January 1
I have grown so ridiculously hypercritical and fastidious that I will refuse a man’s invitation to dinner because he has watery blue eyes, or hate him for a mannerism or an impediment or affectation in his speech. Some poor devil who has not heard of Turner or Debussy or Dostoevsky I gird at with the arrogance of a knowledgeable youth of seventeen. Some oddity who should afford a sane mind endless amusement, I write off as a Insus naturae and dismiss with a flourish of contempt. My intellectual arrogance—excepting at such times as I become conscious of it and pull myself up—is incredible. It is incredible because I have no personal courage and all this pride boils up behind a timid exterior. I quail often before stupid but overbearing persons who consequently never realise my contempt of them. Then afterwards, I writhe to think I never stood up to this fool; never uttered an appropriate word to interfere with another’s nauseating self-love. It exasperates me to be unable to give a Roland for an Oliver—even servants and underlings tick me off—to fail always in sufficient presence of mind to make the satisfying rejoinder or riposte. I suffer from such a savage amour propre that I fear to enter the lists with a man I dislike on account of the mental anguish I should suffer if he worsted me. I am therefore bottled up tight—both my hates and loves. For a coward is not only afraid to tell a man he hates him, but is nervous too of letting go of his feeling of affection or regard lest it be rejected or not returned. I shudder to think of such remarks as (referring to me), “He’s one of my admirers, you know” (sardonically), or, “I simply can’t get rid of him.”
If however my cork does come out, there is an explosion, and placid people occasionally marvel to hear violent language streaming from my lips and nasty acid and facetious remarks.
Of course, to intimate friends (only about three persons in the wide, wide world), I can always give free vent to my feelings, and I do so in privacy with that violence in which a weak character usually finds some compensation for his intolerable self-imposed reserve and restraint in public. I can never marvel enough at the ineradicable turpitude of my existence, at my double-facedness, and the remarkable contrast between the face I turn to the outside world and the face my friends know. It’s like leading a double existence or artificially constructing a puppet to dangle before the crowd while I fulminate behind the scenes. If only I had the moral courage to play my part in life—to take the stage and be myself, to enjoy the delightful sensation of making my presence felt, instead of this vapourish mumming—then this Journal would be quite unnecessary. For to me self-expression is a necessity of life, and what cannot be expressed one way must be expressed in another. When colossal egotism is driven underground, whether by a steely surface environment or an unworkable temperament or as in my case by both, you get a truly remarkable result, and the victim a truly remarkable pain—the pain one might say of continuously unsuccessful attempts at parturition.
It is perhaps not the whole explanation to say that my milky affability before, say bores or clods is sheer personal cowardice. … It is partly real affability. I am so glad to have opposite me someone who is making himself pleasant and affable and sympathetic that I forget for the moment that he is an unconscionable timeserver, a sycophant, lick-spittle, toady, etc. My first impulse is always to credit folk with being nicer, cleverer, more honest and amiable than they are. Then, on reflection, I discover unpleasing characteristics, I detect their little motives, and hate myself for not speaking. The fellow is intolerable, why did I not tell him so? Bitter recriminations from my critical self upon my flabby amiable half.
On the whole, then, I lead a pretty disgraceful inner life—excepting when I pull myself together and smile benignly on all things with a philosophical smugness, such as is by no means my mood at this present moment. I am so envious that a reprint of one of Romney’s Ramus girls sends me into a dry tearless anger—for the moment till I turn over the next page. … Inwardly I was exacerbated this morning when R⸺ recited, “Come and have a tiddle at the old Brown Bear,” and explained how a charming “young person” sang this at breakfast the other morning. It was simply too charming for him to hear.
Tonight as I brushed my hair, I decided I was quite good-looking, and I believe I mused that E⸺ was really a lucky girl. … All that is the matter with me is a colossal conceit and a colossal discontent, qualities exaggerated where a man finds himself in an environment which. …
You observant people will notice that this explanation is something of a self-defence whereby the virtue goes out of my confession. I plead guilty, but great and unprecedented provocation as well. Intense pride of individuality forbids that I should ever be other than, shall I say, amiably disposed towards myself au fond, however displeased I may be with my environment. It is indeed impossible without sending him to a lunatic asylum ever to knock a man off the balance of his self-esteem. … A man’s loyalty to himself is the most pigheaded thing imaginable.