Diary of Cecil Chesterton : autograph manuscript.

About his reading (Doyle, James, Tolstoy, D'Annunzio, Shaw, etc.); his own writing (a novel, stories, and poems); visits to concerts, the opera, lectures, and plays; social engagements; and friendships ("She [Miriam] and I discussed each other's souls & I explained her to herself"). "Wrote a poem expressive of Socialistic Imperialism on the War. The last two lines, 'We that have broken our brothers' chains. Shall we endure our own?' expresses the general idea of the poem." After seeing a performance of 'The Importance of Being Earnest," he writes, "Poor Oscar! [Wilde had died two years before]. What can one say of him. Brilliant he was and not without sound ideas & yet somehow, apart from his vices, never quite satisfactory. He passed through many poses. ... The carnation changed its hue so often one sometimes wondered whether there was really any flower beneath the dye. Had he continued to live his artistic life naturally, to be himself, everything might have been well. But 'Society' caught him, & he was too weak a man to either resist it or reconcile it. He plunged, I fancy, into unnatural vices as a refuge from ever-growing boredom. We 'soldiers of the liberation war of humanity' have good reason to curse him. His action put back the movement of emancipation for many years & gave a lift to the propaganda of the worst class of Philistines. With his own hand he struck down the artistic ideals to which he was quite sincerely devoted. But he suffered & went to the grave for his offences."