was too busy in the house. She is Clara Middleton done in earthenware.

Subsequently R---- and I often visited the cottage and we became great friends, her mother showing us some letters she received as a girl from John Ruskin--a great friend of hers. The gamekeeper himself said that for his part he could never read Ruskin's books--it was like driving a springless cart over a rocky road. We all laughed and I said he was prejudiced in view of the letters which began: "My darling," and finished up "Yr loving J.R."

But Mrs. ---- said he had never read them, and Madge (ah! that name!) said her father had never shewn the least interest in them at which we laughed again, and the gamekeeper laughed too. He is such a jolly man--they all are delightfully simple, charming folk and we talked of Beasts and Birds that live on the mountains.

_September_ 4.

Bathed in the Lake from the boat. It was brilliantly fine. R---- dipped her paddles in occasionally just to keep the boat from grounding. Then I clambered over the bows and stood up to dry myself in the sun like one of Mr. Tuke's young men.

_September_ 7.

My 26th birthday. In London again. Went straight to the Doctor and reported myself. I quite expected him to forbid the marriage as I could scarcely hobble to his house. To my amazement, he apparently made light of my paralysis, said it was a common accident to bruise the _os coccyx_, etc.

_September_ 8.

Am staying at ---- for a few days to rest and try to be better by that fateful 11th, when I am married.

_Later_: My first experience of a Zeppelin raid. Bombs dropped only a quarter of a mile away and shrapnel from the guns fell on our roof. We got very pannicky and went into a neighbour's house, where we cowered down in our dressing-gowns in absolute darkness while bombs exploded and the dogs barked.

I was scared out of my life and had a fit of uncontrollable trembling.

Later we rang up ---- and ----, and thank Heavens both are safe. A great fire is burning in London, judging by the red glare. At midnight sat and drank sherry and smoked a cigar with Mr. ----, my braces depending from my trousers like a tail and shewing in spite of dressing-gown. Then went home and had some neat brandy to steady my heart. H---- arrived soon after midnight. A motor-omnibus in Whitechapel was blown to bits. Great scenes in the city.

_September_ 9.

Very nervy to-day. Hobbled down the road to see the damage done by the bombs.

_September_ 10.

A swingeing cold in the head thro' running about on the night of the raid. Too feeble to walk far, so Mrs. ---- went into the town for me and purchased my wedding-ring, which cost 2 5s. 0d.

[1] 1917. I am now editing my own Journal--bowdlerising my own book!

[2] A method of collecting insects in winter by shaking moss over white paper.

[3] 1917. Cf. Sainte-Beuve's Essay on Maurice de Guerin: "Il aimait a se repandre et presque a se ramifier dans la Nature. Il a exprime en mainte occasion cette sensation diffuse, errante; il y avait des jours ou, dans son amour ou calme, il enviait la vie forte et muette qui regne sons l'ecorce des chenes; il revait a je ne sais quelle metamorphose en arbre...."

[4] Cf. 1916, November 6.

[5] Cf. Burns's poem "On a Louse."

PART III--MARRIAGE

_September_ 12.

This evening we walked thro' the Churchyard reading tombstone inscriptions. What a lot of men have had wives!