A Schoolmaster's Diary: Being Extracts from the Journal of Patrick Traherne, M.A., Sometime Assistant Master at Radchester and Marlton.Traherne, Patrick
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A Schoolmaster's Diary: Being Extracts from the Journal of Patrick Traherne, M.A., Sometime Assistant Master at Radchester and Marlton.
Traherne, Patrick
Traherne, Patrick, 1885-1917
We bathed every day and explored the combes and rivers and villages
in every direction. I know no more beautiful country than this for a
honeymoon: you can get quiet when you want it. We lunched nearly every
day among the whortleberries on the moor, far away from the sight
of any living creature: when we wanted to mix with society we only
had to drop down into Porlock, and there were always forty or fifty
people in the hotel willing and eager to be friendly. It was the most
consummately perfect setting for a wedding tour imaginable. There was
not a speck or flaw cast upon our complete happiness once during the
entire time. It was all too short: three weeks fled past like three
days and we got to know each other's little foibles and idiosyncrasies
and to make allowance for them.
We went as far afield as Ilfracombe, Lynton, Minehead and Exford: we
went on foot, by steamer, in dog-carts and coaches, and we were as
merry as crickets all the time. After it was over we went up home to
see my people and to introduce ourselves in the married state to the
villagers, who have known me since I was a boy. All this month I seem
to have been walking on air. I've forgotten there ever was such a place
as Radchester or that I ever nearly went mad because I had not Elspeth
by me. What I should do without her now God only knows. I only hope
and pray that we may live together to a ripe old age and die within
a few hours of each other. Then our lives will have been rounded off
completely, for as it is we are only happy in the possession of each
other. Nothing else contents us.
We went on to London after this in order to buy the requisite furniture
for our cottage. We accomplished this in a single day, spending about
£150 in all in equipping ourselves with a complete outfit from "cellar
to attic." We are now back again in Bath.
_September 6, 1913_
I don't like wasting all my days in this house in the Crescent. I seem
to have lost all my wild ideals on education: I have no boys now to
give my life for: all my hopes are centred upon one object, Elspeth,
and if she fails me I am undone indeed.
I spend my energies on writing silly letters to the daily papers on
the subject of the Olympic Games, of all footling things. Elspeth now
cries through half the night because she says I have changed and no
longer love her with that same passion that I once had for her. This
is quite untrue, but I can't make her see it. I seem to be a mass of
contradictions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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