A Last Diary | Page 4

to his rapidly increasing library of costly books on zoology and biology; and by allowing him such freedom of movement as can rarely fall to the lot of a small boy in an ordinary middle-class home. Here let me say that after the publication of his Journal, Barbellion himself expressed regret at having here and there in the book unconsciously conveyed the impression that in the home of his childhood and youth he received little practical help and sympathy in the pursuit of his great quest. The exact contrary was, in fact, the case; and when in 1910, owing to my father's second, and this time complete, breakdown Barbellion had to decline the offer of a small appointment at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory, the blow was not less bitter to his parents than to himself. At that time he was the only son at home. He had been allowed a great amount of leisure for study; but now, as one of two young reporters on my father's staff, he was compelled for the time being to carry a responsibility which he feared and detested. But the opportunity for which he had passionately worked and impatiently waited was not long in coming. In the following year, in open competition with men from the Universities who had been specially coached for the examination, he won his way by his own exertions to the staff of the Natural History Museum at South Kensington.
Probably the happiest period of his life was that of his late youth up to the time of my father's collapse. He was in somewhat better health than in his childhood; the joy of living intoxicated his being; he was able to saunter at his own free will over his beloved hills and dales; he was beginning to feel his strength and to shape his knowledge; and before him stretched a bright vista of vague, alluring, infinite possibilities. And at this time, apart from the diary, he was trying his hand at writing, and revelling in that delicious experience of youth putting to proof his newly awakened powers. I have in my possession scores of early letters that testify eloquently to his ability to perceive, to think, and to write. Here is a letter which, at the age of seventeen, he wrote to my brother Harry. It seems to me remarkable for the vigour and clearness with which he was able to set down his reflections on a dark and difficult point of philosophy, and interesting because it shows how already his mind was occupied with the mystery of himself.
"I am writing really [he says] to discuss Myself with you. I am particularly interested in it [an article on "Myself" written by Harry] because it differs so entirely from my own feelings. I am a mendicant friar. It is so difficult to see what one really believes, as distinct from what one feels; but for myself I can see only too distinctly the world without my own insignificant self, after death or before birth.
"There is one power which I have to an unusual extent developed, so I think, and that is the faculty of divesting my thoughts of all subjectivity. I can see myself as so much specialised protoplasm. Sometimes I almost think that in thus divesting the mind of particulars I seize the universal and for a short but vivid moment look through the veil at *the thing itself.' I really cannot make myself clear without a great deal of care, and I hope you will not misunderstand me.
"But, to diverge somewhat, it was only the other day that suddenly, when I was not expecting it, I saw mother's face in an objective way. I saw and looked on it as a stranger who had never seen her; and mind you, there is a good deal of difference between these two points of view. I never realised until that moment that we look on those whom we know so well in the light and shade of the knowledge we have gained before. . . .
"The natural conclusion of these observations I take to be that we never know how anthropomorphic our views may really be. (Somebody else has said this somewhere, but I don't know who. Huxley ?) I am naturally sceptical of all sciences and systems of philosophy. Science, of course, deals with the experienced universe, and cannot possibly ever reach ultimate truth. In philosophy I am always haunted by the suspicion that, if we only knew, we are not anywhere near being able to make even a rough guess at the truth.
"Throw a dog a bone. I'll take it that the dog, if it is an intelligent one, discusses the bone thoroughly. It discovers the natural law of the bone that it satisfies hunger and provides happiness, and