"Every man is an inexhaustible treasury of human personality. He can go on burrowing in it for an eternity if he has the desire - and a taste for introspection. I like to keep myself well within the field of the microscope, and, with as much detachment as I can muster, to watch myself live, to report my observations of what I say, feel, think. In default of others, I am myself my own spectator and self-appreciator - critical, discerning, vigilant, fond! --- I never cease to interest myself in the Gothic architecture of my own fantastic soul." (The Journal of a Disappointed Man)

This week I read The Journal of a Disappointed Man by W.N.P. Barbellion, my third book for 52 Books in 52 Weeks. The Journal was recently re-published by Little Toller Books in the UK and is also available in the public domain via Google Books and the Internet Archive. It has been called a "masterpiece of personal observation," likened to the work of writers such as Franz Kafka and James Joyce, and was described by Ronald Blythe as "among the most moving diaries ever created."

W.N.P. Barbellion was the nom-de-plume of Bruce Frederick Cummings (7 September 1889 - 22 October 1919). The initials W.N.P. stood for Wilhelm Nero Pilate, whom the author thought to be the most despicable people in history (Wilhelm being Kaiser Wilhelm the II since the diaries were published during the First World War). Barbellion was a name above a shop in South Kensington that Cummings passed every day.

The Journal begins in 1903 when the author is 13 years old. His brother would later recall:

"He read all kinds of books, from Kingsley to Carlyle, with an insatiable appetite. It was about this time, too, that he began those long tramps into the countryside, over the hills to watch the staghounds meet, and along the broad river marshes, that provided the beginnings and the foundation of the diary habit, which became in time the very breath of his inner life.

In these early years, I remember, the diary took the outward form of an old exercise book, neatly labelled and numbered, and it reflected all his observations on nature. The records, some of which were reproduced from time to time in The Zoologist, were valuable not only in their careful exactitude, but for their breadth of suggestion, and that inquiring spirit into the why of things which proved him to be no mere classifier or reporter. They were the outcome of long vigils of concentrated watching."

He taught himself how to dissect, and afterwards his patient and unerring skill surprised his examiners. "Scientists and naturalists of repute--reading his published records of observations--called upon him and were puzzled to find him a mere boy." By the time he was fourteen, "his fixed determination to become a naturalist by profession was accepted by all of us as a settled thing." (A.J. Cummings, A Last Diary)

Despite being almost entirely self-taught, in October 1911 he placed first in an examination for a position at the British Museum of Natural History in London, and in January 1912 commenced an assistantship there.


"For an unusually long time after I grew up, I maintained a beautiful confidence in the goodness of mankind. Rumours did reach me, but I brushed them aside as slanders. I was an ingénu, unsuspecting, credulous." (The Journal of a Disappointed Man)

Gradually, as his ambitions began to change, his writing evolved from the dry scientific notes of the earlier Journal into something more personal and literary (and hence, imminently more readable!).

"He wrote down instinctively and by habit his inmost thoughts, his lightest impression of the doings of the day, a careless jest that amused him, an irritating encounter with a foolish or a stupid person, something newly seen in the structure of a bird's wing, a sunset effect. It was only on rare occasions that he deliberately experimented with forms of expression." (A.J. Cummings, A Last Diary)

There is an element of despair throughout the Journal as he struggled with chronic ill-health (and a fair amount of hyperchondria), and also occasional bouts of depression. "Chronically sub-normal" was how he once described his condition to his brother. In London, he grew slowly and steadily worse and, upon the advice of his brother saw a "first-class nerve specialist" who promptly diagnosed him with what we now call multiple sclerosis. Yet the decision was made not to tell him the true nature of his illness, so as not to precipitate his demise.

In October of 1914, he discovered the Journal of the Russian painter Marie Bashkirtseff (1858–1884). “I am simply astounded," he writes. “It would be difficult in all the world’s history to discover any two persons with temperaments so alike. She is the ‘very spit of me’!”  This seems to have inspired his decision, in December of that year, to "prepare and publish a volume of this Journal."

The diaries, up through the winter of 1917 were eventually published in March 1919 and the book was an immediate sensation (though many believed it was a work of fiction, written by H.G. Wells who had written book's preface). A later journal entitled A Last Diary was published after his death in 1919, as well as a book of essays, Enjoying Life and Other Literary Remains.

"I do not think that there can be two minds about the great literary qualities and the poignant interest of his one tragic work. It is a book that is continually sought and steadily reprinted – the story of a soul in the grip of the obscure and pitiless arterial [sic] disease that finally killed him, resolved to find expression and a use for itself in the ever darkening shadow of death. 'Barbellion’s Diary' I am convinced will still be read with interest, curiosity and sympathy, when most of the larger more fluid successes of to-day have passed out of attention." (H. G. Wells, letter to Barbellion’s widow, 8 September 1925, Source)

"For as long as his remarkable journal is published he will live with it, his constrained existence celebrated for the courage that so brightly distinguishes it." (William Trevor, “On the Shelf”, Sunday Times, 5 November 1995, Source)

"To me the honour is sufficient of belonging to the universe — such a great universe, and so grand a scheme of things. Not even Death can rob me of that honour. For nothing can alter the fact that I have lived; I have been I, if for ever so short a time. And when I am dead, the matter which composes my body is indestructible—and eternal, so that come what may to my 'Soul,' my dust will always be going on, each separate atom of me playing its separate part — I shall still have some sort of a finger in the pie. When I am dead, you can boil me, burn me, drown me, scatter me — but you cannot destroy me: my little atoms would merely deride such heavy vengeance. Death can do no more than kill you." (The Journal of a Disappointed Man)

Cicely Mary Hamilton was born Cicely Hammill in Paddington, London on June 15, 1872. Her father was an army captain serving abroad, and her mother disappeared from her life when she was ten (it is thought she was committed to an asylum). Raised by foster parents, she was educated at a private boarding school in Malvern and at Bad Homburg vor der Höhe, a small spa town in Germany.

After school, she had a brief stint as a student teacher, which she disliked immensely. In 1897, she found work as an actress with a touring company led by Edmund Tearle, and in 1906 wrote her first play, The Traveller Returns. Also at this time, she  became involved with Emma Pankhurst's Women's Social and Political Union, the leading women's suffrage organization in Britain, and in 1907, Charlotte Despard's Women's Freedom League.

In 1908, the success of her play, Diana of Dobson's (subsequently adapted as a novel), brought her fame, making her an ideal candidate for public speaking. Thus, she became active on the lecture circuits as a popular and well-respected representative of  the women's suffrage movement. That same year, she co-founded the Women Writers' Suffrage League and was instrumental in organizing the Actresses' Franchise League.


At the outbreak of the Great War, she joined the Scottish Women's Hospital Unit, and in 1917 joined the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps. It was from an army tent, within the sound of guns and shells, where she wrote William, an Englishman: "written in a rage in 1918; this extraordinary novel... is a passionate assertion of the futility of war" (Persephone Books). The novel was an immediate success and earned her the Femina-Vie Heureuse prize for 1919.

After the war Cicely Hamilton became a freelance journalist working for newspapers such as the Daily Mail, the Daily Mirror and the Daily Express. She was also a regular contributor to the feminist journal, Time and Tide where she campaigned for free birth control advice for women and the legalization of abortion. In 1922, she published her final novel, Theodore Savage, though she continued to write plays and non-fiction. She was a friend of EM Delafield and was portrayed in The Provincial Lady Goes Further (1932) as "Emma Hay." She died from heart failure in her London home, following a prolonged illness, on December 5, 1952.

William, an Englishman is the story of William Tully, a "mild-mannered, pale-faced, and under-sized" young insurance clerk turned Social Reformer with "an honest and fiery passion for Justice, Right and Progress." He meets and, on July 23, 1914, marries Griselda Watkins, "his exact counterpart in petticoats; a piece of blank-minded, suburban young-woman-hood caught into the militant suffrage movement and enjoying herself therein."

"Their standard of conduct was rigid and their views were pronounced; those who did not share their views and act in conformity with their standards were outside the pale of their liking. And this not because they were abnormally or essentially uncharitable, but because they had lived for so long less as individuals than as members of organizations - a form of existence which will end by sucking charity out of the sweetest heart alive.

It was well for them, therefore, that their creed, like their code of manners and morals was identical or practically identical. It was a simple creed and they held to it loyally and faithfully. They believed in a large, vague and beautifully undefined identity, called by William the People, and by Griselda, Woman; who in the time to come was to accomplish much beautiful and undefined good; and in whose service they were prepared meanwhile to suffer any amount of obloquy and talk any amount of nonsense. They believed that Society could be straightened and set right by the well-meaning efforts of well-meaning souls like themselves - aided by the Ballot, the Voice of the People, and Woman. They believed, in defiance of the teachings of history, that Democracy is another word for peace and goodwill towards men."

"With regard to what used to be called culture (before August, 1914), the attainments of William and Griselda were very much on a level. They read newspapers written by persons who wholly agreed with their views; they read pamphlets issued, and books recommended, by societies of which they were members. From these they quoted, in public and imposingly, with absolute faith in their statements. Of history and science, of literature and art, they knew nothing, or next to nothing; and, their ignorance being mutual, neither bored the other by straying away from the subjects in which both were interested."

To be perfectly honest, I was ready to toss this book after the first two chapters because William and Griselda annoyed me to no end. However, I decided that since Persephone had declared it "one of the greatest novels about war ever written," I should persevere.


William and Griselda choose an isolated location for their three week honeymoon: a tiny cabin deep in the Belgium Ardennes, entirely shut off from the outside world.  Ironically, the would-be internationalists do not know that war has just been declared.

For a time, all is perfectly blissful, but then they decide that perhaps life is "too peaceful," and that the Cause is calling them back home. They agree on a speedy departure, resolving to leave on the following day. As they set off the next morning, they find the farmhouse of Madame Peys (who had been cooking their meals) abandoned. Slightly disturbed by this, they eventually decide to walk to the nearest village, only to find it occupied by German soldiers. It is then that an English-speaking soldier informs them of the war and they are taken prisoner:

"Neither William nor Griselda had ever entertained the idea of a European War; it was not entertained by any of their friends or their pamplets. Rumors of war they had always regarded as foolish and malicious inventions set afloat in the interests of Capitalism and Conservatism with the object of diverting attention from Social Reform or the settlement of the Woman Question; and to their ears, still filled with the hum of other days, the announcement of Heinz was even such a foolish invention. Nor, even had they given him credence, would they in these first inexperienced moments have been greatly perturbed or alarmed; their historical ignorance was so profound, they had talked so long and so often in terms of war, that they had come to look on the strife of nations as a glorified scuffle on the lines of a Pankhurst demonstration."

The novel continues with their subsequent confrontation of the brutal realities of war, but I won't go into further detail for fear of spoiling the story. I must say that, in the end, I loved this book, and actually found myself feeling enormously sympathetic for William and Griselda. It has remained with me in a way that very few books do, and given me much to think about.

The book is available from Persephone Books, or in the public domain via Google Books. More information about the Battle of the Ardennes, which was fought between August 21-23, 1914 can be found here.


It was quite interesting to me that the book seemed to criticize or polk fun at many aspects of a cause which formerly was a central part of Cicely Hamilton's life. However, on closer examination, I realized how deeply she identified with the plight of William and Griselda and how this book, "written in a rage," reflected her own anger and disullionment. That involvement in the war caused her significant distress is apparent in much of her writing.

"Those who struggled hardest against the acceptance of the War-Fact of 1914 were, naturally enough, those who had fiery little battles of their own to fight, and whose own warfare was suddenly rendered null and incompetent by a sudden diversion of energy and interest in the face of the national danger. The war was the successful rival of their own, sectional strife, overshadowing its importance and sucking the life from its veins." (William, an Englishman)

She responded to the 1918 Representation of the People Act (allowing British women the right to vote) with a sense of disinterested fatigue. In Life Errant, her 1935 autobiography, she wrote:

"What use was the vote as a weapon against German guns, submarines and Gothas? The problem of the moment was to keep ourselves alive, and while a people engaged in a life-and-death struggle, it is apt to lose interest in matters which yesterday were of sufficient importance to raise it to a fury of dispute...I remember - how well I remember - receiving official intimation that my name had been placed on the register of the Chelsea electorate. I was in Abbeville at the time, and, as the post arrived, a battery of Archies began to thud; an enemy aeroplane was over taking photographs. I remember thinking, as I read the notice, of all that suffrage had meant for us, a year or two before! ...and that now, at this moment of achieved enfranchisement, what really interested me was not the thought of voting at the next election, but the puffs of smoke that the Archies sent after the escaping planes."  (Suffrage Discourse in Britain During the First World War by Angela K. Smith)

After taking a month or so to focus solely on Math and Language Arts (with a little Nature Study thrown in), next week we'll be returning to our usual school work. In History, we will resume our study of the Middle Ages by spending a week on the West African kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai. Below are some of the resources I've found, many of which we'll be using.

• DVD: [Geography] BBC Atlas of National History: Wild Africa: Includes six episodes: Mountains, Savannah, Deserts, Coasts, Jungles, Lakes and Rivers.
• Board Games: 10 Days in Africa (BGG), Through the Desert (BGG), Timbuktu (BGG)
• Website: The Story of Africa: West African Kingdoms (BBC)

Books

• Africa: Geography & Environments (National Geographic World Regions) by Sherilin Chanek (Study Guide here)
• Ancient West African Kingdoms: Ghana, Mali, and Songhai by Mary Quigley (preview here) 
• The Royal Kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, and Songhay: Life in Medieval Africa by Patricia & Frederick McKissack (preview here)
• Mansa Musa: The Lion of Mali by Khephra Burns (preview here)
• Traveling Man: The Journal of Ibn Battuta 1325-1354 by James Rumford

Curriculum

• Exploring Africa! Classroom Activities
• A Golden Age: Three West African Empires (.PDF)
• A Hidden History: The West African Empires before the Atlantic Slave Trade (.PDF)
• West African Empires (PowerPoint Presentation)
• West African Geography, Climate, History (.PDF)
• Measuring the Travels of Two Adventurers: Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta + Handouts (.PDF) (GR 6-8 / Math)
• Ibn Battuta Worksheet ("A Visit to Mali")
• FINAL PROJECT: Medieval African Kingdoms Promotional Campaign
• Ghana: Medieval Trading Empire of West Africa (preview here), $14.95
• Unit 2, "African Roots" from Focus on U.S. History: The Era of Exploration and Discovery by Kathy Sammis, $25.00 (preview here)
• Document Based Activities: Medieval Africa, $13.45-16.95
• [Mr. Donn & Maxie's] Ancient and Medieval Africa, $23.95-29.95