And so made significant . . .

around the world, and through the centuries

17 March

1792
William Bagshaw Stevens,
teacher

‘Drank Tea at Spilsbury’s. Dalrymple there. Much conversation upon the Slave Trade. Dalrymple and Dodsly defended the Trade strongly upon the ground of Policy. I cannot but think that the Policy which disclaims honesty, humanity and religion is not the policy of a Good Man or a Great Minded Nation; but the Policy of a Thief, a Highwayman, and a Murderer.’

A disappointed man

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1855
John Buckley Castieau,
civil servant

‘This was the last day of the Races, and I began early in the morning to feel much inclined to go. At length after preparing for contingencies, I tossed a Coin in the air declaring it it tell Head uppermost I would go if Tail I’d stay at home. It came down head so away I went to the Bull and Mouth, jumped into an omnibus that was about starting, and found myself on the course before the first advertised race came off. Mr Sub Inspector Smith kindly passed me on to the Grand Stand, where I of course got a good view, and although the horses were not the fastest, yet the riders evidently rode to win, and consequently made the matches somewhat exciting. Mr G.V. Brooke & Miss Cathcart with some of the Town Company were quietly starring in a corner of the Stand. I bet a sovereign during the day, but fortune frowned and I had to pay it.

Coming home I met a girl who I saw once at Dr Stillman’s. I made an appointment to go with her to the Concert Room in the evening. I met her at eight o clock. To our disgust we met the doctor at the Concert. He had come into town along with Newby, though very much against his ordinary custom. Made the best of a bad job and eventually I saw the damsel part of the way home, made another appointment. Felt very excited last evening, and chatted away to several women till I believe the Doctor thought me a great rake. However I got him and Newby to come home with me and take a nobbler or two before they made way for Richmond.’

Barricading the gaol

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1861
Edmond de Goncourt,
writer

‘Flaubert said to us today: ‘The story, the plot of a novel is of no interest to me. When I write a novel I aim at rendering a color, a shade. For instance, in my Carthaginian novel, I want to do something purple. The rest, the characters and the plot, is a mere detail. In Madame Bovary, all I wanted to do was to render a grey colour, the mouldy colour of a wood-louse’s existence. The story of the novel mattered so little to me that a few days before starting on it I still had in mind a very different Madame Bovary from the one I created: the setting and the overall tone were the same, but she was to have been a chaste and devout old maid. And then I realized that she would have been an impossible character.’

Journal des Goncourt

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1902
Raja Varma,
artist

‘Since coming here we have got other students too. One is Shankar Rao son of Captain Madhava Rao of the Nizam’s Artillery, and the other is Mr Calastry’s son. As we teach gratis there are boys always coming to us for tuition.’

Painting with brother

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1910
Dorothy Mackellar,
writer

‘Lili, I’m sorry to say, went away by the morning train. I wrastled with the Customs, quite successfully, and then had a fitting. The English dress is a pretty dull green and dull silver thing, with Ninon paniers, very soft, and a silver rose.

I love it. . . Evening: Yarned and read and yarned. Read some of Moratin’s comedies. They are awfully good. He must have been considered such a daring modernist in what he says about women.’

I love a sunburnt country

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1914
Mary Fuller,
actress

‘I have so many photoplays written and lying in my trunk, with no chance of producing them. I wonder if I will ever have an opportunity to put on all the things I visualize in my daydreams. To pioneer with one's original ideas must be very soul-satisfying. I also wish I could fall into the habit of going to bed early.’

What happened to Mary

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1918
Pierre Gilliard,
teacher

‘To-day is Carnival Sunday. Everyone is merry. The sledges pass to and fro under our windows; sound of bells, mouth-organs, and singing. . . The children wistfully watch the fun. They have begun to grow bored and find their captivity irksome. They walk round the courtyard, fenced in by its high paling through which they can see nothing. Since the destruction of their snow mountain their only distraction is sawing and cutting wood.

The arrogance of the soldiers is inconceivable; those who have left have been replaced by a pack of blackguardly-looking young men.

In spite of the daily increase of their sufferings, Their Majesties still cherish hope that among their loyal friends some may be found to attempt their release. Never was the situation more favourable for escape, for there is as yet no representative of the Bolshevik Government at Tobolsk. With the complicity of Colonel Kobylinsky, already on our side, it would be easy to trick the insolent but careless vigilance of our guards. All that is required is the organised and resolute efforts of a few bold spirits outside. We have repeatedly urged upon the Czar the necessity of being prepared for any turn of events. He insists on two conditions which greatly complicate matters: he will not hear of the family being separated or leaving Russian territory.

One day the Czarina said to me in this connection: “I wouldn’t leave Russia on any consideration, for it seems to me that to go abroad would be to break our last link with the past, which would then be dead for ever.” ’

State of mental anguish

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1955
Kenneth Williams,
actor and writer

‘The business of actually sustaining a performance night after night is peculiarly difficult for me: my temperament seems so against it. I am by nature erratic - given to enthusiasm which wane after a time; quick to grasp the bones of a subject, slow to develop them.’

Carry on carping

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1988
Theodore M. Hesburgh,
priest and administrator

‘Singapore is the world’s busiest harbor. Over 30,000 ships call here each year, with one leaving every ten minutes. Singapore was literally nothing until the visionary Sir Stamford Raffles arrived here in 1819 and got the ruling sultan to allow the British East India Company to establish a trading post at the mouth of the Singapore River. A few years later, the British had control of the whole island.

Singapore enjoys the second-highest standard of living in the Orient after Japan. Of the total population of 2.5 million, 77 percent are Chinese, 16 percent Malay, and 5 percent Indian. About 1 percent are Eurasians. The main languages here are Malay, Mandarin Chinese, and Tamil (spoken in southern India and parts of Sri Lanka).

Our tour today began with a ride through downtown streets full of high rises and luxury hotels. Because of the scarcity of land, 85 percent of the population here lives in high-rise apartments. Over 60 percent of the population is under the age of twenty. The average family here has about two children. As one goes over the long causeway, one can look to the right (eastward) to the Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea. To the left (westward) is the Indian Ocean and the Strait of Malacca.

Our first stop was the old palace of the Sultan of Johore (presently king of Malaysia). It makes the White House look like an outhouse. We then visited the mosque, always a major landmark in any Muslim country. Here the Muslims make up about 55 percent of the total population. We visited a rubber plantation, where we saw the rubber flowing from the trees. Then we went to a rubber factory to see how they form the latex into big white blocks of rubber. From there we moved on to visit plantations where they grow cacao, coffee, bananas, and palms for palm oil.

After lunch at a Holiday Inn in Johore Bahru, we stopped at a memorial to those who were killed in World War II, then went back to the ship for Mass. I had Liam O’Murchu, alias Bill Murphy, give a homily in honor of St. Patrick. Bill is the only authentic Irishman on board, so I thought he should do the talking. I’m only half Irish, and Ned is in Katmandu. Anyway, Bill gave a great homily.’

To smell the roses

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1998
David Kim Hempleman-Adams,
explorer

‘We need to get to 84°10' North as soon as possible and get the airline companies lined up for an immediate resupply. I have decided that we might as well go for a resupply as soon as possible, while we know the weather is clear. Our fuel will run out in two days and the last thing we want is to spend three or four days hanging around waiting for the plane to come in. There is no point in having a resupply before we reach 84°10' North. We will have heavy sledges again after stocking up on new food rations, so if the resupply comes in any earlier it will defeat its whole purpose.

I budgeted for fifteen days on the first leg, but did not think for a moment we would be so far north by them. According to my initial plan we were scheduled to reach 84° 10' on day twenty-four, so we are ahead by around ten days. It is a delicate balance: every mile further north is nearer the Pole before the thaw starts, but the further north we go the more the air companies will charge us for the resupply. We will need to move very fast on the second leg to reach 86° 30', another 150 miles, by 15 April. This next third of the trip will be critical.

Our immediate concern is to start looking for a pan for the plane to land on, not an easy feat in the ice conditions we have encountered so far. I really thought the rubble would have ended by now and we would be on a succession of long, wide ice pans, interrupted by the occasional pressure ridge. The ice this year is different to any other I have experienced and my plans are in danger of being shot down.

Even today we do not encounter a single sizeable pan. It is bitterly cold with rubble all the way. It is staggering how we manage to cover six miles with our skis on and off every few minutes. In some spots it takes both of us to lift one sledge through the rubble. For over an hour it is one forty-foot ridge after another. It’s a very heavy workout, like doing six hours in the gym; we are really pushing it and I have to grit my teeth and dig deep.

I have a huge frostbite blister on my thumb and my toe is still causing me problems, made worse by the backbreaking conditions. I have now discovered that I also have some small spots of frostbite on my knee, brought on by kneeling down whenever I need to take off my skis, which in these conditions is frequently. My boot is still damaged and is secured to my ski by a length of wire. If my bindings were able to hold my boot I would normally simply push my ski pole down on the binding to release my boot; now I have to kneel down on one knee, pull up the clip and take the wire off the back of the boot. This tedious process makes my hands and left knee very cold, and I have to repeat it when we get to the other side of the rubble or pressure ridge.

We are in the middle of all this crap and I am worried about finding a landing strip - it seems ridiculous. Tonight I will radio for a resupply for tomorrow and hope we can find a landing strip in the meantime. It is a dangerous gamble because we will still have to pay for the flight if the plane has to turn back. [. . .]

At the end of the day we have covered six miles, extremely good considering it was the worst rubble so far on this expedition, and we are only a mile short of 84° 10' North. Last year we would have been happy to manage two miles in such conditions.’

Walking on thin ice

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2001
Raoul Ruiz,
filmmaker

‘Sunny, spring-like day. Day of disasters. This morning I read the fax that Gemini Films sent me, in which they communicate me the changes of the script, script that had already been accepted and paid in part and with its production running. The changes asked and done already by Rushdie are purely and simply the totality of the film. His attitude can be summed up in the next proposition: remove me from the project. None of my ideas of misé-en-scene is considered acceptable. I’m almost sure that they’ve given the script to read to what they call a “doctor”, a specialist in dramatic construction. This for the project is the flatness, we’re at the starting point.

I tried to expel the disaster dedicating myself to make the tax declaration and it’s a horror what I’ve earned and spent, essentially inviting friends to eat. I foresee a less friendly and very lonely future. More meals at home. Patience. Then an urgent fax from Hong Kong came asking me for the list of subtitles of Three Crowns of the Sailor, which I made nineteen years ago. Everywhere asking me for this and that, colloquia and nonsense. On the other hand, Comedy of Innocence is what they call a serious failure (90-something thousand tickets: honorable, but small).

Well, yesterday we were feasting in a restaurant the almost end of the mixing (reel 6, only one left). Yesterday the meeting of the Circle was a serious failure because Gérard was missing, who was in a police station, where his son had been jailed, who was protesting for the rights of the African immigrants. We did anyway a schedule for the magazine. Some good ideas.

The day of all catastrophes. Salman Rushdie communicates through his agent that he wants to change all the scenes of the script to transform it into “the great popular success that we all want” (we all want?) Then, the always ingrate task of declaring taxes. I’m at the Flore waiting, hopeless, for Paulo, from whom I got a somewhat confusing message saying that he’ll be at the Flore between 12.00 and 13.00 hrs.’

Day of disasters

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In general, these diary extracts are quoted as given in the published (book or online) source referred to in the reference articles. Each extract may be all, a large part of, or a small part of the complete entry for that day. I have tried to indicate where text has been removed from within a quote by the use of trailing dots in square bracket.

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