“My own life as it unrolls itself day by day is a source of constant amazement, delight and pain. I can think of no more interesting volume than a distilled, intimate, psychological history of my own life. I want a perfect comprehension at least of myself. We are all such egoists that a sorrow or hardship—provided it is great enough—flatters our self-importance.”
At the age of twenty-five Barbellion had reached the depth of depression and discouragement.
“I have peered into every aspect of my life and achievement and everything I have seen nauseates me. My life seems to have been a wilderness of futile endeavour. I started wrong from the very beginning. I came into the world in the wrong place and under the wrong conditions. As a boy I was preternaturally absorbed in myself and preternaturally discontented. I harassed myself with merciless cross examinations.”
A year later he checked up on such moods and said,
“My sympathy with myself is so unfailing that I don't deserve anybody else's. In many respects, however, this Journal I believe gives the impression that I behave myself in the public gaze much worse than I actually do.”
Man is invariably judged finally by his conduct. Opinion is often formed of him from what he says, but the last analysis is a review and estimate of the several activities which together constitute conduct. Conduct is the pursuit of ends. The conduct that is conditioned by taking thought does not by any means embrace all one's activities. The biological discoveries of the latter half of the Nineteenth Century showed conclusively that the ultimate end to which all life is directed and toward which every living being strives is the continuation of the race to which the individual belongs. Life becomes, therefore, a trust, not a gift, and the only way in which the obligation it entails can be discharged is by transmitting life to a new generation. Barbellion had bodily characteristics which permit the biologist to say that his gonadal redex was dominant, and throughout the diary there are frequent entries showing that, despite his shyness, self-consciousness, and lack of “Facility” (using the word in its Scottish sense), the opposite sex made profound appeal to him. His conduct from early youth would seem to indicate that he held with the Divine Poet—
“—In alte dolcezze
Non si puo gioir, se non amando.”
But his love was evanescent and he was continually asking himself if it was real or but the figment of desire.
“To me woman is the wonderful fact of existence. If there be any next world and it be as I hope it is, a jolly gossiping place with people standing around the mantelpiece and discussing their earthly experiences, I shall thump my fist on the table as my friends turn to me on entering and exclaim in a loud voice, 'Woman!'”
Here and there in the “Journal” there are entries which would indicate that his conduct with women transgressed conventions, though perhaps in harmony with custom. When he was twenty-five he went to see the “Irish Play Boy,” and sitting in front of him was a charming little Irish girl, accompanied by a man whose appearance and manner were repulsive. He flirted with her successfully. Later, haunted with the desire to meet her, he sent a personal advertisement to a newspaper hoping that her eye would encounter it. The advertisement and the money were returned, as it was suspected that he was a white slave trafficker. His admiration of the Don Juan type of man is evidenced by an entry in which he referred to his friendship with a bachelor of sixty, a devotee of love and strong drink.