The doctor looks at literature

Bruce Frederick Cummings, an English entomologist and assistant at the Natural History Museum, South Kensington, developed in early life an infectious disease of the central nervous system called disseminated sclerosis, which riddles the brain and spinal cord with little islets of tissue resembling scars, and died of it October 22, 1919, in the thirtieth year of his age. Six months before his death he published a book entitled “The Journal of a Disappointed Man,” under the pen name of W. N. P. Barbellion. It is not destined to live as long as Pepys' “Diary” or Amiel's “Journal,” but it may outlive “The Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff”—the three great diaries of the past century. “The Journal of a Disappointed Man,” in conjunction with another called “A Last Diary,” published after his death, may be looked upon as the revelation of a conscious mind, as complete as the conscious mind can make it. These books afford us opportunity to study the psychology of one variety of self-revelation, just as the books of James Joyce and Dorothy Richardson permit study of the subconscious mind, and more specifically undirected or wishful thinking, technically called autistic.

While absolute classification of people is always inaccurate and misleading, still for the convenience of this study, in order to bring into high relief the features which distinguish Barbellion's diaries from the other three great self-revelations of the conscious mind, the authors mentioned may be said to typify four distinct classes of diarists. The immortal Pepys may be dismissed with the words: pedant, philosopher, humourist. Amiel may be considered the mystic poet, with emphasis upon the spiritual side of his nature; Marie Bashkirtseff, the emotional artist whose talent was interpretive rather than creative; and Barbellion, the man of science, direct, forceful, effective on his objective side, but subjectively morbid and egocentric, unable to estimate correctly his own limitations or to direct his emotions into channels which would have made for happy living or sane thinking.

Cummings began to keep a diary when he was thirteen years old, and after seventeen years he had accumulated twenty post-quarto volumes of manuscript. Two years before his death he made an entry “Am busy rewriting, editing and bowdlerising my Journal for publication against the time when I shall have gone the way of all flesh. Reading it through again, I see what a remarkable book I have written.” In it and in another small volume published posthumously, called “The Joy of Life,” he said,

The noteworthy features of his life may be stated briefly. He was the youngest child of a journalist known in the little town of Barnstable, in Devon, as a shrewd and facile man, and of a timid, pious mother of the lower middle class. A puny child, backward in development mentally and physically, solitary, sensitive, shy, secretive, and self-conscious, he displayed an uncommon interest in nature, birds, fishes, insects, and all wild creatures. When he was fourteen he determined to become a naturalist, but his father's illness obliged him to contribute to the family maintenance. At sixteen he wrote,

And work he did, for in little more than a year he was offered a small appointment at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory, which he had to refuse because of his father's complete incapacity. But after another year of newspaper work and intensive study at night and at odd moments, he won an appointment in competitive examination to the staff of the Natural History Museum at South Kensington. There he remained six years, until July, 1917, when he was compelled to resign owing to the progress of his disease. In September, 1915, he married, after he had been declared unfit for military duty and after the secret of his obscure and baffling disease, and its outcome, had been revealed to some of his family and to his fiancée.

Two months after he married, despite his infirm state, he offered his services to his King and Country, having previously obtained from his own physician a letter addressed to the Medical Officer Examining Recruits. The recruiting officer promptly rejected him, so the letter was not presented. On his way home Barbellion opened it and read his death sentence. “On the whole, I am amazed at the calm way in which I take this news.” At first he thought he would read up his disease in some System of Medicine, but the next day he wrote,

But this was soon followed by depression and despair, as the progress of the disease was attested by the occurrence of rapidly increasing incapacity to get about, to use his arm, and to see. At that time he was ignorant of the fact that his wife had been informed of the nature and outcome of his disease previous to their marriage, and he was very much concerned lest she should find out. Within a year he discovered that she had known from the beginning and he was “overwhelmed with feelings of shame and self-contempt and sorrow for her.”

The last months of his life were made as comfortable as possible by funds subscribed by a few literary men who had become interested in him from the publication of some chapters of the book in the London Mercury, and by the royalties from the publishers of the “Journal” in book form.

Barbellion's appearance, as described by his brother A. J., in the Preface to “The Last Diary,” was striking. He was more than six feet tall, thin as a rake, and looked like a typical consumptive. His head was large and crowned with thick brown hair which fell carelessly about his brow; his face pale and sharply pointed; eyes deepset, lustrous and wide apart; nose slightly irregular; mouth large and firm; and chin like a rock. “Few people, except my barber, know how amourous I am. He has to shave my sinuous lips.” He had an indescribable vividness of expression, great play of features, and a musical voice. His hands were strong and sensitive and he had a characteristic habit of beating the air with them in emphasising an argument. He moved and walked languidly, like a tired man, and stooped slightly, which gave him an attitude of studiousness.

Barbellion's fame depends entirely upon “The Journal of a Disappointed Man.” “Enjoying Life and Other Literary Remains” is commonplace and might have been done by any one of countless writers whose years transcend their reputations. “The Last Diary,” on the other hand, has a note of superficiality which is prejudicial to permanence. It suggests that it was done for effect and displays studious effort to be wise and philosophical. Although the book contains many beautiful specimens of sentiment and shows that Barbellion had enhanced his literary skill and added to his capacity for expression and sequential statement, it also shows that the processes of dissolution, physical and mental, were going on apace.

So much for the outward facts of his life. The value of the record lies entirely in the sincerity and completeness of the “portrait in the nude” which the author has painted of himself and which furnishes the basis for a psychological study of the original.

Three characteristics make the shape and colour of this portrait. Whether seen in one comprehensive glance as a composite picture, or subjected to a searching analysis of its separate parts, these three facts must be reckoned with in any estimate of his life or of his personality as a whole; or of the smallest act, thought, or emotion which entered into it. The features or leading motives which shaped the human study that Barbellion has given us in his diaries are what he calls ambition to achieve fame, a passion for the study of zoology, and a struggle against disease.

Every life which raises its possessor above the level of the clod may be called a battleground. The battle, in Barbellion's case a hard-fought one, was between ambition which inspired and actuated him and disease which seriously handicapped him during most of his life and finally caused his death—not, however, until after the victory had been won, since the odds were between fame and sickness, not between life and death. Judged, therefore, solely by the strength of the forces involved in the conflict and not at all by the value of the stakes, Barbellion's struggle and early death may claim a little of the glory suggested in the lines “Oft near the sunset are great battles won.”

That the second motive mentioned, the love of zoology, entered into the conflict only as an ally, and not even an essential one, of the desire to become famous, has a special psychological interest. Unquestionable and persistent as was this passion for the science, it did not seem to form the basis for his ambition nor even to be inextricably bound up with it, as is usually the case with persons possessed of one strongly marked talent or taste combined with a dominant ambition. When nature has favoured an individual with a gift in the way of desire and ability to do one thing particularly well he usually concentrates on it. In fact the desire to achieve success through the talent, and the impulse for self-expression along the line of the talent, are so closely related that it is impossible to disentangle them and to say where the impulse for self-expression ends and the ambition to succeed begins. Barbellion's diaries, however, present no such difficulty. Conscious from early childhood of a great attraction to zoology for the sheer love of the science, his early life-plan naturally took the form of a career as a zoologist. Thwarted by circumstances, he still held to the plan with an admirable persistence and a measure of success which, considering his handicaps in the way of illness and lack of opportunities for study and training, would have been satisfactory to a less ambitious man. Such success would not, however, have given him the fame which it was the ruling motive of his life to achieve. Whether or not it was the recognition of this that determined the direction of his ambition it is impossible to say. The fact that stands out with great clearness, after reading his diaries, is that the consuming passion of his life was the desire for fame for its own sake, to be known of men, and to stand out from the mass of humanity as a man of distinction, a successful man. This seemed to be the full measure of Barbellion's ambition, and in this he succeeded, since the diaries have made him famous as the author of a record which shows him to the world as the winner of a losing game with life, though not as a scientist or as a writer of distinction.

A closer analysis of the particular qualities of Barbellion's ambition is the first step in an estimate of his personality.

The urge to keep a journal may come from within or from without the individual. Barbellion does not tell us which it was with him. In late childhood he began making frequent records of his doings, which were those of a lonely romantic child interested in natural history. During the first three years there is no record of thought, but beginning with his sixteenth year it makes its appearance, and there is ample evidence that he was not only mature beyond his years, but ambitious as well. He says of himself,

That the “canker” was eating its way into his soul as life progressed and success seemed no nearer from day to day is evidenced by the statements:

As the “Journal” progresses it becomes evident that the author's hopes for the realisation of his ambition rested entirely on its publication, and it is in the expressions concerning his hopes and fears in connection with the book that the struggle of the soul in its death grip with advancing disease and threatening failure is most poignantly expressed. Three years before he died he said,

A few months later, after a reference to his infant daughter, he said,

Again he wrote:

It is more than probable that the hope of getting the “Journal” published was suggested by acquaintance with “The Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff” when Barbellion was twenty-four years old. On encountering a quotation from her in a book on Strindberg at that time, he noted,

Barbellion's own estimate of what he calls his ambition is well summed up in the following words:

It would be interesting to find out in what way he was pleasure loving. As far as I can see from reading the “Journal,” the only pleasure that he sought was the occasional pleasure of contemplating nature, which was really a part of his work, and from hearing music.

In the same way it is difficult to find evidence of this colossal ambition, save his statement of it. In reality he was ambitious for one thing: call it favour, applause, publicity, notoriety, or what not. He wanted to do something in literature which would focus the vision of the world upon him, and to accomplish this he devoted an incredible energy and labour to the production of a diary which was the record of aggressive, directed, logical thinking. He may have had capacity for creative literature, or he may have developed such capacity, but he did not display it. His career can be compared with no other because of the immeasurable handicap of his illness. But if it were not for this illness, it would be interesting to compare him with Huysmans, who, working as a clerk in a Governmental office in Paris, produced a series of books which gave him a commanding and perhaps a permanent place in French literature.

Unquestionably some resemblance exists between the passion for fame, or whatever it may be called, that Barbellion and Marie Bashkirtseff had in common, although in the case of the latter its relation to a definite talent was more evident. But that in either of the two cases it partook in any great measure of the nature of what is generally understood as ambition—the ambition, for instance, of Napoleon, Wilhelm II, or Keats to whom Barbellion compares himself—is not proved by either of their self-revelations. There is a quality well known to psychologists that may be described as the passion to attract attention, which is a distinguishing attribute of the neurotic temperament. It sometimes acts as an urge to the expression of a talent in case the possessor of the temperament is also the possessor of a talent—which is by no means infrequent and which was undoubtedly true in the case of Marie Bashkirtseff. It, however, exists in innumerable other cases where the neurotic has been gifted by nature with no special talent or ability for expression of any kind. The mere reiteration, therefore, of a passion to focus the attention of the world upon himself, while it would invite questions as to his balance or the lack of it, affords no proof of mental qualities upon which the hope of achieving such distinction might reasonably be placed.

The next question which arises in relation to Barbellion's ambition or desire for distinction is: What were his intellectual possessions? And the first step in answering this question is the examination of his interests. By a man's admirations, as by his friends, you may know him. He identified himself, in a measure, with Keats; he had great admiration for Sir Thomas Browne; James Joyce was a writer after his own heart; and he admired Dostoievsky and Francis Thompson.

Barbellion's objective intellect stands out rather clearly in his record, particularly as the evidence is written more forcibly between the lines than in his statements. Deduction, induction, and analysis are rather high. In fact, he possessed wisdom, ingenuity, caution, and perception; that is, the elements of objective thought. He showed no great ability to estimate the nature and bearing of his surroundings or to devise ways of dealing with them so as to turn them to his advantage, but had it not been for illness he might have done so. As to the actual results of his intellectual efforts, naturalists say he made some important contributions to their science; and, although these were trifling, they were in the right direction. His working life really ended at twenty-five, an age at which the working life of most men of science has scarcely begun.

It is almost entirely upon his subjective thought, that is upon his estimate of himself, that the value of his record rests. Everyone in his progress through life and his intercourse with his fellows measures himself more or less deliberately against, and estimates his own capacity relatively to, theirs, not only with respect to wisdom, cleverness, or caution, but with respect to special accomplishments. Besides this relative estimate, he learns to form an absolute estimate of his intellectual powers. He knows what he can understand at once, what he has to study hard before he can understand, and what is wholly beyond his comprehension. Some people habitually underestimate their ability; others, the majority, overestimate it. It is very difficult to say, from the literary remains of Barbellion, whether he was of the latter class or not. He had literary taste, a prodigious appetite, and he displayed considerable capacity for assimilation. It is quite possible that, as the result of these, he might have revealed constructive imagination; but his life was very brief, it was riddled with illness, and he matured slowly.

Barbellion's estimate of himself may be fairly judged by the epitome of his whole life which he made in an entry of August 1, 1917, in connection with his retirement from the staff of the British Museum:

In regard to one of the essays, he noted that it called forth flattering comment in Public Opinion, but that it did not impress anybody else, even E., his wife, who did not read the critique, although she read twice a pleasant paragraph in the press noticing some drawings of a friend.

It was one of Barbellion's persecutory ideas that he was not appreciated at his full value.

When his mother warned him that he was in danger of being friendless all his life because of his preference for acerbities to amenities he replied, “I don't want people to like me. I shan't like them. Theirs will be the greater loss.”

His family feeling seems to have been concentrated largely on his brother, A. J., who prefixed a brief account of his life and character to “The Last Diary.”

Of him Barbellion said,

There were times when, despite his habitual self-appreciation, Barbellion sold his stock fairly low, and especially after he had been in London for two or three years and realised what little progress he was making in the world and how small the orbit of his activity remained.

In speaking of his personal appearance he said, “I am not handsome, but I look interesting, I hope distinguished”; and at another time,

Naturally Barbellion's estimate of himself and of his potentialities varied from time to time, but he never rated his abilities lower than the sum total of his accomplishments would seem to justify, save in hours of extreme depression and discouragement. When twenty-one years of age he wrote,

A more hopeful note, and one that is of interest in that it foreshadows the plan of publication of the diary, is sounded after he had been working in the museum for less than a year.

At the age of twenty-five Barbellion had reached the depth of depression and discouragement.

A year later he checked up on such moods and said,

Man is invariably judged finally by his conduct. Opinion is often formed of him from what he says, but the last analysis is a review and estimate of the several activities which together constitute conduct. Conduct is the pursuit of ends. The conduct that is conditioned by taking thought does not by any means embrace all one's activities. The biological discoveries of the latter half of the Nineteenth Century showed conclusively that the ultimate end to which all life is directed and toward which every living being strives is the continuation of the race to which the individual belongs. Life becomes, therefore, a trust, not a gift, and the only way in which the obligation it entails can be discharged is by transmitting life to a new generation. Barbellion had bodily characteristics which permit the biologist to say that his gonadal redex was dominant, and throughout the diary there are frequent entries showing that, despite his shyness, self-consciousness, and lack of “Facility” (using the word in its Scottish sense), the opposite sex made profound appeal to him. His conduct from early youth would seem to indicate that he held with the Divine Poet—

But his love was evanescent and he was continually asking himself if it was real or but the figment of desire.

Here and there in the “Journal” there are entries which would indicate that his conduct with women transgressed conventions, though perhaps in harmony with custom. When he was twenty-five he went to see the “Irish Play Boy,” and sitting in front of him was a charming little Irish girl, accompanied by a man whose appearance and manner were repulsive. He flirted with her successfully. Later, haunted with the desire to meet her, he sent a personal advertisement to a newspaper hoping that her eye would encounter it. The advertisement and the money were returned, as it was suspected that he was a white slave trafficker. His admiration of the Don Juan type of man is evidenced by an entry in which he referred to his friendship with a bachelor of sixty, a devotee of love and strong drink.

The entries that show Barbellion's attitude toward what may be called the minor activities of social life are illuminating. These are the latest activities to be acquired and, in a way, testify to or set forth the individual's development or limitations.

Companionship with one's fellows is necessary to the mental health of man, and it is of prime necessity that he should secure their good opinion. The loss of esteem and the knowledge that he is reprobated and held in contempt and aversion causes a stress that invariably has its baneful effect, particularly upon a sensitive, self-conscious youth.

Barbellion was the type of individual who sits in ready judgment on his fellows, and oftentimes his judgment was violently prejudiced. He had little community feeling. As a youngster he was ostracised by his school fellows because he was different, and he felt alien. He never played games with them, but went off on long solitary rambles after school hours. Nor did he form intimacies with his masters.

In another connection he says,

Barbellion retained many infantile traits in his adult years and these were displayed in his attitude and conduct toward people.

At twenty-six he said,

This may seem adorned and artificial, but to me it is the most illuminating entry in the “Journal” and reveals many of his limitations.

At twenty-eight he made the entry,

It would have contributed to his peace of mind had he studied more closely the writings of the immortal physician of Norwich, from whom he believed he had spiritual descent:

Self-love, or over-appreciation of self, was Barbellion's most serious stumbling-block. He never got himself in the right perspective with the world, and it is unlikely, even though his brief life had been less tragic, that he would have succeeded in doing so. He was temperamentally unfit.

Barbellion's friends say that he was courteous and soft mannered, but his own estimate of capacity for display of the amenities is so at variance with this that we are forced to believe the manner they saw was veneer.

The following description of Lermontov by Maurice was, he averred, an exact picture of himself:

Two years later he expressed much the same opinion of his social characteristics when he described himself as something between a monkey, a chameleon, and a jellyfish and made himself out an intellectual bully. He was honest enough not to omit an invariable trait of the bully—cowardice. He says,

In order that any community may exist and thrive each individual must do things for the common welfare. He must regulate his activity so as not to impair or jeopardise the property and self-respect of his neighbours. He must contribute to its existence and development by an active execution of deeds that draw more closely the bonds of fellowship and knit more securely the fabric of society. He must exercise self-restraint in those countless ways by which the conduct of a person in the presence of others is shorn of indulgences which he allows himself when alone, and he must perform those ceremonies and benevolences which constitute politeness and courtesy. The unwritten law which compels these in order that he may have a reputation for “normalcy” is even more inexorable than the written law which compels him to pay taxes and serve on juries and does not permit him to beat carpets or rugs in the open. Although Barbellion seemed to be very keen in participating in the defence of the country against external foes, his diary does not reveal that he had any desire to undertake municipal, political, or social duties. Illness may explain this, but illness did not keep him from recording the desire to do so or the regret that he was prevented from participation in the full life.

Every estimate of Barbellion must take his illness into consideration. Readily might he subscribe to Sir Thomas Browne's statement, “For the world, I count it not as an inn, but an hospital; and a place not to live, but to die in.” In the first entries of the diary he speaks of being ill, and although the disease of which he died is not habitually associated with mental or emotional symptoms, it is nevertheless so horribly incapacitating and is accompanied by such distressing evidences of disturbed bodily functions that it invariably tinges the victim's thoughts with despondency and tinctures his emotional activities with despair.

Barbellion capitalised his infirmity to an extraordinary degree. He says we are all such egotists that a sorrow or hardship, provided it is great enough, flatters our self-importance. We feel that a calamity by overtaking us has distinguished us above our fellows. Were it not for his illness his book would never have found a publisher, for it is not a psychological history of his own life—which he believed would make such an interesting volume—but a Pepysian record of his doings, which, taken in toto, is fairly drab. It was the display of equanimity, resignation, and courage when confronted with the inevitable, and the record of his thoughts during that time that give the book its value and vogue. He was constantly fighting disease and cognisant of his waning strength.

This is one of the keynotes of his character—that he shall not be counted a failure. The other—and it is the same—keynote, is that he shall be a success; that he will make a noise in the world.

The entries after he had got a two-months' sick leave are pathetic. He was on the point of proposing marriage; he had been to see a well-known nerve specialist who said that a positive diagnosis could not be made; he had set out for his holiday at the seaside and had a most depressing time. When he returned to London he was no better; in fact he was much worse, and had thoughts of suicide. After he had found out the nature of his disease he expressed himself with great fortitude, saying,

Barbellion's account of his experience with physicians engenders sadness. He went from general practitioner to chest specialists, digestion specialists, ophthalmologists, neurologists, without ever getting the smallest intimation of the nature of his illness, until it had progressed to an advanced stage. For a long time, indeed, it seemed to baffle all the physicians who were consulted. One of the distresses of the diary is that it testifies that doctors are far from omniscient. Nearly always he was advised to go and live on the prairies; and, like all sufferers from incurable diseases, the quacks finally got him.

With the spectre of disease always lurking in the background, when not taking an evident part in the drama of Barbellion's life, it is inevitable that his attitude toward death should colour his thoughts to a very marked degree. As early as 1912, when he was twenty-three years old, he wrote, “As an egoist I hate death because I should cease to be I”; and the next year,

If this latter entry had been written a few years later, one might suspect the influence of Rupert Brooke. As the date stands, one can only infer that Barbellion, in spite of his much vaunted morbidness, possessed a little of the zest of life which so richly flavoured the genius of that young poet.

The entries in the “Journal” after the nature of his disease had been made known to him express a marked difference in his attitude toward death. In 1917 he said,