A Last Diary | Page 5

it forms a scientific theory (intelligent dog, mind you) to explain this inseparable correlative phenomenon. It says: 'The world is probably to be considered as an immense mechanism of separate bone-throwing machines, worked by an unknown creature. Bone is necessary to the dog existence as it is the ineffable vital essence of Divine Love in which we live, move, and have our being. This is so, because it has been proved by experiment that in the absence of bone-throwers, dogs have been known to die!
"Of course you laugh. But why not? I cannot help thinking that we may very well be as much in the dark as the dogs. Our philosophy may be incorrect in respect of the Universe, Reality, and God as the dog's philosophy is in respect of the simple process of digestion and the accompanying physiological changes.
"If I could drop my anchor behind a rock of certainty I should be greatly relieved, but who can convince a man if he cannot convince himself?
"To sum up, what I think is that we i.e. 9 each one of us separately are exceedingly unimportant wisps, little bits of body, mind, and spirit, but that in the whole, as humanity, we are a great immortal organism of real import if we could see behind the veil. In other words I regard individuals as ineffectual units, but the mass as a spiritual power. The old philosophical idea that the world was a big animal had an element of truth in it."
It was only by the skin of his teeth that Barbellion passed the doctors after getting through the scientific examination for the South Kensington post. He was suffering from chronic dyspepsia, he was more than six feet in height, and as thin as a rake, and he looked like a typical consumptive. The medical gentlemen solemnly shook their heads, but after scrutinising him with as much care as if he were one of his own museum specimens they could discover no organic defect, and their inability to "classify" him no doubt saved Barbellion from what would have been the most dreadful disappointment of his life. His appearance, notwithstanding his emaciation, was striking. His great height, causing him to stoop slightly, produced an air and attitude of studiousness peculiar to himself. A head of noble proportions was crowned by a thick mass of soft, brown hair tumbling carelessly about his brow. Deepset, lustrous eyes, wide apart and aglow with eager life, lighted up a pale, sharply pointed countenance with an indescribable vividness of expression. His nose, once straight and shapely, owing to an accident was irregular in its contour, but by no means unpleasing in its irregularity, for it imparted a kind of rugged friendliness to the whole face; and he had a curious habit in moments of animation of visibly dilating the nostrils, as if unable to contain his excitement. His mouth was large, firm, yet mobile, and his chin like a rock. He had a musical voice, which he used without effort, and when he spoke, especially when he chose to let himself go on any subject that had aroused his interest, the energetic play of his features, the vital intensity which he threw into every expression, had an irresistible effect of compulsion upon his friends. His hands were strong and sensitive, with a remarkable fineness of touch very useful to him in the laboratory, and it was always a pleasure to watch them at work upon a delicate dissection. His hands and arms were much more active members than his legs. In conversation he tried in vain to control a lifelong and amusing habit of throwing them out and beating the air violently to emphasise a point in argument. But he moved and walked languidly, like a tired man, as indeed he was. He was continuously unwell "chronically sub-normal" was how he once described his condition to me, half playfully. He had lost forever that sense of abounding physical well-being which gives zest to living and strength to endure. But he has discussed his own symptoms in the Journal with a force and ironic humour that I have not the capacity or the will to imitate. I will say no more than that those who were closest to him remember with wondering admiration the magnificent struggle which he maintained against his illness and its effect upon his work. His attacks of depression he kept almost invariably to himself. In the presence of others he was full of high courage, engrossed in his plans for the future, strong in the determination not to be mastered by physical weakness. "I am not going to be beaten" he declared after one very bad bout, "if I develop all the diseases in the doctor's index. I mean to do what I have set out