Chapter 9

TALKING TO ONESELF

THE keeping of a diary is a species of self-communing; the self of Today talking to the same self of Tomorrow. The man who talks to himself usually justifies his peculiarity on two grounds: he likes to hear a sensible man talk and he likes to have a sensible man to talk to. In the greatest detective story ever written, the exciting climax turns on the strictly private entries of a young lady’s diary. It may be that, by this artifice, Wilkie Collins designed to stress the abiding value and importance of such well-kept and confidential documents.

In gathering up the evidence by means of which the famous Moonstone mystery was eventually solved, the sturdy Gabriel Belleridge distinctly recalled certain happenings, but he had no idea as to the dates on which they occurred. Then Penelope, his charming and loveable young daughter, artlessly remarked that it was all recorded in her private diary. Gabriel demanded that she should instantly hand over the volume; and, at the bare mention of so preposterous a proposal, the indignation of the dutiful and affectionate Penelope was beautiful to see. She would supply any information that the critical situation required; but hand over her diary! It would be a sacrilege of the worst kind.

An honest and conscientiously kept diary is an instrument by means of which a man preserves his own personality for his future delectation and instruction. Like bees in amber, the thoughts, feelings and impressions of Today are made available to the eyes of Tomorrow. Emerson used to speak of his diary as his savings bank; in it he hoarded the treasures of experience to be drawn upon for future guidance. Other men have acted similarly, but from other motives. One of the loneliest figures in history is General Gordon during his long vigil at Khartoum. How could he shatter the maddening tyranny of his solitude? He kept a diary, and, as though his very life depended on it, spent all his time in formulating the entries. In the darkest days of his career, Sir Walter Scott started a diary and communed with it day by day-just for company.

Few things are more touching or more significant than the concern that dying men display, under certain conditions, to keep their journals intact to the last. We think of Livingstone’s journal with its final entries, written in mortal agony, scarcely legible. We think of Burke’s journal, penned in the dusty heart of Australia, in which the dying explorer, anxious that his record shall be absolutely complete, records in graphic detail his own death. We think of the journal of Captain Scott, found among Antarctic snows, kept with faithful jealousy as long as the dying man had strength to hold a pen. By means of their diaries, deathless men escape from their incarcerating isolation, establish a point of vital contact with the throbbing world that they have left behind, and say their say to the Ages.

Among all her priceless archives, the Church has no documents comparable in value with personal outpourings of this intimate kind. She treasures as above all price the Confessions of St. Augustine, the Breviary of St. Teresa, Bunyan’s Grace Abounding, Newton’s Autobiography and the self-revealing journals of men like David Brainerd and John Woolman. Mr. Wesley not only left us his monumental Journal, but, with astute statesmanship and penetrating insight, he insisted that all his men should commit to pages the radiant experiences of which they loved to tell.

One of these documents elicited the unqualified praise of Southey; whilst Matthew Arnold, a fastidious critic who seldom went into ecstasies over that sort of thing, said that Samson Staniforth’s narrative is reminiscent of the inspired testimony of St. Paul himself. The entire collection is a library of heart throbs. In such forthright and unaffected records religion expresses itself in the terms of palpitating experience; there is a ring of reality about it; it demonstrates the place in human affection and esteem that personal chronicles must always hold.

​Dr. F. W. Boreham