Saturday 30th October 1937
To Ealing for the weekend (50 miles exactly, by my milometer.) Richard has joined the Scouts (16th Ealing). Nice to see the old uniform again! John, alas, is no longer a civilian. Will soon be having khaki – and puttees wound in a similar way to mine! More ambitious than myself, he has joined the University of London OTC (Artillery) Anticipate being an officer after two years. The blighter!
A little note arrived from Egham Post Office reminding me that letters had been re-directed from “Kapai”, Riverside, Egham for a little more than a year. Did I wish this to continue? Little more than a year since I left Kapai. How incredible it does seem! I turn to old diaries…
October 17th Saturday… “delivered up the key of Kapai. I walked out of that little white gate with regret! A pull on the river… Around Witchery Island, up the Colne (the same dear, familiar way!)…” Deputy foreman in the stores and rather a dreamer. Certainly not a business man! Salary – I think - £2-15-0 a week. Now with expenses, it is £5-10-0. Looking back, from 1937 to 1936, I understand that strange mood which came upon me as I wrote in this diary on September 1st 1936. I knew the end of a phase was near! Lengthening Shadows 1933, repeated itself in 1936. Perhaps one of the Mysteries… “Oh this beautiful human life…”
I wonder if life consists of a series of crescendo? Like the song – of a motor car! One is in bottom gear; high goes the voice of the engine, you change into middle gear. Higher and higher sings the engine until, as it reaches crescendo, you change into top (if you’re a good driver!). Is life like that, with crescendo at the end of each phase? When will there be another ending? Not yet. In any case, I shall know beforehand. It all fits in. Crescendo is the Ultimate Perfection. And there is a point where extreme happiness goes beyond itself and becomes tragedy. Which theory accounts for those two moods of sadness – in 1933 and 1936.
Yes.
A little note arrived from Egham Post Office reminding me that letters had been re-directed from “Kapai”, Riverside, Egham for a little more than a year. Did I wish this to continue? Little more than a year since I left Kapai. How incredible it does seem! I turn to old diaries…
October 17th Saturday… “delivered up the key of Kapai. I walked out of that little white gate with regret! A pull on the river… Around Witchery Island, up the Colne (the same dear, familiar way!)…” Deputy foreman in the stores and rather a dreamer. Certainly not a business man! Salary – I think - £2-15-0 a week. Now with expenses, it is £5-10-0. Looking back, from 1937 to 1936, I understand that strange mood which came upon me as I wrote in this diary on September 1st 1936. I knew the end of a phase was near! Lengthening Shadows 1933, repeated itself in 1936. Perhaps one of the Mysteries… “Oh this beautiful human life…”
I wonder if life consists of a series of crescendo? Like the song – of a motor car! One is in bottom gear; high goes the voice of the engine, you change into middle gear. Higher and higher sings the engine until, as it reaches crescendo, you change into top (if you’re a good driver!). Is life like that, with crescendo at the end of each phase? When will there be another ending? Not yet. In any case, I shall know beforehand. It all fits in. Crescendo is the Ultimate Perfection. And there is a point where extreme happiness goes beyond itself and becomes tragedy. Which theory accounts for those two moods of sadness – in 1933 and 1936.
Yes.
posted by Paul Wilson at 8:09 pm
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