C. Day-Lewis was Poet Laureate of England from 1968 until his death in 1970.  He also wrote detective stories under the pseudonym of Nicholas Blake.  The actor Daniel Day-Lewis is his son. -Editor’s note

There are moments when the mind is driven toward irresistible generalizations. These generalizations often seem more authoritative than any reasoned rationalization could possibly be. This is why quick jabs of insight frequently appear to suddenly unveil hitherto hidden truths. The real value of generalizations is not that they provide an easy road to facts previously concealed from our awareness, but that they arouse our curiosity about the potential existence of such facts. Hence, the old saying that there is no royal road to knowledge is in no danger of being disproved. Then you might ask, what happens to poetic insight? Does it not lie at our feet, fully rounded organisms of knowledge which no amount of further study can clarify any better? We are all by nature economy minded, which accounts for our preference for concision. We cling to what is memorable. Memorability is even set up as a standard by which the wheat and the chaff in poetry are separated. We say a poem is great because it sticks in our mind. Although such a standard for judging may not be altogether fair, there is however a certain amount of reliability attached to it. And what stays with us is some fundamental truth about life, about ourselves which the poem utters. Generalizations are possible and great truths can be contained within them. Nevertheless one must beware of them and by all means examine them closely before swallowing them completely. Caution must be taken rather than a wholesale swilling of every explanation merely because it has been easily grasped by our mind.

*
History is the study of man’s relationship to his social environment. It is the study of the past. But it is not the study of man as an individual. It is not the study of his natural environment. It is a study limited to the particular point of view prevalent at the time the study is undertaken. The zeitung is constantly shifting from generation to generation. It cannot be bypassed. History lacks the quality of exactness which physics has in so far as the object with which it is dealing cannot lend itself to accurate measurements.
*
The myth of Sisyphus comes to mind not only because I have been reading an article on Camus but because I have been giving serious thought to the idea of futility. Accomplishment in life is a mirage, in other words, a state of mind that produces moments of contentment and even happiness. But is not the real goal of life oblivion?
*
Melville the man grows in my affections through his letters. I am glad I wrote in his defense against Edward Dahlberg’s ridiculous calumny (to the effect that in his subconscious mind M. desired to go to bed with a whale in preference to his wife Elizabeth). My only regret is that I didn’t phrase it in stronger terms. Melville’s greatness as a man is unique because it has nothing to do with the usual illusions of nobility which cling to our memories of our heroes. I call him great because he was so pitifully ordinary in the extraneous matters of life. As husband, father, grandfather and loyal and respectful kinsman he must have made himself endearing. Perhaps no man of equal genius was ever so immersed in the affairs of domesticity. Although he was never a good provider, there always seemed to exist a feeling of confidence in his bread-winning abilities. At heart he was a philosophical poet, his dance of life being as well performed as his writings, and though often disturbed by dismal ordeals, he was always able to rescue the situation with a kind of oriental flourish. Outside his books, Melville made no attempt to impress the world. He was humble and self-abnegating in most of his associations with people. And yet behind his every act was a strength of character at once hard as a rock and as delicate as an angel’s wing. His life set an example for a practical existence within a society that never eases its demands that one be reasonable or perish. Melville’s is an enviable lesson to be learned, a lesson in life that is not beyond a normal reach. What saint could rise to such a standard?
*
I never cease being beggared by obligations. The spirit giving movement to most of my actions is composed of duties I would never dream of shunning. When I find the same tenacity absent in others I am inwardly shocked. Still, I keep subconsciously transferring much of my dependence to the shoulders of my fellowmen. I think we grieve much less for those things we once possessed and since have been separated from than for those illuminated plans we have daydreamed about over and over again but have never made an effort to act upon. It is those lost daydreams rather than vanished artifacts which gnaw at the conscience and thus are primarily responsible for our misery.
*
I am continually running into snags. In fact, trying to maintain a reasonable existence among one’s fellow earth dwellers is like running one’s head repeatedly against a series of walls which occasionally have a gate built into them. When these gates no longer exist for an individual, then he has a legitimate excuse for sinking into the quicksands of despair. Hope amidst hardship is the sole reason for living.
*
Some people always seem to thrive on the ignorance, or should I say, inexperience of other people. The teaching profession falls into this category. But then is not the whole modern concept of specialization rooted in this same malaise? To say that the Jack of all trades is the master of none is to pronounce a false witticism which unthinking society has never thought to question.
*
I suspect that much of the talk going around lately about the importance of self-knowledge is for the most part mere phrase slinging. Here before me stands a man who has recently become acquainted with himself. How come? He simply sat down in a corner all by himself one day and swiveled his eyes around so that instead of facing outwards toward the world, as was their custom, they began to look inward through their own sockets and into the mind of their owner. And what they saw he saw: a series of events reenacted in his conscious mind. The events formed a procession before his eyes like a grand pageant that began with his earliest memories of childhood and continued on until they reached the very latest circumstances of his life. On closer scrutiny they appeared to form a consistent pattern, a pattern which identified him to himself as the kind of man he actually is. This revelation which now clung firmly to his intellect is what people are currently calling self-knowledge. Of course it can never be attained in a complete sense. Not even its most arduous proponents will deny this. At best it is fragmentary since only a limited portion of its factors lie within the scope of human awareness. This is one assumption, but a pretty sound one judging from man’s knowledge of things outside himself. This, however, is not the point at which I wish to launch my attack, although the real weakness of the whole concept begins precisely here. Returning to our hypothetical man, we find that he now, being in a more enlightened state, carries in his pocket a plausible description of his most obvious features, a partial portrait, if you like, which he has painted of himself. Now let us assume that he possesses certain undesirable inclinations which up until the present he generally obeyed without any recriminations. But now that he understands them more fully and, consequently, harbors a feeling of guilt over their obnoxious character, he declares war on them. His artillery and air force are his self-knowledge, his ammunition his sense of what is right. Yet what an impregnable pillbox he is up against, for he soon discovers that his instincts, bad as they may now seem, are ineffaceable. The result is that all his so-called self-knowledge has done for him has been to sharpen his awareness of sin and thereby deepen the source of his misery.
*
Has C. Day Lewis’ autobiography altered my impression of him? Hardly. I think instead it will enable me to acquire a more penetrating insight into some of his poems. All that is really essential about him has already made its appearance in the poems. The lack of overwhelming confidence has always been there. I sometimes feel he underrates himself and his work. He can be a very sensitive poet, subtle and yet able to retain a communicative clarity that is absolutely necessary for the full enjoyment of a poem. I find that his sympathies as well as his antipathies strike a favorable chord in me. I am happy to discover someone other than myself, for example, who brands parental egotism with the mark of Cain.
*
I am sometimes tempted to admonish myself with a sort of warning woven into the admonishment such as, “Damn your social conscience, for how do you expect to write poetry while at the same times carrying on your thin fragile shoulders the weight of this troubled globe?” Perhaps yes, perhaps no. If the sick world is for me a personal tragedy from which I cannot detach myself, then it is as much a potential subject for poetry as a toothache, a mistress’s infidelity, or the birth of a son. There is no such thing as a poetic or non-poetic subject. The grist for the mill is as various and plentiful as life itself.
*
P. believes that only personal loyalties and friendships are of any real value in this world. There is nothing else of equal importance. When true friendships are in danger of being obliterated, the abyss will be near at hand. If I were a philosopher, this would be no concern of mine, he says. My opinions might change tomorrow but not my feelings of loyalty to my personal friends. These remain constant, and it is absolutely necessary for them to do so. Personal criticism from a friend is difficult to take. Friendship has mystical qualities. Loyalty to a government or nation, a company one works for, etc. are all minor by comparison.
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Today is my mother’s birthday. She is fifty-eight, yet still as youthful in spirit as the sixteen year old Girls High student she once was. On second thought “youthful in spirit” I believe fails to do justice to her, for she is equally well preserved physically and to judge her by her appearance one might easily mistake her for someone much younger than she actually is. Also, there has been no diminishing of her social activities over the years, which indicates that stores of energy have never ceased being amazingly abundant. Just the same, I have advised her not to push her vitality too far, since one’s real age is what one is, shall I say, according to the calendar, not what one appears to be, thus one must regulate one’s life within the framework of reality. Anyway, birthdays for me are sentimental occasions, and because I carry such a strong natural inclination to be sentimental I generally try to take as little notice of them as possible.