January 1st. I have today recieved this dairy from home, having come
back a few days early to make up a French Condition.
Weather, clear and cold.
New Year's dinner. Roast chicken (Turkey being very expencive), mashed
Turnips, sweet Potatos and minse Pie.
It is my intention to record in this book the details of my Daily Life,
my thoughts which are to sacred for utterence, and my ambitions. Because
who is there to whom I can speak them? I am surounded by those who
exist for the mere Pleasures of the day, or whose lives are bound up in
Resitations.
For instance, at dinner today, being mostly faculty and a few girls
who live in the Far West, the conversation was entirely on buying a
Phonograph for dancing because the music teacher has the meazles and
is quarentined in the infirmery. And on Miss Everett's couzin, who has
written a play.
When one looks at Miss Everett, one recognises that no couzin of hers
could write a play.
New Year's resolution--to help some one every day. Today helped
Mademoiselle to put on her rubers.
JANUARY 2ND. Today I wrote my French theme, beginning, "Les hommes
songent moins a leur AME QU A leur CORPS." Mademoiselle sent for me and
objected, saying that it was not a theme for a young girl, and that I
must write a new one, on the subject of pears. How is one to develope in
this atmosphere?
Some of the girls are coming back. They stragle in, and put the favers
they got at Cotillions on the dresser, and their holaday gifts, and each
one relates some amorus experience while at home. Dear dairy, is there
somthing wrong with me, that Love has passed me by? I have had offers
of Devotion but none that apealed to me, being mostly either to young or
not atracting me by physicle charm. I am not cold, although frequently
acused of it, Beneath my fridgid Exterior beats a warm heart. I intend
to be honest in this dairy, and so I admit it. But, except for passing
Fansies--one being, alas, for a married man--I remain without the Divine
Passion.
What must it be to thrill at the aproach of the loved Form? To harken
to each ring of the telephone bell, in the hope that, if it is not
the Idolised Voice, it is at least a message from it? To waken in the
morning and, looking around the familiar room, to muze: "Today I may see
him--on the way to the Post Office, or rushing past in his racing car."
And to know that at the same moment HE to is muzing: "Today I may see
her, as she exercises herself at basket ball, or mounts her horse for a
daily canter!"