Chapter II

The above considerations are offered to that enormous class of people, springing up afresh every year, who say to themselves: ‘I will keep a diary and it shall be absolutely true.’ You may keep a diary, but beyond question it will not be absolutely true. You will be lucky, or you must be rather gifted, if it is not studded with untruths. You protest that you have a well-earned reputation for veracity. I would not doubt it. When I say ‘untruths’ I do not mean, for instance, that if the day was beautifully fine you would write in your diary: ‘A very wet day to-day; went for a walk and got soaked through.’ I am convinced that you would be above such lying perversions. But also I am convinced that if a husband and wife, both as veracious and conscientious as yourself, had a quarrel and described the history of the quarrel each in a private diary, the two accounts would by no means coincide, and the whole truth would be in neither of them. Some people start a diary as casually as they start golf, stamps, or a new digestive cure. Whereas to start a diary ought to be a solemn and notable act, done with a due appreciation of the difficulties thereby initiated. The very essence of a diary is truth--a diary of untruth would be pointless--and to attain truth is the hardest thing on earth. To attain partial truth is not a bit easy, and even to avoid falsehood is decidedly a feat.