I came across this quotation from L. M.
Montgomery recently:
“Only lonely people keep diaries.”
She kept a diary from the age of nine, and
this is where she wrote the above words. I think that they are probably true in
some cases but definitely not in all.
Sometimes diaries are kept primarily for
record keeping purposes, to be used for reference in the future if necessary.
Isaac Asimov for example kept detailed but mainly factual diaries for much of
his life.
Journalling is a possible outlet for creative
people who must write. It provides a way of exercising writing skills and
keeping them honed; it keeps the channel of inspiration open.
The quotation made me think of Stella Benson,
who kept a diary from the age of ten until shortly before she died. It is
certainly applicable to her. In Stella’s own words:
“To set down a record of my contact with
people...is most necessary to me. Because my most continuous sensation is a
feeling of terrifying slipping-away from people - a most devastating loneliness
- I have to place on record the fact that I was human and that even I had my
human adventures.”
Stella Benson, who interestingly was descended
on her father’s side from the sister of the famous diarist Samuel Pepys, usually
wrote in her diary every day. Her diaries are a log of events; they are a record
Logging and commenting on everything was perhaps a way of nailing her life down and anchoring part of herself in the real world.
These diaries were something that could be used
as evidence that she was alive and human and did the things that real people
do. Maybe she needed to prove to herself that there were areas of her life
that were much the same as other people’s.
Stella Benson on the subject of diaries
Stella Benson had her imaginary secret friends,
her ‘thought people’, for company, but she said this:
“...my diary, the most comforting friend of
all.”
A diary can certainly be an ersatz companion, a friend who never interrupts and has no requirement
to speak or be listened to. It is also a captive audience.
In her book of travel articles Worlds Within
Worlds, Stella Benson says that a diary is a kingdom of which the writer is the
unchallenged ruler. This makes it a
place of safety, a place where pretence can be dropped and the real self has
room to breathe, a place where people can be looked at and talked about without
their knowledge.
She also says this:
“Diaries are like dreams, an inward
consolation to the outwardly humiliated.”
Sometimes people who are unable to assert
themselves and state their positions can do it for themselves on paper. This
applied to L. M. Montgomery too.
Stella Benson’s diaries
No one was allowed to see Stella Benson’s
diaries. She told people that they were possibly worth more than all her
published works put together.
While L. M. Montgomery’s diaries have been
published in five volumes, Stella Benson’s diaries consist of 40 volumes. They were
left by her husband in the safe-keeping of University of Cambridge Library.
They were sealed in three boxes until 50
years after her death.
Together with her letters and published books, they
provided the source material for Joy Grant’s biography.
Maybe they will all be published one day.
