When all the guests had departed, I bade good-bye to my friend and his sorrow-stricken relatives. Within fifteen minutes I reached Laoag, and was once more safe in the hands of a brother with whom I spent a pleasant three weeks' sojourn.
—Fernando M. Maramág.
CHAPTER VIII
PERSONAL ACCOUNTS
Within the group of personal accounts come the more-or-less extended records of the sayings and doings of men and women in their most acute individuality. It is intimate, detailed living that is expressed in a diary, in memoirs, or a biography. These have a peculiar charm. We expect endearing things in a diary, interesting ones in an autobiography, and, if not surprisingly informing, then surely upright and praiseworthy ones, often patriotic, in a biography.
I. Journal and Diary
Definition
As words, journal and diary mean the same thing. They both denote a daily record. Journal comes immediately from the French jour meaning day, and remotely from the same Latin word from which we get diurnal. Diary comes directly from the Latin dies. If there be any difference in the use of the titles, it lies in the object the maker of the daily record has in mind. A journal is written for a reader. A diary is kept for the writer's own amusement or profit. Both mix little and great affairs promiscuously.
The range of journals