How storms rage ever

Today marks the bicentenary of Richard Wagner’s birth. One of the greatest of all composers, he lived a life of much movement and constant financial struggle to see his operas performed, all the while embroiled in several grand amours. He was not a natural diarist, but Cosima, who would become his second wife, encouraged him to keep a journal when they were apart so he could record his thoughts about her.

Wagner was born in Leipzig on 22 May 1813, ninth child of a police clerk who died six months later. His mother took up with Ludwig Geyer, an actor and playwright, and they moved to Dresden. He began learning the piano aged seven, but was drawn more towards theatre under Geyer’s influence. When Geyer died, Wagner was sent to board at an established choir school at the expense of Geyer’s brother. By 1827, the family had returned to Leipzig, where Wagner first heard several of Beethoven’s later symphonies. Wagner’s early piano sonatas and his first attempts at orchestral overtures are said to date from this period.

In the early 1830s, Wagner studied at the University of Leipzig, and in 1833, aged but 20, he was appointed choir master at the theatre in Würzburg. The same year he finished his first complete opera, Die Feen (The Fairies). Thereafter he flit through various appointments as musical director, in Magdeburg, Königsberg and Riga (Russian Empire), but kept getting into debt by staging his own works. His marriage to the actress Christine (Minna) Planer in 1836, though it lasted 30 years, was troubled from the beginning. From 1839, the couple lived in Paris where Wagner’s income depended on writing articles and staging other composers’ operas.

In 1842, Wagner’s first operatic success, Rienzi, brought him back to Dresden, where it was performed at the Court Theatre. He stayed for six years, during which time he composed Lohengrin; and he served as the Royal Saxon Court Conductor for a while. With the German revolution of 1848-1849, and, in particular, the May Uprising in Dresden, Wagner was implicated as a left-wing radical and forced to flee. He spent more than a decade in exile, first in Switzerland, then Venice and Paris. Love affairs left him further estranged from Minna, and debt troubles were never far away. During his time in Zurich, he published prose works such as The Artwork of the Future and Opera and Drama, he wrote Tristan und Isolde, and he began writing what would eventually become his famous Ring cycle of four operas, Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung).

Wagner returned to Germany in 1862, when the exile ban was lifted, and settled in Biebrich where he was visited by Minna for the last time. Efforts to produce Tristan und Isolde in Vienna failed, but, in 1864, when the young King Ludwig II succeeded to the throne of Bavaria, he brought Wagner to Munich and offered to pay for the staging of several of the composers operas. Tristan und Isolde finally premiered at the National Theatre in Munich in 1865, conducted by Hans von Bülow. Earlier that year his wife, Cosima, had given birth to a daughter, named Isolde, fathered by Wagner. The indiscreet affair scandalised Munich, and Wagner fell into such disfavour that Ludwig finally asked him to leave Munich. Nevertheless, Ludwig installed him at the Villa Tribschen, by Lake Lucerne, and there Wagner finished Die Meistersinger, and continued with the Ring cycle. Von Bülow eventually allowed Cosima a divorce after she had had two more children with Wagner. They married in 1870, and the year after moved together to Bayreuth.

Wagner’s ambitious plans to build a new opera house in Bayreuth were finally brought to fruition - after many financing delays - with the first festival in 1876, at which Wagner premiered the complete Ring cycle for the first time. It was to be another six years before he could put together a second festival, in 1882, and this one saw the premiere of Parsifal, Wagner’s final opera. He died the following year. For more biographical information see Wikipedia, Gramophone, Music Academy, or the comprehensive fan websites run by Vincent Vargas or Per-Erik Skramstad.

After Wagner had settled in Munich, in 1864, Cosima gave him a calf leather bound journal to write about his thoughts of her when they were separated, which, in the early years of their relationship, was often. He kept up the journal, somewhat intermittently, from 1865 until the year before his death, though after 1868 the couple were together permanently so Wagner wrote of other matters. It is worth noting that Cosima herself kept a diary which was largely meant to be a record of Wagner’s life - see The Diary Review: Music was sounding.

Wagner’s journal was scrupulously guarded after his death by Cosima on account of its confidential contents. However, in her 70th year she gave it into the care of her daughter, Eva, who later presented it to the town of Bayreuth. Its contents were only published fully for the first time in English in 1980 by Victor Gollancz as The Diary of Richard Wagner 1865-1882 - The Brown Book. The text was ‘presented and annotated’ by Joachim Bergfeld (and translated by George Bird).

10 August 1865 [Wagner went to stay in King Ludwig’s mountain hut on Hochkopf and was ill almost constantly.]
‘Late yesterday evening during the wearisome ascent, I was gazing - dog-tired - longingly upwards to discern at last the goal of our march, when, above the edge of the mountain, I caught sight of the first brightly twinkling star. Not bothering much about the direction, I took it for the evening star, and hailed it loudly - ‘Cosima’. That gave me heart. It was quite wonderful. The star got ever brighter - quite alone, no other star. It was completely dark by the time I go up there far ahead of all the men, with a big bunch of keys to open the lodge. Luckily I got the last one to fit, tried to find my way about in the dark, found the King’s sleeping place, and stretched out bathed in sweat, dog-tired. The men arrived. God, before Franz [manservant] produced a light! There was marvellous confusion. Now alone with Franz. Completely in the wilds. No water to be found. Where is there a spring? We hadn’t asked. Much groping about mountain and forest. In vain. Laborious changing of clothes - ah, what a muddle. Finally, bread, wine, sausage. But no water. So mineral water - brought for the cure - had to be unpacked. Arrival of good mood.’

18 August 1865
‘Sick and wretched. Bad cold: fever! Lonely here - Can’t so much as move. Franz lamenting. You know how quick I am to take the extreme view!

But I wanted to write at least one line in the book. It ought to help, complaining to you. Let’s see. Hope so - Ah, how wretched man is! - Even the sky is bleak.’

16 April 1867 [on being separated from Cosima, a separation that would last 15 months]
‘In my whole life I do not think I have ever been so sad as I am now!! - How easily that is said, and how unspeakable it is -

I walked home, and sank down from exhaustion. A brief, leaden sleep such as often drives out a cold fetched up all the misery of my life as if from the depths of my soul. I yearn for major illness and death. I have no inclination any more, no will!

Would there an end to it, an end!
Today she has left, - What this leaving has said!
What is the use of any seeing each other again?
The leaving remains. It is wretched!’

26 October 1865
‘Leafing through the Brown Book just now, I read a bit of Parzival. How that time lies once more like a sacred dream - once more like a lost paradise behind me - Oh Cosima! Will it ever come to my quietly completing my works and entering with you the promised land of peace? How storms rage ever and ever anew! I desire - so it seems - the most unnatural state of affairs which the world just will not accede to. My trouble is great. Always something new hounds and oppresses. From within and without.’

Philippine’s first prime minister

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the death of Apolinario Mabini, a Philippine revolutionary, who wrote the country’s first constitution and served as its first prime minister, if only for a few months. While imprisoned by the Americans on Guam, he kept a diary, and this was later published with other material relating to the revolution.

Mabini was born in 1864 in Tanauan, some 60km south of Manila, into a large, poor family, his father being a market seller. He was taught by his mother and a grandfather, a local teacher, and then was taken on at a private school to work as a houseboy. In 1881, he received a scholarship to go to the Colegio de San Juan de Letran in Manila. He supported himself through teaching and working as a copyist, and excelled academically. He moved on to study law at the University of Santo Tomas, where he received his degree in 1894. In 1896, he suffered a severe attack of polio which left him paralysed.

For some years, an armed nationalist revolution against the Spanish colonists had been growing in strength, and, though Mabini had worked for reform rather than revolution, he accepted a summons to join the revolutionary leader General Emilio Aguinaldo. He soon became one of the general’s chief advisers. When the Spanish-American war broke out in 1898, Mabini urged cooperation with the US as a means to gain freedom from Spain. That same year, he drew up Asia’s first democratic constitution, based on the US constitution, for an independent republic; and, from January 1899, Aguinaldo was its first president, and Mabini its first prime minister. When the US decided, however, to annex the Philippines, Mabini joined Aguinaldo in a renewed struggle for independence.

Mabini was captured by US troops at the end of 1899, and then again a year or two later. He was exiled to Guam because he refused to swear allegiance to the US, and only returned home in 1903, a few months before his death. According to Wikipedia, he is often referred to in Philippine history texts as ‘the Sublime Paralytic’ or ‘the Brains of the Revolution’. Further information is also available from Encyclopaedia Britannica, the Philippine National Council on Disability Affairs, and the Philippine Masonry website.

While in Guam, Mabina kept a diary in the form of notes. This was published as Memoirs of Guam within (I think) the second volume of a larger work called The Philippine Revolution by Teodoro Manguiat Kalaw (Manila Book Co., 1925). Some of the diary entries - which date from January 1901 to September 1902 - have been made available online thanks to the excellent Philippine Diary Project, which (like The Diary Review) has just celebrated its fifth birthday. (Back in 2009, a Diary Review article about the assassination of Aurora Quezon, wife of the president, drew on the Philippine Diary Project’s fund of diary texts - see Aurora Quezon’s bomb fuse.)

Here then, with thanks again to the Philippine Diary Project, are several extracts from Mabina’s diary.

31 December 1901
‘This month predicts a sad future for the prisoners in the prison house.

Ever since we arrved in the island, we have been fed with canned goods and it was very seldom that we were given fresh meat during the time of Commander Orwig. We had canned meat, canned salmon and bacon, potatoes, etc. Although in the last few days we were already satiated, we did not mind it too much since we were still able to buy from the Commissary sardines, shrimps in cans, ham and other things.

During the time of Captain Shaw, who manifested great concern for us, we were served salmon and given a supply of fresh meat twice a week. Besides, during this time, we could ask either though the guy with a shaven head or through our cook who also had a shaven head to buy for us vegetables, chicken and other goods.

Shaw finally left and Captain McKelvy assumed command. This time, we no longer had potatoes but beans; we could not buy from the Commissary other than cigarettes and they stopped giving us fresh meat. Besides, our head-shaven cook had left and was replaced by Agramon, another companion of ours, who was paid a salary of 30 pesos; however, we were still able to ask the milkman and the servants of those who transferred to Agaña, and who came to visit us often, to do this favor for us, since they were allowed to ride in a car-ambulance that plies through Agaña and Piti (round trip) three times a day.

Then the prisoners ran out of money and the milkman stopped coming, because only a few were able to buy milk. Later, our companions’ servants in Agaña were prohibited from riding in the ambulance, which was solely intended for the Americans and the government service. First we appealed to Captain McKelvy and then to Mr. Pressey, Judge of the Court of First Instance and Assistant to the Governor, that we be supplied fresh meat, as it used to be during the time of Captain Shaw. They promised to do so, but this was never fulfilled.

Lastly, at the start of this month, the prisoners could no longer eat canned meat, no matter how they forced themselves, because they felt nauseated and wanted to vomit. I found out later that the cook, in agreement with the prisoners, did not want to get the ration of canned meat from the Commissary, which supply was to last for ten days. Thinking Captain McKelvy would be offended, I talked to Mr. Llanero, who, being the President, represented the prisoners, so that he could write the captain telling him that the canned goods have not been claimed and that he was advising him about this so that the goods would not be wasted, since the prisoners would not take them.

Captain McKelvy got mad, saying that the prisoners have no right to refuse what is given them; nevertheless, he gave us a supply of fresh meat for a period of three weeks. Then, the cook was ordered to receive the usual supply of canned meat, and we were forbidden to ask the head-shaven guys to buy for us anything, since the Commissary takes care of buying what we need. Our companions ordered the purchase of twenty pounds of meat. It cost them a lot of money but the meat already smelled rotten when delivered to them. On the other hand, those who wish to live in Agaña were not granted a permit. We spent Christmas of 1901 with these painful thoughts. This is not surprising to me, because we were brought here precisely to make us suffer. Much as I am willing to suffer everything, I’m afraid my sick and weak body cannot withstand a prolonged self-deprivation. Be that as it may, I am convinced I will die all by myself, when my country shall no longer need my services.

Mr. Pressey invited me twice to live in Agaña, saying I must not worry about the money, since I would have enough. I have refused these offers, thinking it improper to leave our companions during these critical times.

Besides, I must add that in the past few days, when our companions had just transferred to Agaña, several times the community received from them gifts in kind, such as meat, fish and other things. I remember Mr. Dimayuga in particular, who has often sent me meat and vegetables, etc.

Lastly, I remember Captains Shaw and McKelvy, who took the trouble of teaching us (me and some companions) English, whenever their work allowed them to. Some weeks ago, I had given up studying the language, on account of my poor nourishment, which has deprived me of my high spirits, thinking it would be futile to continue, if, in the end I should die here or return to the Philippines, very sick and incapable of doing something good.

Goodbye to you, 1901! You are leaving us with a sad memory, yet a painful mark in my heart. I welcome you, 1902! Let this year be less severe, not with me anymore, but with my companions and friends.’

30 August 1902
‘I have been notified by the Captain about a letter from the Governor, saying that the latter had no authority to send us to Manila, without having taken our oath. He says he must transmit my wishes to the Commander General of the Philippine Division through the next ship and most likely, the response will be received here by the end of December. If the reply is favorable, we could embark in January. Be patient, this could be “a blessing in disguise” as the saying goes. It is worth knowing that a proclamation of the President of the United States, endorsed by the branch Secretary, cannot be interpreted nor implemented to the letter.

21 September 1902
‘At about nine o’clock this morning, all my companions in exile boarded the ship Warren from San Francisco to Manila. It was a sad farewell and there were many who wept. We all wished them a happy trip and we hoped everyone would find the happiness that their hearts were longing for. Only Mr. Ricarte, Aquilino Randeza, my brother and I remained.’

23 September 1902
‘Yesterday, at past eleven in the morning, there was a very strong earthquake, the strongest and longest that I have felt in my life. This was followed by others of lesser intensity, occurring at intervals of 15 to 20 until this morning.

They say the tremor destroyed the following:

The two stone houses of the Filipino proprietor, Don Eulogio de la Cruz, which were completely destroyed; the house occupied by Messrs. Gerona and Dimayuga; another one occupied by Messrs. Trías and Simón Tecson; the new civil hospital; two stone houses occupied by the club; and the tribunal-house presently occupied by the Court.

Also destroyed were a portion of the house occupied by the owner, Mr. Dungca; the walls of the stone house which served as a government-house; the house of the Fiscal (roofing and the garden fence); the big college and the public school which had cracks; one side of the house that was occupied by Don Pablo Ocampo and Mauricio; the roofing and walls of the convent; and the tower which was split from top to bottom.

It is said that of the total houses in the whole town, only three or four remain habitable.

Big holes were formed in front of the Protestant church and in various areas. A long crack on the ground, starting from the sea cuts through the different parts of the town. Water gushed forth from some of these holes, inundating a street. Fortunately, there were no personal casualties.’

The Diary Review’s fifth birthday

Today marks the fifth anniversary of the launch of The Diary Review. During its five years, the column has included extracts from the diaries of over 450 diarists. The Diary Review and The Diary Junction together can claim to provide the internet’s most extensive and comprehensive online resource for information about, and links to, diary texts. Here listed are all the diarists that have been written about in The Diary Review. Copy any name into the Blogger search box (above) to access the article(s). All the articles are also tagged with keywords (below right) by century, country, and subject matter.

The Diary Review diarists: May 2008 - April 2013 (most recent first)

John Addington Symonds; Henry James; Edwina Currie; Alan Clark; Tony Benn; Idris Davies; William Henry Jackson; Adam Winthrop; Noël Coward; Richard Hurrell Froude; Deborah Bull; Joseph Warren Stilwell; King Edward VII; William Cobbett; John Evelyn Denison; William Macready; Michel de Montaigne; Joseph Goebbels; George Barker; Anais Nin; Thomas Crosfield; Alec Guinness; Amrita Sher-Gil; Gordon of Khartoum; Hugh Gaitskell; Swami Vivekananda; Albert Jacka; Joe Orton; William Bray; Anthony Wood; William Cole; Henry Greville; Louisa Alcott; Dang Thuy Tram; John Rabe; John Manningham; Mary Berry; Edmund Franklin Ely; Sergei Prokofiev; Guy Liddell; Richard Burton; Marina Tsvetaeva; Rutherford B Hayes; John Thomlinson; Elizabeth Simcoe; August Gottlieb Spangenberg; George Croghan; William Booth; Iris Origo; George H Johnston; Dawn Powell; Arthur Hamilton Baynes; Roger Twysden; William Cory; William Grant Stairs; Celia Fiennes; Edmond de Goncourt; August Strindberg; Edward Lear; Charles Abbot; May Sarton; Ralph Waldo Emerson; A C Benson; George Cockburn; George William Frederick Howard; Frederick Hamilton; Clifford Crease; Father Patrick McKenna; Robert Musil; Michael Spicer; Chris Parry; Rick Jolly; Tony Groom; Neil Randall; Peter Green; Samuel Sewall; Johann Wolfgang von Goethe; Isabella Augusta Persse Gregory; Mochtar Lubis; Alice James; John Byrom; Lawrence Durrell; Thomas Moore; Beatrice Webb; Alexander Hamilton Stephens; William Charles Macready; Charles Dickens; John Baker; William Swabey; Derek Jarman; Edith Wharton; Henri Jozef Machiel Nouwen; William Tayler; Robert Boyle; Roald Amundsen; Henry L Stimson; Victor Andrew Bourasaw; Robert W Brockway; Louis P. Davis; Robert Hailey; Sydney Moseley; Rodney Foster; Xu Zhimo; Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov ; David Livingstone; Christopher Columbus; George Whitwell Parsons; Arthur Schnitzler; Thomas Edison; Nathaniel Dance Holland; Frederic Remington; Lady Mary Coke; Henri-Frédéric Amiel; Engelbert Kaempfer; Henry Melchior Muhlenberg; Walter Scott; Alan Lascelles; Lord Longford; Thomas Isham; Hiram Bingham; Earl of Shaftesbury; Hannah Senesh; Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville; Allan Cunningham; Thomas Asline Ward; Robert Lindsay Mackay; Elizabeth Barrett Browning; Queen Mary; King George V; John Reith; Philip Toynbee; Robert Wyse; Tappan Adney; Brigham Young; Gideon Mantell; Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz; Alfred Domett; Alfred Kazin; Joseph Hunter; George Jackson; Prince Albert; 7th Earl of Shaftesbury; William Dyott; Ford Madox Brown; William Brereton; Adam Eyre ; Aubrey Herbert; Anne Chalmers; Walter Powell; Ron Hubbard; Taras Shevchenko; Xu Xiake; Cecil Harmsworth King; Henry Martyn; Countess of Ranfurly; Anne Morrow Lindbergh; Charles Crowe; Mary Shelley; Hester Thrale; Queen Victoria; Eliza Frances Andrews; Ananda Ranga Pillai; Abraham de la Pryme; Henry Fynes Clinton; Jane Carlyle; Jacob Bee; Paul Bowles; José Lezama Lima; Stendhal; Ludwig van Beethoven; Benjamin Constant; Charlotte Bury; Hugh Prather; Leo Tolstoy; Eric Gill; Ernst Jünger; Thomas Cairns Livingstone; George Bernard Shaw; King Chulalongkorn; Julia Ward Howe; Richard Boyle; Charles Ash Windham; Elizabeth Gaskell; Étienne Jacques Joseph Macdonald; Leonard J Arrington; Takehiko Fukunaga; Porfirio Díaz; William Holman Hunt; John Hutton Bisdee; Mother Teresa; Graham Young; Wilfrid Scawen Blunt; Florence Nightingale; Elizabeth Percy; Luca Landucci; Timothy Burrell; William Lyon Mackenzie King; William Byrd; Marius Petipa; Conrad Weiser; Lester Frank Ward ; Minnie Vautrin; Tsen Shui-Fang; Katherine Mansfied; Peter Pears; Richard Pococke; Axel von Fersen; Gonzalo Torrente Ballester; Li Peng; Robert Schumann; Chantal Akerman; William Windham; Anne Lister; Alan Brooke; Guy Liddell; Hugh Casson; Jules Renard; Alastair Campbell; Fridtjof Nansen; Ricci the sinologist; Matteo Ricci; John Carrington; Gustave Flaubert; Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky; Anne Frank; Virginia Woolf; Marie Louise of Austria; Dorothy Wordsworth; Antera Duke; Edward Hodge; Jeffrey Archer; Vaslav Nijinsky ; John Poindexter ; Cosima Liszt Wagner; Lady Cynthia Asquith; Thomas Clarkson; William Marjouram; Roland Barthes; Franklin Pierce Adams; Murasaki Shikibu; Caroline Herschel; Mikhail Bulgakov; Han Feng; William Griffith; Casanova; Victor Klemperer; Nelson Mandela; Josef Mengele; Ted Koppel; Henriette Desaulles; Ole Bull; Anton Chekhov; Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen; Cecil Beaton; Douglas Hyde; Donald Friend; Barbara Pym; Antonia Fraser; Fanny Burney; Jack Lovelock; Richard Newdigate; Albert Camus; William Gladstone; Thomas Babington Macaulay; Chet Baker; Paul Klee; Henry Edward Fox; Peter Scott; David Hamilton; Chiang Kai-shek; Washington Irving; Fanny Kemble; André Gide; Edwin Hubble; Tomaž Humar; William Howard Russell; Pehr Kalm; Gareth Jones; Anatoly Chernyaev; Leon Trotsky; Bernard Berenson; Benjamin Britten; Jacob Abbott; Otto Rank; Gurdjieff; Itō Hirobumi; George B McClellan; Jack Kerouac; Benjamin Roth; Lee Harvey Oswald; Roger Boyle; Meriwether Lewis; Abel Janszoon Tasman; Alfred Dreyfus; Alfred Deakin; John Narbrough; Gandhi; Arnold Bennett; Jim Carroll; Mahmoud Darwish; George Rose; Maria Nugent; James Fenimore Cooper; Henry Hudson; Kim Dae-jung; Georges Simenon; Henry Peerless; Drew Pearson; Earl Mountbatten of Burma; William Wilberforce; Alfred A Cunningham; Rosa Bonheur; Hana Pravda; Isaac Albéniz; Marie Curie; Dr Alessandro Ricci; John Skinner; General Patrick Gordon; Alexander von Humboldt; Charlotte Grimké; Christian Gottlieb Ferdinand Ritter von Hochstetter; General Hilmi Özkök; George Eliot; Aurora Quezon; Ludwig Wittgenstein; Stafford Cripps; Edward Bates; Alexis de Tocqueville; Elizabeth Lee; John Steinbeck; Harvey Cushing; Robert E Peary; John Rae; Dwight Eisenhower; Thomas Mann; A E Housman; Joseph Liouville; Lady Anne Clifford; Harold Nicolson; Neville Chamberlain; Edward Abbey; John Lennon; Georg Wilhelm Steller; Derk Bodde; Joe DiMaggio; Raoul Wallenberg; Leonard Woolf; Howard Carter; Stephen Spender; Chris Mullin; August Derleth; Olave Baden-Powell; William H. Seward; Charles Darwin; John Ruskin; Felix Mendelssohn; Alexander Selkirk; Ken Wilber; Jacob Roggeveen; Christopher Hibbert; Breckinridge Long; Sir George Rooke; Jeremiah Dixon; David Garrick; Sir John Moore; Abraham Plotkin; Steve Carano; William Keeling; Naomi Mitchison; Susan Sontag; Hanazono; Emily Brontë; Mary Leadbeater; Pope John XXIII; Robert Coverte; George Monck; Johann August Sutter; Sir George Hubert Wilkins; Christopher Isherwood; Charles Everett Ellis; Edmund Harrold; Selma Lagerlöf; Elizabeth George Speare; Georgy Feodosevich Voronoy; Edith Roller; Henry Machyn; Jedediah Hubbell Dorwin; Piseth Pilika; Marie Bashkirtseff; Jacques Piccard; Herculine Barbin; Catherine Deneuve; George Washington; Hélène Berr; Humphrey Lyttelton; Ted Hughes; Sylvia Plath; Charles XIII; Arthur Jephson; Harry Allen; Yves Bertrand; Sean Lester; Douglas Mawson; Thomas Turner; Henry Chips Channon; John Blow; Robert Louis Stevenson; Abel J Herzberg; Elizabeth Fremantle; August Möbius; John Churton Collins; Krste Misirkov; Mika Waltari; Bernard Donoughue; William Bray; Cesare Pavese; John Home; Samuel Pepys; Edward Walter Hamilton; Bernard Leach; Max Brod; Che Guevara; Lorenzo Whiting Blood; Harriet Stewart Judd; Angelina Jolie; Robert Dickinson; John Longe; George H W Bush; Jikaku Daishi; Choe Bu; Arthur Munby; Hanna Cullwick; Mary Blathwayt; Alexander MacCallum Scott; Walt Whitman; Helena Morley; Carolina Maria de Jesus; Alice Dayrell Caldeira Brant; Rachel Corrie; Lady Nijo; Paul Coelho; Sir Henry Slingsby; Edgar Vernon Christian; Dorothy Day; Mary Boykin Chesnut; Lord Hailsham; Nia Wyn; Rutka Laskier; Tom Bradley; Richard Pearson; Barbellion; Pekka-Eric Auvinen; Chester Gillette; James Giordonello; Simon Gray; Harry Telford; Özden Örnek; Anna Politkovskaya; Serge Prokofiev; Rasputin

Mock and real turtles

‘The difference between an author who picks up his material everywhere but does not work it up into an organic whole and one who does that is, it seems to me, like the difference between mock turtle and real turtle.’ This is 21 year old Søren Kierkegaard writing in the journal that he would keep for all of his short life. Today is a good day for remembering him - Denmark’s most important philosopher, dubbed by some as the father of existentialism - for it is the bicentenary of his birth.

Kierkegaard was born in Copenhagen on 5 May 1813, the youngest of several children. His father had grown up poor in Jutland, but moved to the capital city and made his fortune. Søren spent ten years studying theology at Copenhagen University and eventually graduated in 1840 two years after his father died, leaving him rich enough not to work. Biographers consider this period to have been most important for his spiritual development. In September 1840, Kierkegaard became engaged to Regine Olsen, who was only 17 at the time. Regretting his action, and thinking he had done wrong, he withdrew from the engagement and went to Berlin for six months. Regine married happily, but Kierkegaard never forgot her and later dedicated the whole of his literary oeuvre to her.

On returning from Berlin, Kierkegaard published Either/Or under a pseudonym, which presented, for the first time, his basic ideas on existential philosophy. Later, he published important critiques of Hegel and of the German Romantics. Having undergone something of a spiritual crisis, he focused, during his final years, on attacking complacency within the Church of Denmark through newspaper articles in Fædrelandet (The Fatherland) and self-published pamphlets under the title, Øjeblikket (The Moment or The Instant). In autumn 1855, he collapsed on the street and died within a few weeks - aged only 42.

The website of the Christian Classics Ethereal Society summarises his influence as follows: ‘Kierkegaard’s resistance to creating an all-embracing system of thought has resulted in a rich variety of influence on twentieth century philosophy and literature. Jaspers, Heidegger and Sartre were all heavily influenced by his work, and existentialism owes much to Kierkegaard’s thought, drawing on his analysis of freedom and angst. Although he didn’t write much overtly political work, Marxists like Marcuse and Lukacs have shown interest in Kierkegaard’s writings. He has also influenced theological studies, especially the work of Karl Barth, and he is admired for his literary innovations.’ Further information on Kierkegaard is also available from Wikipedia, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, or D Anthony Storm’s Kierkekaard website.

Throughout Kierkegaard’s adult life he kept a diary, more full of philosophical and religious musings, and of thoughts on his literary projects than descriptions of his daily life. There are over 7,000 diary pages, all of which have been edited and published in Danish in many volumes. A selection of extracts chosen and translated into English by Alexander Dru was published by Oxford University Press in 1938. A fuller version - though still not the complete journal - was edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong for publication by Indiana University Press from 1967. Meanwhile, the Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre Foundation in Copenhagen is working on a definitive edition of all Kierkegaard’s writings, including the journal, which will then be translated into several languages. A summary of the journal’s contents, analysis and many extracts can be found online at Storm’s website; and Natural Thinker has even more.

 11 September 1834
‘The reason I cannot really say that I positively enjoy nature is that I do not quite realize what it is that I enjoy. A work of art, on the other hand, I can grasp. I can - if I may put it this way - find that Archimedian point, and as soon as I have found it, everything is readily clear for me. Then I am able to pursue this one main idea and see how all the details serve to illuminate it. I see the author’s whole individuality as if it were the sea, in which every single detail is reflected. The author’s spirit is kindred to me; he is very probably far superior to me, I am sure, but yet he is limited as I am. The works of the deity are too great for me; I always get lost in the details. This is the reason, too, why people’s exclamations on observing nature: It’s lovely, tremendous, etc. - are so frivolous. They are all too anthropomorphic; they come to a stop with the external; they are unable to express inwardness, depth. In this connection, also, it seems most remarkable to me that the great geniuses among the poets (such as Ossian and Homer) are represented as blind. Of course, it makes no difference to me whether they actually were blind or not. I only make a point of the fact that people have imagined them to be blind, for this would seem to indicate that what they saw when they sang the beauty of nature was not seen with the external eye but was revealed to their inward intuition. How remarkable that one of the best, yes, the very best writer about bees was blind from early youth. It seems to indicate that however much one believes in the importance of the observation of externals, he had found that [Archimedian] point and now by a purely spiritual activity had deduced from this all the details and had reconstructed them analogously to nature.’

12 September 1834
‘I am amazed that (as far as I know) no one has ever treated the idea of a “master-thief,” an idea that certainly would lend itself very well to dramatic treatment. We cannot help noting that almost every country has had the idea of such a thief, that an ideal of a thief has hovered before all of them; and we also see that however different Fra Diavolo may be from Peer Mikkelsen or Morten Frederiksen, they still have certain features in common. Thus many of the stories circulating about thieves are attributed by some to Peer Mikkelsen, by others to Morten Frederiksen, by others to someone else, etc., although it is impossible to decide definitely to which of them they really belong. This shows that men have imagined a certain ideal of a thief with some broad general features which have then been attributed to this or that actual thief. We must especially bear in mind that wickedness, a propensity for stealing, etc. were not considered to be the one and only core of the idea. On the contrary, the master-thief has also been thought of as one endowed with natural goodness, kindness, charitableness, together with extraordinary bearing, cunning, ingenuity, one who really does not steal just to steal, that is, in order to get hold of another person’s possessions, but for some other reason. Frequently we may think of him as someone who is displeased with the established order and who now expresses his grievance by violating the rights of others, seeking thereby an occasion to mystify and affront the authorities. In this respect it is noteworthy that he is thought of as stealing from the rich to help the poor (as is told of Peer Mikkelsen), which does indeed indicate magnanimity, and that he never steals for his own advantage. In addition, we could very well imagine him to have a warm affection for the opposite sex, for example Forster (Feuerbach, part II), something that on the one hand indicates a bright spot in his character and on the other gives him and his life a romantic quality which is required in order to distinguish him from the simple thief - whether he steals in order to provide, if possible, a better future in his beloved’s arms (like Forster) or whether in his activity as a thief he is conscious of being an opponent of the established order or an avenger against the authorities of some injustice perhaps committed by them against him. His girl walks by his side like a guardian angel and helps him in his troubles while the authorities are in pursuit to capture him, and the populace, on the other hand, regards him suspiciously as one who is, after all, a thief, although perhaps an inner voice sometimes speaks in his defense, and at the same time he finds no encouragement and comfort among the other thieves since they are far inferior to him and are dominated by viciousness. The only possible association he can have with them is solely for the purpose of using them to achieve his aims; otherwise he must despise them.’

22 November 1834
‘The difference between an author who picks up his material everywhere but does not work it up into an organic whole and one who does that is, it seems to me, like the difference between mock turtle and real turtle. The meat from some parts of the real turtle tastes like veal, from other parts like chicken, but it is all together in one organism. All these various kinds of meat are found in mock turtle, but that which binds the separate parts is a sauce, which still is often more nourishing than the jargon which takes its place in a lot of writing.’

A splendid liquid sky

One hundred and twenty years ago today died John Addington Symonds, a writer remembered largely for leaving behind literary works full of allusion to his secret homosexuality. He travelled frequently on the Continent, keeping diaries of his journeys, and in them he would often wax lyrical about his experiences. The diaries were used by his literary executor and friend, Horatio Brown, to write a biography, but were destroyed after Brown’s death.

Symonds was born in Bristol in 1840, the only son of a physician, and educated at Harrow School and Balliol College, Oxford, where he won the Newdigate prize with a poem The Escorial. In 1862 he was elected to an open fellowship at Magdalen but his health broke down, perhaps because of rumours he was having an affair with a male student, and he travelled to Switzerland to recuperate. On returning to London in 1864, he married Janet Catherine North. During the following five years she gave birth to three daughters. However, the couple appear to have led fairly separate emotional lives, with Symonds always pursuing young men as soul mates. In the second half of the 1860s, he had further mental problems, and travelled to the Continent again.

In 1867, Symonds moved to Bristol, where he did some lecturing. It is only in the 1870s, that he began to publish significant volumes, many on poetry, such as An Introduction to the Study of Dante and Studies of the Greek Poets. In 1875, Catherine gave birth to their fourth daughter. Symonds major work, Renaissance in Italy, was published in several volumes, starting in the early 1880s. He also wrote a book called A Problem in Greek Ethics which is today given the title Male Love, as well as biographies of Shelley, Jonson and Michelangelo. He died on 19 April 1893. Further information is available from Wikipedia, NNDB, Rictor Norton’s web pages, or the Dictionary for Art Historians.

Symonds also kept diaries and wrote memoirs, all of which he handed to his literary executor, Horatio Brown. Subsequently, Brown wrote a biography of Symonds - John Addington Symonds, a biography published first by J. C. Nimmo in 1895, readily available at Internet Archive - using many extracts from the diaries. After Brown’s death, though, the diaries were destroyed. Here are several of those extracts, as culled from Brown’s biography, the first few from 1861, when Symonds was still a young man and travelling with his father, and the last from over a quarter of a century later.

27 January 1861
‘Breakfasted with L. Stanley, and had an amusing party. Met Owen - old Balliol man, returned from Bombay College - Wordsworth, Green, Jackson, Ford, Wright, White, Bethel. Talked about “Essays and Reviews,” and the storm brewing for them; about Jowett’s parentage - Ford knows his mother and sister slightly, they live at Torquay; then of De Quincey, without some allusion to whom I hardly remember any intellectual Oxford breakfast go off; then about historic portraits - Wycliffe’s at Balliol, Chaucer’s from an old illumination, Dante’s in the Arundel Society’s publications. Sat on till 11.15. I went and wrote a long letter to papa about myself.’

16 June 1861, Macon
‘We left at five for Geneva, where I now am. The journey from Amberieu to Belle Garde was extremely fine. It winds through a pass cut by the Rhone, between Jura and some other mountains. After breaking fast we drove out to see Geneva. First we went to the cathedral, a small and symmetrical building of most interesting transition Romanesque. It has curious specimens of the use of round and pointed arch in combination, and borrows more from Roman models in the capitals than any I have seen. There is the pulpit, beneath whose sounding-board Calvin, Knox, and Beza preached. We sat in Calvin’s chair. The church is perfectly bare, and Protestant. It was more injured in five weeks of French occupation, when 10,000 men garrisoned Geneva and made it a hospital, than in its three centuries of Protestantism. A little Roman Catholic glass is still left in the windows of the apse.

17 June 1861, Hotel de L’Union, Chamonix
‘We started at seven this morning in a carriage and two horses. The journey has been one of uninterrupted beauty. The natural splendour of the country was heightened by the massy clouds which kept ever changing from peak to peak, altering the effect of light and shade, and making the distance clear and brilliant. The wild flowers are innumerable, orchids, rhododendrons, columbines, saxifrage, salvias, vetches, pinks. We broke the journey at Bonneville, where we had breakfast. Up to this point the road was comparatively tame, though behind us rose the Jura, and in front the Alps were shadowy. But at Bonneville is the very port of the Mont Blanc Alps, and of this stands sentinel the great green Mole. From Bonneville to St. Martin, the valley of the Arve is narrow, one series of vast precipices cut by rivulets and pine-clad hills on either side. At St. Martin we first saw Mont Blanc, swathed in clouds, which slowly rose and left the monarch nearly bare. He did not seem quite so huge as I expected. The amphitheatre of mountains from the bridge over the Arve is splendid; especially that corner where stands the Aiguille de Varens. Here we learned that a bridge on the road to Chamonix had been swept away by a torrent, and that no carriages could pass. However, they telegraphed for carriages to meet us on the other side of the temporary plank bridge, and we set off, through avenues of apple-trees bordering gardens of wild flowers, beneath the park-like swellings of the hills, among whose walnut-bowered hollows slept innumerable chalets. Soon the ascent began, every turn discovering some great snowpeak or green mountain furrowed with the winter streams. At the bridge we found a one-mule carriage, and continued our journey, Mont Blanc growing on us momently. As we came into the Valley of Chamonix the highest peak was very clear, and all along the bold sharp crags swaddled in clouds, and glorified by the far setting sun, were gorgeous in their brilliancy and colours. We arrived at 7.30, and got two high rooms with a good [vi]ew of the mountains.’

18 June 1861
‘About nine, M. A. Balmat, Professor James Forbes’s guide, to whom papa has an introduction, arrived. He is a pleasant, intelligent man, of about fifty, who, when he had read the Professor’s letter, greeted us warmly. He no longer acts as professional guide, but volunteered to take us about for the sake of our friendship with Mr. Forbes. Balmat is a curious instance of a man refined by the society of great and philosophic men. Having begun life as a guide, he is now the respected friend and guest of Forbes, Hooker, Murchison, and many others. Indeed, he is intimate with all the savants of Europe. We were surprised at the ease with which he spoke to us, and to the commonest people. The same bonhomie pervaded his address to both; but in the one he never fell into familiarity, nor in the other did he lose dignity. Having got alpenstocks, we set off walking to the Glacier des Boissons, which we crossed. I enjoyed picking my way among the crevasses. The glare was just what I expected, but it produced a curious effect of making the pine hills seem quite black and sombre, adding to their majesty. It is hard to estimate the height of these mountains, and this is the one disappointing thing about them. They do not displace as much sky as the summer thunderclouds, nor can we fancy that two Ben Nevises might be piled one on the top of the other below snow level (which is at the foot of the Aiguilles). However, the higher you get the more you can estimate the height above. Mont Blanc is himself so far retired that he appears small, while atmospheric differences, the want of an Alpine standard, and the size of the pine trees all tend to confuse English eyes, and lessen both height and distance. Balmat told me just the contrary of himself. In Wales and Scotland he always made mistakes, thinking, with his Alpine standard, the heights and distances much greater. He allowed some time to ascend Arthur’s Seat, and found himself immediately at the top of it.’

21 June 1861
‘We set off this morning at seven for the Flégère. Papa and I rode mules - stupid beasts, that stopped at every bush and rivulet to eat and drink. Balmat was charming through the day. He is a perfect gentleman in manners and feeling, nor is there the least affectation or parvenuism about him. When I compare him with [some] specimens of English travellers, I blush for my countrymen. Here is a guide of Chamonix, the son of a guide (who would not allow him to go to school or to learn the geology for which he has always had a passion, for fear he might leave Chamonix), whose manners are better, sentiments more delicate, knowledge more extensive, views more enlightened, than most of these soi-disant gentlemen and educated men. It is a great pity that his father would not allow him to study when young, for he might have become one of the first geologists of Europe, such fine opportunities for discovery do these mountains afford, and such an advantage his skill and intrepidity have given him. Though a mountaineer, he never brags, and is always considerate for weaker brethren like papa and me. I like very much to see him walking before our mules with his green spectacles, and old brown wideawake upon his grizzled hair, nodding kindly to the old men and women, joking with the guides, and smiling at the little children. He is patriarch of the valley, and nothing can be done without the advice of M. Balmat. After an ascent of two hours we arrived at at La Flégère, and saw before us the whole Mont Blanc range. For the first time we appreciated the height of the king himself. Now he towered above all the peaks. The names of most of the aiguilles and glaciers I knew. Balmat told us the rest in order. The Aiguille de Charmoz is still my favourite, guarding the entrance to the Mer de Glace. Here papa read ‘Come down, maid,’ from the  Princess. It was appropriate, for never were mountains better described than in that idyll.’

16 July 1862
‘The people of Milan are very unquiet to-night. They have been excited by a speech of Garibaldi, in which he denounced Napoleon, called him ‘traditore,’ ‘mosso da libidine,’ ‘capo di briganti, di assassini.’ The Milanese hate the French, and are beginning to weary of the Sardinian government, and because they have to pay heavier taxes they regret the Austrians. This promulgation of Garibaldi has roused them against France and Sardinia, and made them furious for a Republic. To-night they propose a demonstration; all the soldiers - cavalry, infantry, and National Guard - are in readiness to suppress it. While I was writing, a confused murmur reached our ears. We got up and ran to our window, which looks both up and down the street. Instantly we perceived that a large band of men, with lighted torches, were rapidly advancing up the street. A crowd formed in front of them. We saw men behind and at the sides. The bright red torches swayed about, burning and smoking with a glare upon the houses crowded with faces. Something seemed to interrupt their progress. A great noise arose, and the crowd increased. It was picturesque to see them toss their flambeaux up and down to make them shine, and in the distance each man looked like a shape of flame. Eschmann came up and told us that this was one of four divisions of the demonstration; 400 of another had been taken prisoners, and these were surrounded with soldiers. The soldiers forced them to break up, the crowd dropped away, and so ended the émeute. I often wondered what a demonstration meant. This is a pretty and picturesque specimen.’

12 April 1889
‘After some days of indecision, Catherine and I left Davos this morning for Sus by the Flégère. It was misty, yet I thought with the promise of a fine day in it. A large post and four passengers, and six luggage sledges, with only four drivers to all the ten horses. We were in the conductor’s sledge. Up to the Hospiz things went well, and the heat was absolutely awful. It burned more than I ever felt it burn, except upon the névé of a glacier in midsummer. A splendid liquid sky, full of the spring, seeming to portend storm. The road to Sus combines all the dangers of an Alpine road - avalanches, upsettings, falling stones; and they were all imminent to-day. When the first four sledges plunged into the great gallery I felt comparatively safe, but the rest did not arrive. After about ten minutes a fifth horse came plunging down the dark passage over the ice, with a pack-sledge and no driver. When he reached our train, he kept whinnying, neighing, and looking back as though to tell us that something had happened. We waited another five minutes, and still the rest did not arrive. The conductor had sent the chief postillion back. He could not leave the five horses alone in the tunnel - yet he was now anxious. Accordingly, I proposed to run back and see what had happened. The tunnel was pitch dark and as slippery as glass. It took me some time to slip along with my gouties on. When I emerged into the blaze of sunlight and snow, I saw nothing at first; then met Herr Lendi of Davos Dorfli walking to me. One of the sledges (with a driver) had been upset. The two passengers, a man and woman, and the postillion, had all been flung over a wall on to snow and rocks, and had fallen and rolled about fifty feet down the steep place. The woman was badly cut about the head; the young man, a Swiss, had sprained his hand; the postillion was all right.

‘Fortunately,’ added Lendi, ‘the horses and sledges remained above the wall, else they would all have been smashed together.’ I saw the girl, dazed and faint, and the place where she had fallen; then ran back to tell the conductor. But it was bad going in that tunnel with my gutta-percha shoes, and soon I heard the rest of the sledges come thundering into the pitch dark passage. I tried to keep close to a wall, and in moving shufflingly onward as fast as I could go, fell once heavily upon the rock and ice, bruising my right arm and loins. I did not think much of it at the time, being eager to get to my own sledge before the rest of the train arrived.

I ought to mention the curious optical phenomenon in this black gallery - black because fallen avalanches had stuffed up all its apertures with snow. On entering it, with eyes dazzled by the brilliance of the outer day, any object which caught a reflex of light from behind looked as green as emerald or sun-illuminated lake-water. In the middle there was no colour, nothing but night. Toward the end, when light again caught icicles and snow-heaps from the furthermost opening, these points shone bright crimson, as though a score of red Bengal lights had been lighted far ahead.

We reached Sus without further accidents. There, while I was talking to Herr Patt, I found that I had lost a ring from my watch-chain, to which was hung these objects - 1, funeral gold ring of John Symonds, my great-grandfather; 2, alliance ring of my great-grandfather and great-grandmother Sykes, two clasped hands opening, one heart inside; 8, a ring belonging to Admiral Sykes, with the name of his friend Captain Gathorne; 4, my father’s guard-ring; 5, my seal ring of bloodstone engraved with the crests of Symonds and Sykes; 6, my gondolier’s ring engraved with the arms of Symonds; 7, a Napoleon Rep. Fr. 1848; 8, a cow-bell given me by Patt.’

Thatcher gives a cuddle

Margaret Thatcher, one of Britain’s greatest 20th century prime ministers, has died aged 87. Undefeated through three general elections, she was revered across the nation by many and loathed by many others; internationally, though, she was a giant of her time, admired from Washington D.C. to Moscow. There is no evidence to date of Thatcher of being a diarist, but she is a major figure in the diaries of other political figures. Tony Benn and Alan Clark, at opposite ends of the political spectrum, were both dazzled by Thatcher, albeit in different ways; and Edwina Currie, well, she was a fan too, and when having to step down from her ministerial position was offered no less than a ‘cuddle’ by the Iron Lady.

Margaret Roberts was born in 1925, in Grantham, the daughter of a grocer, who was mayor of the town for some years. She went to a local school, becoming head girl in her last year, before entering Somerville College, Oxford, to study chemistry. There she became president of the university’s Conservative Association. She took a job as a research chemist in Colchester; but, through friends, successfully applied to be an election candidate for the Dartford Conservative Association in Kent. She failed to take Dartford from Labour in the 1950 and 1951 general elections, though attracted attention as the youngest and only female candidate. She married Denis Thatcher in 1951, and they had two children.

After qualifying as a barrister in 1953, Margaret Thatcher found a safe Conservative seat, and was elected an MP for Finchley in 1959. In 1961, Harold Macmillan promoted her to the front bench as a Parliamentary Undersecretary, and, after the 1964 election, she became the Opposition’s spokeswoman on Housing and Land, in which position she advocated a policy of allowing tenants to buy their council houses. In his administration, Edward Heath appointed Thatcher to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Education and Science. After the Conservatives lost power in 1974, Heath was unexpectedly replaced by Thatcher as leader, largely thanks to the support of the 1922 Committee.

Thatcher led the Conservatives back to power in 1979, and then won two more elections, in 1983 and 1987. She is remembered for, among other major developments, reforming the trades unions; the restructuring of the British economy, including privatisation of state-run companies; the Falklands War; the Anglo-Irish agreement; her firm Cold War stance with Ronald Reagan that eventually led to the fall of the Berlin Wall (it was a Soviet journalist that first called her the Iron Lady); signing the UK up to the Single European Market; the Council house right-to-buy scheme; and the Community Charge (also known as the poll tax).

In November 1990, during several days of high political drama, the Conservative Party tore itself apart in removing Thatcher as its leader, and then tried put itself back together with John Major as leader and prime minister. Thatcher returned to the back benches, until the next election, in 1992, when she retired from politics. Thereafter, she wrote two volumes of memoirs, took up a few appointments, and gave speeches, only occasionally giving her thoughts publicly on world affairs. In recent years, she suffered ill health, including dementia, and rarely attended public events. She died on 8 October 2013 at the Ritz Hotel where she had been staying since Christmas. The internet is currently awash with information about Thatcher, with almost every political personality and many others offering memories or opinions - see the BBC, The Guardian or Wikipedia.

However, as far as I know, no other media story is offering a diary angle, so here is a collection of extracts about Thatcher from famous diarists: from Tony Benn, on the left wing of the Labour Party; from Alan Clark on the right of the Conservative Party; and from Edwina Currie, one of the very few female politicians of the era who has published a diary. I have also appended a very short extract from my own diary: though I don’t now quite understand what I meant, it seems prescient with regard to how some would see Thatcher in future years.

From The Benn Diaries (Arrow Books, 1996):

15 May 1979
‘State Opening of Parliament. [ . . .] Mrs Thatcher made a most impassioned speech, from notes, except for one passage about Rhodesia which had been typed up no doubt on the insistence of the FO - the most rumbustious, rampaging, right-wing speech that I’ve heard from the government Front Bench in the whole of my life. Afterwards I saw Ted Heath and told him, “I’ve never heard a speech like that in all my years in Parliament.” He said, “Neither have I.” [. . .]

I said I had some sympathy with Thatcher - with her dislike of the wishy-washy centre of British politics. He gave me such a frosty look that I daresay I had touched a raw nerve.’

20 November 1990
‘To the House, and went into the Committee Corridor because I wanted to see what was happening in the first ballot for the Tory leadership - Michael Heseltine versus Margaret Thatcher. It is quite a historic event. By secret ballot, Tory MPs have the power to remove as Leader of their party a Prime Minister who has been elected three times by the British people. [. . .]

The Labour Party is of course keen to keep Thatcher, and Kinnock has put down a motion of censure against her, for Thursday, to try to consolidate Tory support around her. It is a disgrace that in eight years this is the first motion of censure against the government.’

21 November 1990
‘Mrs Thatcher arrived back from France. The rumour going round at the moment is that the men in grey suits went to see her to say, “Time to go.” [. . .]

In terms of stamina and persistence, you have to admit Margaret Thatcher is an extraordinary woman. She came out of Number 10 saying, “I fight on. I fight to win.” [. . .]

When Paddy Ashdown got up and said that the Paris Treaty was one of the great moments of the twilight of her premiership, she replied, “As for twilight, people should remember that there is a 24-hour clock”, which was a smashing answer. Kinnock tried to be statesmanlike but couldn’t manage it.’

22 November 1990
‘I was in the middle of an interview about the war in the Gulf for ‘Dispatches’ on Channel 4 when my secretary burst in to say Margaret Thatcher has resigned. Absolutely dazzling news, and it was quite impossible to keep my mind on the interview after that. So people have been to her and told her that she can’t win. She called the Cabinet together this morning and told them. But the motion of censure is still taking place this afternoon.

To the House, which was in turmoil. We had the censure debate, and Kinnock’s speech was flamboyant and insubstantial. When he was cross-examined about the European currency he simply couldn’t answer. Thatcher was brilliant. She always has her ideology to fall back on; she rolled off statistics, looked happy and joked.’

From Alan Clark - A Life in His Own Words (Phoenix, 2010)

28 April 1977
‘Had interview yesterday with Margaret Thatcher for first time. She sat, china-blue. Almost too text-book sincere. No intimacy. The half-finished sentences, the implied assumption, that mixture of Don, Colonel-of-the-Regiment, ‘Library’, which one gets from almost every other member of the Shadow - Pym, Willie, Gilmour - even the lower rank like Paul Channon and William Clark - totally absent

26 February 1980 [In the cafeteria in the House of Commons, after Thatcher had been interviewed by Robin Day for Panorama.]
‘But goodness, she is so beautiful; made up to the nines of course, for the television programme, but still quite bewitching, as Eva Peron must have been. I could not take my eyes off her and after a bit she, quite properly, would not look me in the face and I detached myself from the group with the excuse that I was going up to heckle Michael Foot who was doing the winding-up for Labour.’

21 November 1990
I was greeted with the news that there had been an announcement. “I fight, and I fight to win.” God alive! [. . .]

I passed her outer door and said to Peter that I must have a minute or so. He looked anxious, almost rattled, which he never does normally. [. . .]

I went down the stairs and rejoined the group outside her door. After a bit Peter said, “I can just fit you in now - but only for a split second, mind.”

She looked calm, almost beautiful. “Ah, Alan . . .”
“You’re in a jam.”
“I know that.”
“They’re telling you not to stand, aren’t they?”
“I’m going to stand. I have issued a statement.”
“That’s wonderful. That’s heroic. But the Party will let you down.”
“I am a fighter.”
“Fight, then. Fight right to the end, a third ballot if you need to. But you lose.”
There was quite a little pause.
“It’d be so terrible if Michael won. He would undo everything I have fought for.”
“But what a way to go! Unbeaten in three elections, never rejected by the people. Brought down by nonentities!”
“But Michael . . . as Prime Minister.”
“Who the fuck’s Michael? No one. Nothing. He won’t last six months. I doubt if he’d even win the Election. Your place in history is towering. . . ‘
Outside, people were doing that maddening trick of opening and shutting the door, at shorter and shorter intervals.
“Alan, it’s been so good of you to come in and see me . . .”
Afterwards I felt empty. And cross. I had failed, but I didn’t really know what I wanted, except for her still to be Prime Minister, and it wasn’t going to work out.

From Edwina Currie Diaries 1987-1992 (Little, Brown, 2002). The first of these extracts is about a meeting with Thatcher at which she was accepting Currie’s resignation over her controversial remarks about salmonella in British eggs.

21 December 1988
‘We went across to the Chief Whip’s office, round the back of Number 12, and cleared texts with David Waddingham and Bernard Ingham. I didn’t realise I could help write the PM’s letter [. . .] In I went; we ritualistically glanced at each other’s letters, then talked for half an hour. [. . .] Anyway I had been fine till the end of the interview and indeed have not felt very upset since - but then she gave me a cuddle and it creased me for a minute, and when I told her how I felt she said, “That is because we are friends”, and that was that. Out the back way, and whisked off to Ray’s [her husband] office.’

25 November 1990
‘Now the legend starts - the godhead Margaret. Her performance at Prime Minister’s Questions and in the No Confidence debate on Thursday afternoon was sheer magic. Out with a bang, not a whimper. It brought tears to the eyes of even those who wanted her out. Magnificent is the only word.’

Finally here is a very brief extract from my own diary: the first mention of Thatcher in my diaries. I’d been away from the UK for nearly three years and was travelling in Chile, then ruled by the dictator Augusto Pinochet.

29 September 1976
‘My thoughts are of home, going home, and how beautiful Chile is - with English pubs it could be paradise - you’d have to change government and put Margaret Thatcher in charge.’

A swarme of bees

Adam Winthrop, a lawyer and prosperous Suffolk landowner, died all of 390 years ago today. He is remembered partly because he kept a diary, and partly because his immediate descendants were leading figures in the development of colonies in Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Winthrop was born in 1548 in London but he spent some of his youth in Suffolk, where his father, also Adam (see picture), a master clothmaker, had purchased a manor at Groton. He studied at Magdalene, Cambridge, where he met John Still, and later married Alice Still. He trained for the law at the Inns of Court. In 1575, Winthrop was appointed steward of the college’s Kentish manors.

Alice died young, and Winthrop married Anne Browne, son of Henry Browne, a former clergyman of Groton. He acted as a minor landowner in his own right and as estate manager for his brother John, who had inherited Groton Manor, and performed legal services for local landowners. In 1592, he was appointed auditor of Trinity College and travelled regularly to Cambridge.

Over time, Winthrop acquired a theological library which he shared with clerical friends. He continued to correspond with John Still who became the Bishop of Bath and Wells. Winthrop died on 28 March 1623 at Groton. His son by Anne Browne, John, became a historically important figure - one of the founders of New England and the first Governor of Massachusetts - and Adam’s grandson, another John, was one of the founders of the Connecticut Colony. A little further information can be found from the DeLoria-Hurst family tree website, from Rootsweb, or the Miller-Anderson Histories.

Winthrop kept a diary which, because his son, John Winthrop, achieved such a high position in early American society, has proved of some historical importance. Indeed, extracts were published (by Tickner and Fields, Boston, 1864) in Life and Letters of John Winthrop by Robert C. Winthrop - which is freely available at Internet Archive - and in the so-called Winthrop Papers. Millersville University has used the diary to replicate Winthrop’s library. Further information about Winthrop’s diary can also be found in Francis Bremer’s book, John Winthrop - America’s Forgotten Founding Father, much of which can be read at Googlebooks.

Here is an extract from the opening pages of the published diary (in the Appendix of Life and Letters of John Winthrop).

‘Special matters & observations noted in the yere of our Lords God 1595: by me A. W.

This yere Corne was very scarce vntil haruest, notwithstanding yet there was muche wheate & rye brought into Inglande from by yonde the Seas, whereby the price of corne was abated.

Also al other kinde of vitaile was in the begynnynge of this yere sould at great prices.

On Whitsonday I had a great swarme of bees, and on Munday in Witsonweeke ther did come a swarme of bees flyeng ouer Castleynes heathe into Carters grounde. [There were many superstitions about bees in Suffolk County; and, among others, that bad luck was portended by a stray swarm of bees settling on one’s premises, unclaimed by their owner.]

The same day & tyme Mr. Gatcheroode, Mr. Walton, Mr. Th. Waldgraue, Mr. Clopton & my selfe were ther present about the bounding of the heathe.

On Thursday the 3. of July, Mr. Brampton Gurdon had a soonne borne to him: who was baptized on Sunday the 13 of July and named John. Sr Wm Waldegraue and old Mr. John Gurdon were godfathers: and the Lady Moore & olde Mris. Gurdon were godmoothers.

This yeare at ye Sommer assises, viz: 22 Julij 1595, diuers Justices of the Peace were put out of ye Comission by the Q. comandement [. . .]

This yere the viiith Day of July my brother Roger Alibaster, & my sister his wife wth their iij sones, George, John & Thomas, & Sara their daughter, tooke their iourny from Hadleigh to goe into Irelande.

The same day it Thundred, hailed & Rayned very sore.

Willm Alibaster their eldest soonne departed from my house towards Cambrige the ixth of July, malcontent.

This yere harvest began not wth vs vn till the xijth of August & contynued vntill the _ of September.

The 27 of August Mr. Hanam fell sicke & recouerd the iiijth of Sept. The same day my brother killed a brocke [badger] wth his hounds. [. . .]

The 3, 4 & 5 daies of October Sr Wm Waldegraue mustred all souldiors viz. 400, vppon a hill nere Sudbury.

The 8 day of October my wyfe rydde to her father at Pritlewell in Essex & returned the xxth.

The xth day of October Adam Seely retourned home, & the same day I Recd a lre from my L. of Bathe. [Dr John Still]

In the moneth of Octobre, Ano 1595, Sr Thomas Heneage died, Vir bonus & pius, & on the same day & monethe Philip, late Erle of Arundell died in the Tower of London.

The XXXth day of Octobre Richard Bronde of Boxford sherman [cloth worker] Departed out of this life, ano etatis 59.

The 7 of November the Erle of Hertford was comitted to the Tower.

The xiiijth of Decembre I receyved a lre from my brother Alibaster written from Tenby in Wales concernynge his ill successe in his Irisshe iourny.

The _ Day of January the butcher of Netherden woodde was cruelly murdered viz. his hed was cutt of & his body devided into iiij qrtrs & wrapt in a sheet & layd vpon his owne horse, as he came from Bury markett; & so brought home to his wyfe, who vppo the sight therof pntly died. [. . .]

The last of Aprill Sr J. Puckringe, L. keper of the great seale died of the deadde palsey.

The xth of May Grymolde of Nedginge did hange himselfe in his Barne.

The xvijth of May Adam Seely went privilie from my house & caried awaye xv he did steale from Richard Edwardes, pro quo facto dignus est capistro.

The xxviijth of May Mr. Pie of Colchester died suddenly.

The xjth of June Sr Wm Waldegraue trayned his whole band of footemen & horsemen on Babar heathe.

The 16 of June my brother Winthrop departed from my house towards Ireland, & my brother Alibaster went wth him.’

A laptop dancer

Happy 50th birthday Deborah Bull. One of Britain’s brightest arts talents, she started out as a dancer, achieving some fame, though progressed to be creative director at the Royal Opera House, and more generally an ambassador for dance. For a year she kept a diary - written for publication - during an extensive tour with The Royal Ballet. Pondering on her future, she writes in one entry about how, being too old for laptop dancing, she’s become a laptop dancer.

Deborah Bull was born in Derby on 22 March 1963, and brought up in Skegness, Kent. She learned dance locally from the age of seven, but on the recommendation of a teacher went to study at the Royal Ballet School. In 1980 she won the prestigious Prix de Lausanne competition. The following year she joined the Royal Ballet; and in 1992 she was appointed principal dancer.

In 1996, Bull took part in a debate about arts funding at the Oxford Union, and her performance as an eloquent and persuasive speaker was much praised. Thereafter, her dancing career was complemented by a more public life, as a speaker, writer and broadcaster. In 2002, she retired from the Royal Ballet, moving directly to become creative director for the Royal Opera House’s contemporary ballet division (ROH2). After much success in that role, she was appointed creative director of the Royal Opera House in 2008.

Bull left that position in 2012 to join King’s College London as executive director, King’s Cultural Institute. In this role, she says, she ‘provides leadership across the College to expand and enrich its cultural activites, partnership and collaborations’. Since 1998, when she was appointed to the Arts Council England board (serving until 2005), she has contributed widely to arts or arts-related organisations (including governor of the BBC, board member for South Bank Centre and Random Dance). Further biographical information is available from Wikipedia and The Guardian.

In 1998, Bull published her first book with Dorling Kindersley - The Vitality Plan - which was released in eight languages. Later the same year, Methuen published Dancing Away - A Covent Garden Diary - a personal journal kept by Bull during a world tour with the Royal Ballet (taking place while the Royal Opera House was being restructured). There is no introduction in the book, just a short epilogue at the end, which starts: ‘It’s just over a year since I started this diary, and what a year it has been. I have used up another passport, stamped with an itinerary which will have travel agents salivating at the thought of the commissions it earned. Touring in all its forms seems to have taken over my life; Royal Ballet tours, book tours, speaking tours, Rolls-Royce tours and always, in the background, Torje’s absence, on tour with the Rolling Stones. I can’t remember staying in one place for more than a few days.’

BBC Radio Four commissioned Bull to read extracts from the diary, and The Spectator reviewed it as ‘arguably the most amusing and fascinating dance book ever published’. Here are two extracts.

25 May 1997, Costa Mesa, California
‘Yesterday I set a new land speed record as the Bluebird in Sleeping Beauty. I do sometimes wonder what conductors are thinking of when they play around so much with the tempo. I don’t mind a bit of variety - spice of life and all that - but there comes a point when the choreography and the tempo can’t be reconciled, and the dancer, always at the mercy of the beat, is forced to compromise. Needless to say (but I’ll say it anyway) this conductor wasn’t one of ours.

Today I also broke new ground when I was applauded in the middle of a 45-second solo. The American audiences are much more vociferous about their feelings, and today they let it be known that they liked my pas de chats on to pointe in the ‘Violente’ solo. It cheered me up no end as I wasn’t particularly looking forward to switching solos. I feel much more at home in my normal variation, ‘Coulante’, but then I have been doing it for about twelve years.’

23 March 1998
‘Another year older. I have just filled in a survey on the tube and noticed that I have moved one box further in the great pigeon hole of life. I can no longer tick the 25-34 age group. I’ve moved into the 35-44 bracket. Blimey. How did that happen? Last time I looked I was 21.

I have also realised with a jolt that table dancing is out of the question as an alternative career. Today I bought The Stage, whose arts news has been bang on this year, in an effort to find word about the implications for us of Gordon Brown’s budget. No luck, so I flicked through the employment pages instead. All the adverts seeking dancers (mostly for cruise liners and clubs) stipulate that applicants must be under the age of 35. I’ve missed my chance. I guess I’m more of a laptop dancer than a lap dancer, so it’s no great hardship. I suppose there’s always a career for me as a touch typist.

I’m on my way home from a meeting with Sir Richard Eyre; the name becomes flesh at last. He’s a strikingly good-looking man with such an air of weariness that I wanted to gather him up and take him home for a hot dinner. I was suprised to have been asked to contribute to the ongoing debate over the Opera House’s future which will form the basis of his report. But apparently various people had assured him that he really must hear what I had to say on the matter.’

Poppies everwhere

Joseph Warren Stilwell, one of the US’s famous Second World War generals, was born 130 years ago today. He kept diaries for most his adult life, and although they have never, apparently, been published in print, the Hoover Institution has made them freely available on its website. They are dense, informally written in a quick staccato style, full of character and rich in detail of his busy army life.

Stilwell was born on 19 March 1883 in Palatka, Florida. His father, a doctor, brought him up with a disciplined regime, but he rebelled and became an unruly student. Eventually, he was entered in the US Military Academy at West Point, and, after graduating, returned to teach there. He married Winifred Smith in 1910 and they had five children. Having served in the Philippines, he worked with the American Expeditionary Force in Europe during World War I, as an intelligence officer, and was later awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. He also earned the nickname ‘Vinegar Joe’ for being a harsh critique of his subordinates.

After the war, Stillwell studied the Chinese language, and served in Tientsin in the 1920s and Peking in the 1930s. Just prior to World War II, he was initially selected to plan and command the Allied invasion of North Africa, but instead was assigned to Chiang Kai-Shek to command Chinese armies in Burma. He arrived in time to see the collapse of the Allied defence, and the Japanese cut Burma off from all land and sea supply routes to China, so he personally led his staff to Assam, India, on foot.

Through the Second World War, Stillwell served as commanding general of all US forces in China, Burma and India. He was appointed commander of the US 10th Army in the Pacific in August 1945 and received the surrender of more than 100,000 Japanese troops in the Ryuku Islands; and then was Commanding General of the Sixth US Army near San Franciso until his death in 1946. Biographies of Stillwell can be found at Wikipedia and the Military Hall of Honor.

Stillwell kept a diary for all his adult life. After his death, the manuscripts were deposited, along with the rest of his papers, at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Stillwell’s World War II diaries were the first to made available online on the Hoover Institution website, and subsequently the rest of the diaries - 1900-1939, 1945-1946 - were also made freely available. The Stillwell family retains the copyright, and the online versions are security coded to disallow text copying. However, I’m sure the family won’t mind me reproducing one entry from his service in France in 1919 during World War I which gives an excellent flavour of his informal and staccato - but nevertheless highly engaging - style.

Bertie in the Middle East

‘The anniversary of my Parents Wedding Day, what a sad day for poor Mama! We started at 10 A.M. sight seeing.’ This is Bertie, Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII writing in a diary during the first few days of a trip to the Middle East. The journey had been organised by his mother, Queen Victoria, who had never much liked her son, and partly blamed him for her husband Albert’s death. The diary has just been made available online - with images of the handwritten pages and a transcribed text - as part of an exhibition of mid-19th century photographs taken by Francis Bedford on the tour. Although biographers have had access to other of Bertie’s diaries, they are said to be scrappy and laconic, and none - as far as I know - have ever been published.

Albert Edward (always known to his family as Bertie) was born in 1841 in London, the eldest son of Victoria and her prince consort, Albert. Apart from various other titles, he was created Prince of Wales when one month old. From around the age of seven he was subjected to a strict educational programme devised by Prince Albert. He attended both Oxford and Cambridge universities, and in 1860 undertook the first tour of North America by an heir to the British throne. The following year he was serving with the army in Ireland, where he had a liaison with an actress that caused a major scandal. Prince Albert visited his son to admonish him, and died two weeks later. Queen Victoria held her son partly responsible for the death of his father. She withdrew almost completely from public life, and thereafter denied Bertie any control over affairs of state, court and the royal family. Soon after Albert’s death, Bertie was sent on an extensive tour of the Middle East.

In 1863, Bertie married Alexandra, eldest daughter of Denmark’s Prince Christian (later king), and they had five children that survived to adulthood. They established themselves at Marlborough House in London and Sandringham House in Norfolk, and entertained on a lavish scale. Bertie, indeed, played a free-and-easy part in London life, and travelled abroad often. He had many affairs, some causing scandals, and was a familiar figure in the worlds of racing, sailing and gambling. When Victoria died in 1901, Edward succeeded to the throne as Edward VII, and he set about trying to restore some splendour to the monarchy, starting with an elaborate coronation in 1902

Edward VII - nicknamed ‘Uncle of Europe’ - was related to most other Continental royal families, a circumstance that led him to travel abroad often to help Britain’s foreign policy. He was the first British monarch to visit Russia. At home, he supported the government’s major military reforms, and he founded the Order of Merit to reward those who distinguished themselves in science, art or literature. In the last year of his life, King Edward was involved in a constitutional crisis brought about by the refusal of the Conservative majority in the Lords to pass the Liberal budget of 1909. He died in May 1910, before the situation could be resolved, and was succeeded by his son who became George V. There is no shortage of biographical information online, from the British Monarchy website, Wikipedia, the BBC, or from biography reviews at The Guardian or The New York Times.

Bertie was certainly a diarist, if only an occasional one. None of his journals have been published, but several biographers quote from, or mention, them. In describing his sources in The Importance of Being Edward - King in Waiting 1841-1901 (John Murray, 2000), Stanley Weintraub says: ‘King Edward’s diary survives at Windsor and is quoted by biographers and editors; however it is scrappy and usually laconic.’ Now, though, The Royal Collection Trust, established in 1993 by the Queen and chaired by Prince Charles, has made one of Bertie’s diaries, of a trip to the Middle East, freely available online. The online publication - which was given little publicity of its own - is part of a bigger event, an exhibition of early photographs from the Middle East: Cairo to Constantinople.

According to the organisers: ‘This exhibition documents the Prince of Wales’ journey through the work of Francis Bedford, the first photographer to travel on a royal tour. It explores the cultural and political significance Victorian Britain attached to the region, which was then as complex and contested as it remains today. The tour took the Prince to Egypt, Palestine and the Holy Land, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey and Greece. He met rulers, politicians and other notable figures, and travelled in a manner unassociated with royalty - by horse and camping out in tents. On the royal party’s return to England, Francis Bedford’s work was displayed in what was described as “the most important photographic exhibition that has hitherto been placed before the public”.’

The following extracts are taken directly from the online exhibition.

10 February 1862
‘The anniversary of my Parents Wedding Day, what a sad day for poor Mama! We started at 10 A.M. sight seeing. We went first to the Palace which is a handsome building. The “Shönheits Gallerie” is well worth seeing, & the portraits are well painted, the pictures of Lady Ellenborough & Lady Milbanke (wh. are amongst them) are very good. The Ballroom is very handsome & so is the “Shlachten Saal.” The Queen was kind enough to receive me in her boudoir, wh. was very prettily arranged. She seems a very nice person, & must have been very pretty; I also made the acquaintance of her two sons, who seem nice, unaffected lads. We saw the two Theatres wh. adjoin the Palace, & a very pretty “Winter garten” with foreign plants & birds in it. From the Palace we visited the studios of Kaulbach, Pilaty [sic], Shraudolph [sic], Anschütz & Schwind. The two first are the two most celebrated painters. Kaulbach, showed us a beautiful fresco of the “Reformation” wh. he is painting & also a completed fresco of the “Battle of Salamis” wh. I admired immensely. Piloty, who painted the celebrated picture of Nero at the burning of Rome, which I saw last year at the Exhibition of pictures at Cologne, had not much in his studio, but the few things he had, we admired very much. We divided our day by lunching at 1.50. & Count Perponcher, who is now Prussian Minister at Munich, came to luncheon. After having eaten our fill, we proceeded in carriages to see the “Bavaria,” which is a monster female figure in bronze, cast out of the French guns wh. were taken in 1814 & 15. We went up inside the figure, & 7 of us could sit in the head, & 2 in the nose & eyes. From thence we visited the studio of Adam who paints animals, & very well too, we looked into Schwantaler’s [sic] studio were [sic] there were some good statues, but he was not at home. We then saw the Basilica, a very beautiful Church in Bysantine [sic] architecture, with a good deal of gold inside; it was built by King Louis of Bavaria (who has now abdicated) before going home we saw some excellent photographs, at a photographers called Albert. Mr. Bonar dined with us - & after dinner Louis, Keppel, Meade & I took a short walk. There was a very pretty ball going on at our Hotel, & Louis & I peeped into the room fr. a staircase, it seemed very gay & the ladies were well dressed & were decidedly pretty.’

21 May 1862
‘In the forenoon I wrote letters to England, wh. occupied all my time till luncheon. At 3 o’clock we rode to the Arsenal, with Sir H. Bulwer. The Capidan Pasha received us, & we had pipes & coffee. We then went into a Caique belonging to the Sultan wh. he has put at my disposal & we visited another part of the Arsenal, wh. is small but seems tolerably complete. We then took leave of the Capidan Pasha, got into our Caique & rode [sic] down the Golden Horn into the Bosphorus & went on board to see the Turkish ship that had met us at the Dardanelles. We remained a short time on board & then went ashore, not far off fr. the Sultan’s Palace, got on our horses again & rode back to the Embassy thro’ part of the town. In the evening [. . the] Sultan’s band played during dinner & very well.’

27 May 1862
‘At about 10.30. E. Leiningen Moore & I went to the Photographic Studio of M. Abdullah & were photographed (very successfully) “en carte de visite.” Abdullah, did took another photograph at the Embassy of a group of Sir H. & Lady Bulwer & all his staff, & myself & my suite. [. . .] At 4.30. we left the Embassy after having taken leave of Lady Bulwer. We then rode down to the landing place near Tophané Mosque, & were rowed about in our caiques passed past Seraglio Point; at a little after 6 we went on board the “Osborne” & took leave there of Sir H. Bulwer & all the Attachés &c. At 6.30. we wished Constantinople adieu, & steamed slowly down the Bosphorus leaving the beautiful town gradually in the distance, after having spent there a most agreeable week.’

9 June 1862
‘At Sea – A lovely day. A[t] 7. A.M. we had a bathe from the ship, in spite of one of the sailors telllin telling us that a shark of 10 feet long had been seen. In the middle of the day, we went through the “Passage de L’Ours” past the Island of Caprera, & saw Garibaldi’s house in the distance, & then passed thro’ the Straits of Bonnifacio.’