Of course I need not point out the impropriety of mixing in the pages
of your Diary the record of the most sacred emotions, and notes of
things more commonplace. I knew a girl who invariably did this. She
always commenced with an account of any money that she might have
spent during the day. I have managed, with considerable difficulty, to
make a copy of one of these entries, and I give it as a warning:--
"Chocolate, one-and-six. ALGERNON has written to me, asking me to see
him again for the last time. I have written back that my decision
is unalterable. It breaks my heart to have to be so cruel--but fate
wills it, and it's no good fighting against Mamma. Sent my grey to be
cleaned--but it won't look anything when it's done."
In another entry I found the following:--
"A dear long letter from EGBERT. How perfect his sympathy is! Not
feeling very well to-day--will always refuse _vol-au-vent_ in future."
I need hardly say that a girl who would chronicle the state of her
digestion and the sympathy of her lover in one paragraph could not
possibly have any soul.
The perfect Diary is something of a paradox. It should be composed
chiefly of what is unpublishable--of one's secrets and sentiments--but
it should always be written as if with a view to publication. In your
Diary you can say things about yourself which it would be conceited to
say openly, and you can say things about your friends which it would
be unkind to say openly; you can make your own pose seem more real
to yourself.
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