It is odd that at this time of the breaking of nations, Destiny, with her hands so full, should spare the time to pursue a non-combatant atom like me down such a labyrinthine side-track. It is odd to find her determined to destroy me with such tremendous thoroughness—one would have thought it sufficient merely to brush the dust off my wings. Why this deliberate, slow-moving malignity? Perhaps it is a punishment for the impudence of my desires. I wanted everything so I get nothing. I gave nothing so I receive nothing. I am not offering up my life willingly—it is being taken from me piece by piece, while I watch the pilfering with lamentable eyes.
I have tendered my resignation and retire on a small gratuity.
July 7.
My hand gets a little better. But it's a cat and mouse game, and so humiliating to be the mouse.
... Parental affection comes to me only in spasms, and if they hurt, they do not last long. Curiously enough, as in the case of very old people, my consciousness reverts more easily to conditions long past. I seem unable to apprehend all the significance of having a nine-months old daughter, but some Bullfinches or Swallows seen thro' the window rouse me more. No one can deny I have loved Birds to intoxication. In my youth, birds' eggs, and little nestlings and chickens sent me into such raptures I could never tell it to you adequately.... I am too tired to write more.
July 23.
Reading Pascal again. If Shelley was "gold dusty from tumbling among the stars," Pascal was bruised and shaken. The one was delighted, and the other frightened. I like Pascal's prostration before the infinities of Time, Space and the Unknown. Somehow, he conveys this more vividly than the uplift afforded him by religion.
July 25.
I don't believe in the twin-soul theory of marriage. There are plenty of men any one of whom she might have married and lived with happily, and simpler men than I am. Methinks there are large tracts could be sliced off my character and she would scarcely feel the want of them. To think that she of all women, with a past such as hers, should be swept into my vicious orbit! Yet she seems to bear Destiny no resentment, so I bear it for her and enough for two. At our engagement I gave her my own ring to wear as a pledge—we thought it nicer than buying a new one. It was a signet ring with a dark smooth stone. Strange to say it never once occurred to me till now that it was a mourning ring in memory of a great-uncle of mine, actually with an inscription on the inside.
July 26.