This Box Contains Manuscripts

My sticky notes from Journal of a Disappointed Man, by WNP Barbellion: From HG Wells' introduction: Your egoist, like the solitary beasts, lives only for himself; your altruist declares that he lives only for others; for either there may be success or failure, but for neither can there be tragedy. Barbellion on the sublime and ridiculous nature of diaries: September 8. Wet all day. Toothache. September 9. Toothache September 10. Toothache September 11. Toothache October 16. Dissected an eel. January 13. [...] This reads like Isaac Walton's funny mixtures of the sublime with the ridiculous. He discusses abstract happiness and the best salmon sauce all in one breath. On solitude: Solitude is good for the soul. After an hour of it, I feel as lofty and imperial as Marcus Aurelius. On death: What embitters me is the humiliation of having to die, to have to be pouring out the precious juices of my life into the dull Earth, to be no longer conscious of what goes on, no longer moving abroad…