The Diary for 1890 begins with a careful record of work and events, noted daily till mid February when it ceases, to be resumed more fitfully in September and October. The year is prefaced with the motto:
“C’est à ce lendemain sevère que tout artiste sérieux doit songer.”—Sainte Beuve.
The following more important entries tell where and how the monograph was written and what other work he had on hand:
“Jan. 2nd.—Wrote the first 3 or 4 pages (tentative) of ‘Browning’: or rather the retrospective survey. Had a present of a fine Proof Etching from Ford Madox Brown of his Samson and Delilah (framed) as ‘A New Year’s Card.’ Also from Theodore Roussel, three fine proof Etchings, also autograph copies of books from H. Harland, Mrs. Louise C. Moulton, and ‘Maxwell Gray.’ Also a copy of his Balzac from Wedmore. In the evening there dined with us Mrs. E. R. Pennell (Mr. P. unable to come). H. Harland and Mrs. Harland: Mona and Caird. Roussel could not come till later. Had a most delightful evening. ‘The psychic sense of rhythm is the fundamental factor in each and every art.’”—W. S.
“Jan. 2nd.—(1) Wrote Chapter of The Ordeal of Basil Hope. (2) Article on Haggard’s new book for Young Folk’s Paper. ‘The truest literary criticism is that which sees that nowhere, at no time, in any conceivable circumstances is there any absolute lapse of intellectual activity, so long as the nation animated thereby is not in its death throes.’”—W. S.
“What exquisite music there is in the lines of Swinburne’s in ‘A Swimmer’s Dream’ (in this month’s New Review).”
“Jan. 3rd.—(1) Wrote chapter of Ordeal of Basil Hope. Finished it by 12.30. Then went to R. Academy Press-View and spent two hours or so in the Galleries. While walking back to Club from Charing Cross thought out some opening sentences for Browning, leading to the wave-theory, beginning—‘In human history, waves of intellectual activity concur with other dynamic movements. It used to be a formula of criticism, etc.’ (wrote down a couple of Pages at Club). ‘Death is a variation, a note of lower or higher insistence in the rhythmical sequence of Life.’”—W. S.
“Jan. 4th.—(1) Wrote article of 2,500 words upon Balzac (for The Scottish Leader). (2) Short ‘London Correspondence’ for G. H. The profoundest insight cannot reach deeper than its own possibilities of depth. The physiognomy of the soul is never visible in its entirety—barely ever even its profile. The utmost we can expect to produce (perhaps even to perceive, in the most quintessential moment), is a partially faithful, partially deceptive silhouette. Since no human being has ever yet seen his or her own soul, absolutely impartially and in all its rounded completeness of good and evil, of strength and weakness, of what is temporal and perishable and what is germinal and essential, how can we expect even the subtlest analyst to depict other souls than his own. Even in a savage there must be dormant possibilities, animal and spiritual traits of all kinds, which could to a deeper than any human vision (as we can conceive it) so colour and modify an abstract ‘replica’ as to make it altogether unlike the picture we should draw.”—W. S.
“Jan. 5th.—The first thing the artist should cultivate if not strongly dowered in this respect by Nature, is Serenity. A true Serenity—what Wilfred Meynell, writing of Browning, in the Athenæum of Friday, calls ‘detachment’—is one of the surest inspirers and preservatives of that clarified psychic emotion which, in compelled or propelled expressional activity, is the cause of all really creative work. This true serenity is, of course, as far removed from a false isolation of spirit or a contemptuous indifference, as from constant perturbation about trifles and vulgar anxiety for self.”—W. S.
“Jan. 6th.—Felt very unwell this morning.... Heard from Dr. Garnett of the death last night of Dr. Westland Marston. (1) Wrote a portion of second series of ‘Fragments from the Lost Journal of Piero di Cosimo’ (one of a series of Imaginary portraits I am slowly writing for magazine publication in the first instance). (2) ‘London Letter’ Reminiscences of Dr. Marston, etc.”