Diary of a Disappointed Gricean

I am re-reading (here at the Swimming-Pool Library) one of my favourite books of all times: it's such a lovely little blue book, which I found at the local British embassy garden fete, and I treasure it.

It connects with Grice's use of conjunctional adjectives to refute Davidson:

Consider, Grice writes,


"a fat philosopher"

Is the implication the same as in

"a philosophical fatty"?

Surely for Davidson, p & q iff q and p, but these are _sub-clauses_.

Grice concludes that 'a fat philosopher' is simpler even than

"French poetical"

"In this case, French works adverbially, 'fat' never does".

Ditto for 'disappointed Gricean'.

Barbellion wrote his first entry in

1903. January 3

Am writing an essay on the life-histdory of insects and have
abandoned the idea of writing on 'How Cats Spend their Time'.



Second entry.

Jan. 17.

We disovered on examining that it was NOT a Wild Duck
at all but an ordinary tame Wild Duck - a hen.

Feb. 8 1903.

Joy became the mother of one kitten to-day. It was born at 1:20. It is a tiny little thing. One would almost call it deformed. It is gray.

Feb. 28.

We decided not to venture on, as GImbo and Bounce were with us, and it would look like poaching.

April 2.

I might have noticed that I have used the term "Study of Nature". But it cannot be called a STUDY. It is a pastime of sheer delight, with naught but beautiful dreams and lovely thoughts... Language cannot express the joy and happy forgetfulness during a ramble in the country. I do not mean alll the ins and outs and exact knowledge of a naturalist are necessary to produce such delight, but merely the common objects - Sun, Thrush, Grasshopper, Primrose, and Dew.

Aug. 6.

Rev J Wood in the BOP has incided me to take them up.

[Boy's Own Paper. I have lots of those old volumes in my library
which I inherited from an old English gentleman - a cricketer. JLS]

April 5.

Just read Stalky & Co. Of Stalky, Beetle and M'Turk, I like Beetle
Best. [The book by GH Wells. JLS]

September 8.

Wet all day. Toothache.


September 9.

Toothache.

September 10.

Toothache

September 11.

Toothache

Xmas Day.

Am reading the Origin of Species [by Darwin. JLS]. It requires
careful study, but I understand it so far and shall go on.

1905. Jan. 15.

I get fits of what I call "What's the good of anything?' mania.

Feb.17.

When I can get hold of any one interested in Natural History I talk away in the most garrulous manner and afterwards feel ashamed of myself for doing so.

[Ditto me: elatically when find a fellow Gricean]

May 15.

The Captain, in answer to my letter, advises me to join one of the ordinary professions and then folow up Nat. History as a recreation.

June 9.

Found another Sedge Warbler's nest. This is the fifth I have found this year. People who live opposite on the T- V- hear them sing at night and think they are Nightingales!

[The brutes! JLS]

August 26.

Oh! What a weary world.

Oct. 13.

Down with another cold. Feeling pretty useless. It's a wonder I dont develop melancholia.

1906. Jan 13.

Supper bell - so I am off... This reads like Isaac Walton's funny mixtures of the sublime with the ridiculous.

May 8.

On interviewing my old friend Dr H-, found I had chickenpox. This instead of being a Diary of a Naturalist's observations will be one of infectious diseases.

1907. May 1.

Met an old gentlemen in E-. He wanted to know how the Kangaroo leapt from Australia to Palestine. He advises me to read 'Darwin and JG Wood'! Silly old man!

Oct. 1.

In the afternoon dissected a Frog following Milnes Marshall's book. Am also teaching myself German. I wish I had a microscope.

Oct. 16

Dissected an Eel. Cassell's Natural History says the Air bladder is divided. THIS IS NOT SO IN THE ONE I OPENED.

April 7.

Sectioned a leech... The branchial basket of Petromyzon interested me vastly. But it's a brute to dissect.

May 1.

I showed her one by one all my treasures - Rail, Duck, Skull, Sea Mice, etc, and felt like Thomas Edward, beloved of Samuel Smiles. To her I must have appeared a very ridiculous person.

May 6.

Dissected one of the Sea Mice. It has a remarkable series of hepatic ducts running into the alimentary canal as in Nudibranchs...

Sept 1.

Went with Uncle to see a Wesleyan minister whose fame as a microscopis , according to Uncle, made it worth my while to visit him... Why can't we see behind the valves. Because God is behind the valves. That is why!' Amen.

June 18.

Dr -, MA FRS DCL LLD called in the office today, and seeing Dad typing said, Are you Mr Barbellion? Dad replied in the affirmative.

June 27

Walked to V-. As usual, Nature with clockwork regularity had all her taps turned up on - larks singing, cherries ripening, and bees humming. It all bored me a little. WHY DOESN'T SHE VARY IT A LITTLE?

Feb. 6.

What a fine expressive word is GLOOM. Let me write it: GLOOM...

March 6.

Life is pain.

March 22.

Spent the morning day-dreaming.

July 17.

We sang tonight in Church, But when I know Thee as thou art, I'll preaise thee as I ought". Exactly! Till then, farewell.

July 22.

Our Simian Ancestry. As for me, I am proud of my close kinship with other animals. I take a jealous pride in my Simian ancestry... Who would exchange these for the pallid couple in the Garden of Eden?

Nov. 11.

Read Geo Gissing's novel Born in Exile. Godwin Peak, with his intense pride of individuality, self-tortuging capacities, and sentimental langusihments, reminds me of myself.

May 9
Real happiness lies in the little things, in a bit of garden work, in the rattle of the teacups in the next room, in the last chapter of a book.

August 20.

A trapper killed a specimen of Tropidonoutus natrix and brought it to me. I gave him sixpence for it and am just going to dissect it.

Nov. 14.

The three most fascinating books in Science that I have so far read are (easily) 1. Darwin's Expression of the Emotions [iin Man and Animals. I've got it. JLS]- 2 Gaskell's Origin of Vertebrates, 3. Bergon's Le rire.

Nov. 29.

I am always looking out for new friends - assaying for friendship... In return you let him steal ways piece after piece of your own territory. It's a delightful reciprocity.

Dec.15.

A very bad heart attack. As I write it intermits every three or four beats. Who knows if I shall live thro' tonight?

Dec.16.

Here I am once more. A passable night.

Feb.3.

A Confession. H B invisted me to tea to meet his fiacee. Rather pleased with the invitation. I don't know why, for my idea of myself is greater than my idea of him, and probably greater than his idea of himself. ... ON arriving at T. G, I removed my spectacles (well knowing how much they damage my personal appearance). However, the beauty of the thing was that, tho' I waited as agreed, he never turned up, and so I returned home again, crest fallen- and, with my spectacles on again.

July 9.

If one is pondering on Life and Death, it is a terrible task to have to study Mites.

Sept. 28.

On some days I am to myself as strange and unfamiliar as a Pterodactyl.

Nov.8 (Good example of Speranza's paradox of expliciting the figure of
rhetoric).

The other morning R- said hyperbolically that he hadn't slept all
night for fear that...

Feb. 16.

I have peered into every aspect of my life and achievements and everything I have seen nauseates me... My life seems to have been a wilderness of futile endeavour.

May 24.

In L- with my brother A-. We spent a delightful day, talking and arguing and insulting one another.

1914 Aug. 2.

Will England join in?

June 20.

The truth is I think I am in love with her: but I am also mightily in love with myself. One or the other has to give.

Feb. 6 1917.

Am busy rewriting, editing and bowlderising my jorunals for publication against the time when I hsall have gone the way of all flesh. No one else would prepare it for publication if I don't. Reading it through again, I see what a remarkable book I have written. If only they will publishe it!

Aug. 1.

I once received from an editor a very encouraging letter which gave a great deal of pleasure and made me hope he was going to open the pages of his magazine for me. But 3 weeks after he committed suicide by jumping out of his bedroom window.

Oct 14 to 20.

Miserable.

Oct. 21 1917.

Self-disgust.

Barbellion died on Dec. 31.