A journal, of course, is likely to treat of a fewer number of trivial things than is a diary, and oftener the less personal, though Swift's wonderful "Journal to Stella," written in the little language and meant for "no eye but hers and the faithful Dingley's" is as personal as can be. James Madison's stately record of the American Constitutional Convention stands at the antipodes, we might say; and Hesdin's "Journal of a Spy in Paris during the Reign of Terror," far off to the right perhaps; and the Swiss poet, Henri Fréderic Amiel's private philosophical and moral reflections, his "Journal Intime," far to the left. In the middle might come the travelers' journals—like Fielding's "Voyage to Lisbon" and Montaigne's "Voyage in Italy," or even John C. Fremont's soldier explorations—as typical of the daily record that is personal, yet not intensely so, and is written to be read.
A quaint and at once extremely romantic travel-journal of this sort is the Vida del Gran Tamurlan, perhaps the oldest piece of travel writing in Spanish literature. It is the daily record of the voyages and residences of the ambassadors of Henry the Third on a diplomatic mission to Tamburlane the Great—that same old Tartar potentate and conqueror whom Marlowe made immortal by putting into his mouth those high-astounding terms and that flowing blank verse, which so exactly suited his character as well as Marlowe's own. The adventures of this embassy were minutely written down by Ruy Gonsalez de Clavijo from May, 1403, when it started, to March, 1406, when it returned. In the report he describes the city of Constantinople which the ambassadors passed through when it was at the height of its tottering greatness. An incident recorded is very quaint. These fifteenth century public servants, extremely human and not at all unlike our modern ones, were desirous when off on special business not only to serve their government well but also to do as much sight-seeing on their own account as possible. Hence they haunted the churches and other places of relics. But one day they failed to see all they wished to in the church of San Juan de la Piedra, and for the following reason, bless you! "The Emperor went to hunt, and left the keys with the Empress his wife, and when she gave them she forgot to give those where the said relics were, etc., etc." Delicious episode! Exactly the essence of this type of narrative. It makes one suspect that despite all the pompous history that has been got together about them the kings and queens of old were really human beings. But Clavijo was writing a journal as well as a diary, for he tells us of bigger things. He and his two friends go on to Samarcand and find the great Conqueror and experience his lavish hospitality in a series of magnificent festivals, but, strange to say, witness also his death; at least he dies when they are at his court, and Clavijo tells of the troubles the embassy had therefore in getting ready to return. Argote de Molina, in 1582, a hundred and seventy-six years later, wrote a discourso upon Clavijo and got out the first public edition of this journal, which, for the sake of sales probably, he called "The Life of the Great Tamerlane," a thing it was not, but only partly. Marlowe wrote his "Tamburlane" in 1586 or 1587. He might well have seen Clavijo's journal.
Great diaries
Diary is for the most part more intimate, more private than journal, though a diary need not necessarily be private. In fact a writer of such a record sometimes hands it about among his friends—that is, part of it. Other parts he invariably keeps to himself, either never to be read by another or to be read only after the writer has ceased to live or has ceased to care about the effect of his words. The astoundingly frank and intimate diary of the famous Samuel Pepys, kept up by him through the first nine years of the Restoration, has only just now reached its complete publication. Details at first suppressed for one reason or another have, as they have been made public from time to time, gradually changed the world's conception of the character of this bustling servant of the crown. And not strange to say; for a diary of all forms of writing is the most revealing. John Evelyn, the friend and patron of Pepys, wrote himself down no less surely a non-genius than Pepys wrote himself a genius. They both, however, give us, in addition to a knowledge of their personal affairs, invaluable pictures of the men and doings of their day. Fanny Burney's "Diary," egotistical and minute, but one of the great books of literature, is a gallery of portraits of the late eighteenth century celebrities—King George and Queen Charlotte, Reynolds, Burke, Dr. Johnson, Mrs. Thrale, Garrick, and many others—all her friends. Gideon Welles's "Diary," which appeared in the Atlantic Monthly during 1909-10, though, like that of Pepys, an account of public matters, was, like that of Pepys, a private account not meant to be seen at the time. All these records have their value for late readers in their honesty and minuteness. It is on such revelations that we depend for our correct conception of by-gone affairs.
A diary or a journal, then, is first of all a narrative of real events. Fiction in this form, like Defoe's "Journal of the Plague" or the diary parts of Charles Reade's "Cloister and the Hearth," is so for the sake of the verisimilitude.
Writing the type
If you wish to write a journal, you might imagine yourself sending it across the ocean to some relative or acquaintance who cares to know about the doings of you yourself, your family, your friends, your community. You may reflect your own sentiments and those of others; you may give anecdotes, eye-witness accounts, reports, hear-says, incidents, opinions, explanations, and bare facts. You may touch upon your pleasures, your joys, and even your troubles; but your vexations and regrets you would surely reserve for your diary.
If you write a diary, you should be frank and absolutely natural. Any playing to the gallery is a denial of the whole tone of diary. You may be ever so selfish and egotistical, or ever so trivial and vain, if you are only honest. If we feel that you are recording exactly what you think, revealing exactly what is, we shall read you with delight, so seldom does one man get at the real thought of another. You may even be pious—a most severe trial on a reader's interest—and we will follow you so long as you are sincere.